Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what gave?
Speaker 2: What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: So in nineteen seventy two, a sixty five year old
Speaker 1: Belgian walks into Andy Warhol's factory in New York City.
Speaker 2: Okay, this sounds like the setup for a really bad joke.
Speaker 1: I know, I promise it is not. It was actually
Speaker 1: a historic meeting of two art world greats. So we've
Speaker 1: got Andy Warhol and Air Jay, the creator of Tintin.
Speaker 1: And while he's best known for his comic books starring
Speaker 1: the boy Reporter of tinton and his faithful dog Snowy,
Speaker 1: air Jay was also a highly knowledgeable art enthusiast and
Speaker 1: modern art collector, and so when he traveled to the
Speaker 1: US meeting, Warhol was actually on his bucket list. And
Speaker 1: it turns out they had a ton in common. They
Speaker 1: both did commercial illustrations early in their careers, and they
Speaker 1: both kept plugging away until they achieved global success.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, but honestly, I'm just enjoying the picturing this,
Speaker 2: like old Belgian guy hanging out in the factory with Warhol.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, apparently the two artists hit it off because
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy nine, air Jay asked Warhol to paint
Speaker 1: his portrait, which he did, making a set of four
Speaker 1: paintings similar as the ones you know you've seen of
Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe, and Warhol later explained that the admiration actually
Speaker 1: went both ways. He said, quote, air Jay has influenced
Speaker 1: my work in the same way as Walt Disney. For me,
Speaker 1: Airjay was more than a comic strip artist.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I had no idea. I never would have guessed
Speaker 2: Andy Warhol was a Tintin fan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he is not alone. The books are incredibly popular,
Speaker 1: especially outside the US, so worldwide. Tintin books or albums
Speaker 1: as those fans like to call them, have sold more
Speaker 1: than two hundred and seventy million copies and have been
Speaker 1: translated into more than one hundred languages, and even today,
Speaker 1: between one point five to two million Tintin books are
Speaker 1: sold per year.
Speaker 2: We throw around a lot of numbers on the show,
Speaker 2: but two million books. That's insane, it really is.
Speaker 1: But like so many books from the nineteen thirties and forties,
Speaker 1: not everything has aged well. And Airje himself has this
Speaker 1: really fascinating and complicated biography. It spans everything from war
Speaker 1: to boy Scouts, to cultural stereotypes to overcoming cultural stereotypes,
Speaker 1: and also Will diffit to strange nightmares Steven Spielberg, and
Speaker 1: of course that eternal question do comic books turn kids
Speaker 1: into juvenile? The linquits, which I'm sure you have some
Speaker 1: thoughts on. So there is so much to cover that
Speaker 1: we've actually turned the story of Tintin into a two parter,
Speaker 1: So let's dive in. Hey there, podcast listener as well,
Speaker 1: and a part time genius, I'm monga shittig and because
Speaker 1: Will is traveling this week, I'm here with my fellow
Speaker 1: Tintin fan, Gabe Lucier. And over there in the booth
Speaker 1: is uh gay? Where's Dylan? Uh?
Speaker 2: Hang on, there's a There's a note taped under the microphone.
Speaker 2: It says, gone adventuring with my faithful dog, love Dylan.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure who's recording this episode, but I always
Speaker 1: love Dylan's enthusiasm.
Speaker 2: I guess he heard we were doing an episode on
Speaker 2: Tintin and decided to, you know, really lean into it.
Speaker 2: Dylan is always leaning in, as you know, speaking of which,
Speaker 2: this is one of those episodes that we've had on
Speaker 2: our Brainstorm list for a long time, and it's finally here,
Speaker 2: and it's all because of you, honestly, because you were
Speaker 2: obsessed with Tintin as a kid, Is that right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, as a kid, we didn't have many relatives
Speaker 1: in the States, and so to see my grandparents, my mom,
Speaker 1: my sister, and I would go to India anytime we
Speaker 1: could afford it. And it was always during the summer,
Speaker 1: and that was super fun. But if you go to
Speaker 1: India in the summer, you quickly realized that that is
Speaker 1: the monsoon season there, and it's also when your cousins
Speaker 1: returned to school, and so you're kind of stuck inside
Speaker 1: all day it's raining, and so, like, I ended up
Speaker 1: getting good at things that are indoor games, like cards
Speaker 1: or karm, which is like a cool game you play
Speaker 1: with your fingers. I used to play karam and scrabble
Speaker 1: with my grandparents, and I would wait for my cousins
Speaker 1: to come home and I would read comic books and
Speaker 1: it was amazing because like, actually, you would love this.
Speaker 1: My cousin had like early Captain Americas and Spider Man's.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there were reprints or whatever, but it was
Speaker 1: so fun to read and we'd read mystery books and
Speaker 1: then I discovered Tintin and it kind of played to
Speaker 1: everything I loved, right, Like I love dogs, I love journalism,
Speaker 1: I love traveling, I like stories about spies and intrigue,
Speaker 1: like learning about the world, and it all shows up
Speaker 1: in those panels, right. It was just amazing that you
Speaker 1: could open these albums and be transported. And it's also
Speaker 1: one of the things like not that many kids in
Speaker 1: the States knew about tinton Like I think there were
Speaker 1: some cartoons that appeared on Nickelodeon or something at one point,
Speaker 1: but most of my friends growing up in Delaware had
Speaker 1: no idea what I was talking about. And so, actually,
Speaker 1: I know you're a huge comics enthusiast. I'm curious, did
Speaker 1: you ever read Tintin?
Speaker 2: Not As a kid, my first introduction was that cartoon
Speaker 2: you mentioned, The Adventures of Tintin. It aired on HBO
Speaker 2: and then Nickelodeon back in the early nineties. And the
Speaker 2: funny thing is my family didn't have cable, so it
Speaker 2: was something I only got to watch when we went
Speaker 2: on vacation, but that just made it more special. Like
Speaker 2: I remember this one trip to the beach where my
Speaker 2: mom got super annoyed with me because I didn't want
Speaker 2: to go outside. I just wanted to stay in the
Speaker 2: hotel room and watch Tintin. And I did eventually circle
Speaker 2: back to the books in college, you know, and I
Speaker 2: was really happy to see that the show was actually,
Speaker 2: you know, incredibly faithful to the books. But hearing you
Speaker 2: talk about Tintin, it's so clear that these books really
Speaker 2: pulled you into their world in a special way and
Speaker 2: became part of your world too, And it takes a
Speaker 2: pretty special artist to do that. And in fact, he's
Speaker 2: so special that he went by just one name.
Speaker 1: I know. It is so rockstar, right, like very Madonna,
Speaker 1: very Prince very Air, Jay.
Speaker 2: Very Erga. Yes, but I did some research into his
Speaker 2: early years so I can tell you that, unlike Madonna
Speaker 2: and Prince Air, Jay was not born Aja. He was
Speaker 2: born George Remi in nineteen oh seven in Brussels, and
Speaker 2: the pen name he chose Jay is actually his initials
Speaker 2: GR for George Remi in reverse RG and RG pronounced
Speaker 2: in French is J. I'm sure sounds so much cooler
Speaker 2: than Rgie. But I, you know, just think about it
Speaker 2: for my own name. I'm wondering about switching to the
Speaker 2: nome to plume. Hm, what do you think you'd probably
Speaker 2: get mistaken for a chain of Swedish fast fashion stores.
Speaker 2: Familiar if it makes you feel better, it wouldn't work
Speaker 2: for me either, so gl backwards LG. That's an appliance.
Speaker 1: So we'll just have to stick with our own name.
Speaker 1: So tell me about young Airj's life then.
Speaker 2: Well, surprisingly enough, he did not come from an artistic family.
Speaker 2: His mom stayed home to take care of him and
Speaker 2: his younger brother Paul. His dad worked in a candy factory,
Speaker 2: and the family was solidly lower middle class. That said,
Speaker 2: there's actually a bit of lore around Airj's grandfather. So's
Speaker 2: dad had an identical twin brother, and growing up, the
Speaker 2: twins never knew who their father was. And that's because apparently,
Speaker 2: as a young single woman, Airjay's grandmother worked as a
Speaker 2: maid at a countess's chateau. Then suddenly one day she
Speaker 2: was pregnant with twin boys. So a lot of people,
Speaker 2: including at one point Aga himself, believed she may have
Speaker 2: had an affair with someone higher up, you know, someone
Speaker 2: really wealthy or maybe even a noble.
Speaker 1: So is there any evidence to support that or is
Speaker 1: this just kind of like wishful thinking that he's royal.
Speaker 2: Well, there is one interesting clue. After the twins were born,
Speaker 2: the countess more or less treated them as her own
Speaker 2: and she let the family live at the chateau until
Speaker 2: the boys were fourteen, after which she kicked them out.
Speaker 1: So she might have felt some sort of responsibility to them, yeah,
Speaker 1: or you.
Speaker 2: Know, maybe she was just a decent person and felt
Speaker 2: bad for a single mom of twins. But the family
Speaker 2: legend was that the twins' father, who would be air
Speaker 2: Jay's grandfather, was actually Belgium's King Leopold the Second, who
Speaker 2: ruled the country from eighteen thirty five to nineteen oh nine.
Speaker 2: Now that's not substantiated, but it was something the family
Speaker 2: liked to toss around in private. And the other rumor
Speaker 2: is that the Countess's husband, the count, you know, he
Speaker 2: may have been the father.
Speaker 1: So I guess potentially a mysterious and royal background, which
Speaker 1: I guess a little DNA testing could actually figure out today.
Speaker 1: But between the royal rumors, a father who worked in
Speaker 1: a literal candy factory, it sounds like a really exciting life.
Speaker 1: So to tell me a little bit about Airjay's childhood
Speaker 1: was it fun.
Speaker 2: Actually the opposite. Airja described his childhood. Yeah, Airja described
Speaker 2: his childhood as quote gray and uneventful, and one of
Speaker 2: his biographers, Pierre Assoline wrote, quote everything was colorless, scentless,
Speaker 2: tasteless and of no interest. In the Remi home. There
Speaker 2: was no one to admire, no books to read, no
Speaker 2: play to attend, no discussions. And you know that is
Speaker 2: a little bit of an exaggeration because Airje did have
Speaker 2: books and movies that he loved as a kid, and
Speaker 2: his parents did encourage his drawing, but overall art and
Speaker 2: culture wasn't really a focus in his family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it sounds like not a childhood he sort
Speaker 1: of was nostalgic for. So did he always have an
Speaker 1: interest in illustration or was this something that came later
Speaker 1: in life.
Speaker 2: No, he showed an aptitude in it from an early age.
Speaker 2: His school notebooks were filled with sketches, and when he
Speaker 2: got a bit older, like high school age, his parents
Speaker 2: enrolled him in art classes, though apparently he only lasted
Speaker 2: a day before dropping out because the focus was on
Speaker 2: technical skills like drawing Greek columns, and you know, he
Speaker 2: had zero interest in that.
Speaker 1: That is funny that he loves to draw, but he
Speaker 1: won't like sit around to drug column Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not columns. You got to draw the line somewhere.
Speaker 1: Well. I do know that in addition to drawing, there
Speaker 1: was another excitement in his life, and that is the
Speaker 1: Boy Scouts. Airjay joined them when he was about eleven
Speaker 1: years old, and he really connected the Scouts. He described
Speaker 1: it as the first color he remembers about his childhood,
Speaker 1: which I guess goes back to that gray comment you mentioned.
Speaker 1: And the Boy Scouts opened his eyes to this bigger world.
Speaker 1: And for example, during the summers, they'd go to camps
Speaker 1: around western Europe where they do things like hike two
Speaker 1: hundred miles across the Pyrenees, and Airjay loved it so
Speaker 1: much that he eventually became an Eagle Scout and a
Speaker 1: troop leader, and he remained a Scout until he was
Speaker 1: in his twenties. But the Scouts gave him something else,
Speaker 1: even more important to this story. They gave him his
Speaker 1: very first platform for his art. He published his first
Speaker 1: illustrations in a monthly Boy Scout magazine when he was
Speaker 1: around fifteen years old, and a few years later, in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty six, the magazine published Airjay's first serialized comic strip.
Speaker 1: It was called The Adventures of Totor CP of the
Speaker 1: June Bugs. Totor is a Belgian boy scout and in
Speaker 1: the comic, he travels to Texas to visit his aunt
Speaker 1: and his uncle, and when he is there, he's captured
Speaker 1: by angry Native Americans who he outwits. He also outwits
Speaker 1: bandits and he finds buried treasure, and so there is
Speaker 1: a lot of excitement.
Speaker 2: Got it. So sounds like maybe Totor was kind of
Speaker 2: the prototype for Tintin.
Speaker 1: That is an excellent guest, Gabe, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you all about how Airjay's passion for art and
Speaker 1: scouting turned into the Tintin we know today. But first
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. Welcome back to Part time Genius.
Speaker 1: We're talking all things Tintin. So let me set the scene, Gabe.
Speaker 1: It is nineteen twenties Belgium. Airj is scouting and trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what to do with his life. By
Speaker 1: this time, he's graduated from high school and he's working
Speaker 1: in the subscriptions department at this newspaper called Levutm Siecla,
Speaker 1: which means the twentieth century. And this was a Catholic
Speaker 1: newspaper run by father Norbert Wala. It was a right
Speaker 1: wing paper, to put it mildly, and father Wala actually
Speaker 1: kept a photo of Mussolini on his desk if you
Speaker 1: want to know his politics.
Speaker 2: Yi, yeah, that's never a good sign. But okay, from
Speaker 2: what I've read though, you know, that was kind of
Speaker 2: the norm in Belgium after World War One.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, Belgium was a very conservative and very Catholic country.
Speaker 1: One of Airj's biographers said that right wing politics were
Speaker 1: an almost inevitable byproduct of that time. So by working there,
Speaker 1: Airja wasn't exactly taking a political stance, at least explicitly.
Speaker 1: It was more this job that he was excited to
Speaker 1: have and it was better than working at his father's store.
Speaker 1: And by nineteen twenty eight, a couple of years after
Speaker 1: Totor appears in the Boy Scott magazine, Airja had managed
Speaker 1: to make his way out of the subscription department and
Speaker 1: into illustrations. Mostly that meant drawing women's clothes and things
Speaker 1: like that for the magazine, but he was making a living,
Speaker 1: and more importantly, Father Walla had taken a real liking
Speaker 1: to him, so he asked Erj to illustrate the new
Speaker 1: weekly children's supplement that he's planning to.
Speaker 2: Start, which I'm sure he just jumped at right.
Speaker 1: Definitely, because in November of that year the Extraordinary Adventures
Speaker 1: of Flup Nnesse who set a Hits newspaper stands.
Speaker 2: That is some truly masterful French. I have to say,
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: I feel so embarrass every time we do any French
Speaker 1: or any other language, unless it's kunkany, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to speak it properly. And I also love the word
Speaker 1: flop in that cartoon. That sounds really grad But the
Speaker 1: comic was actually universally considered a dud. Part of the
Speaker 1: problem is that it was written by the paper sports
Speaker 1: reporter and he wasn't much of a writer. The story
Speaker 1: is super simple, it is plotting. It's about three kids,
Speaker 1: an inflatable rubber pig and their accidental trip to Africa,
Speaker 1: which is you know, overwhelming with stereotypes and of course
Speaker 1: caricatures as well. Now Urja did the illustrations, but they
Speaker 1: aren't particularly inspired either. One of the issues was that
Speaker 1: in Belgium at the time and most of Europe, cartoons
Speaker 1: didn't use speech bubbles. This was actually an American innovation.
Speaker 1: So to tell the story, there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: text as captions and then drawings to accompany it.
Speaker 2: So none of this boat's well for Flupin Friends long term.
Speaker 1: Yeah, flup and Friends would have been a better name
Speaker 1: for that cartoon, but you are right. The strip ends
Speaker 1: after ten weeks. But this is where air Jay's fortunes turn.
Speaker 1: So Father Waile asked him to draw a new comic
Speaker 1: featuring a more totor like adolescent boy along with his dog.
Speaker 1: And he wants something wholesome, right, something that portrays good
Speaker 1: Catholic virtues, and he wants it with American speech bubbles.
Speaker 1: So air Jay is excited and he gets to work
Speaker 1: right away, and in early nineteen twenty nine the first
Speaker 1: actual Tintin strips come out, and it's the beginning of
Speaker 1: what would become Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.
Speaker 2: Aha, our hero is born. And I imagine the choice
Speaker 2: of Russia for that adventure like that had to be purposeful,
Speaker 2: right it was.
Speaker 1: It was also Father Wala's idea. Father Walla wanted to
Speaker 1: show young Belgian readers basically how bad communism was. So
Speaker 1: Tintin has all these like very explicitly anti communist lines
Speaker 1: where he says things like those factories are running a
Speaker 1: bit too well, let's see, and then he looks under
Speaker 1: it and it's like great snakes just stage effects. They're
Speaker 1: simply burning bundles of straw to make smoke come out
Speaker 1: of these false chimneys. Right, So it's things like that,
Speaker 1: and he's basically calling the Soviets poor idiots. He thinks
Speaker 1: that the Soviets are fooling the people, and he kind
Speaker 1: of paints this as this red paradise that is almost
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz like.
Speaker 2: So not particularly new once propagandas as far as that.
Speaker 1: Goes, yeah, and it didn't really have to be right, Like,
Speaker 1: these sentiments didn't diverge much from what mainstream Belgian Catholics
Speaker 1: were thinking at the time. So, according to one of
Speaker 1: Airj's biographers, this is Harry Thompson, a lot of Belgians
Speaker 1: believe that Russians were quote grinning devils with knives between
Speaker 1: their teeth butchered small children for kicks, which is obviously
Speaker 1: so sad and so ridiculous. But since air Ja hadn't
Speaker 1: been to Russia, the strip really relies on some of
Speaker 1: the more sensational accounts of Russia that's coming to him,
Speaker 1: as well as Joilet's own anti communist views.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, despite its not so subtle anti communist messaging,
Speaker 2: the book does have a couple great things going for it.
Speaker 2: So for starters, it's actually the only time in all
Speaker 2: of the Tintin Adventures where the readers see him working
Speaker 2: as a journalist writing an article.
Speaker 1: I actually never noticed that. Like, as much as I
Speaker 1: loved you did, I never realized he wasn't actually writing
Speaker 1: that much.
Speaker 2: It does come up nearly as much as you'd think,
Speaker 2: but you know, the story is also where we first
Speaker 2: meet Snowy, Tintin's trusty dog and fellow adventurer, And most excitingly,
Speaker 2: it's where Tintin's trademark hair shape came to be, you know,
Speaker 2: the little swirl or squirrel on his forehead. Gotta have
Speaker 2: the swirl. But when the comic starts, Tintin actually has
Speaker 2: flat combed hair. But there's a scene early on where
Speaker 2: he's riding in a convertible and air draws his hair
Speaker 2: sticking up to show the speed of the car, and
Speaker 2: it just stayed like that forever. Like I guess the
Speaker 2: wind was just that strong.
Speaker 1: I like it, but I also like that in the
Speaker 1: first book it isn't just his physical appearance that kind
Speaker 1: of gets sorted right, Like his whole personality is there
Speaker 1: from the very start. Tintin is depicted as this honest,
Speaker 1: this intrepid kid reporter, and he is spreading Western values
Speaker 1: and ideas around the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm glad you bring that up, because, you know,
Speaker 2: before we get too far into things, I want to
Speaker 2: talk a little about Tintin himself. A lot of the
Speaker 2: characterization that you're talking about, it was likely inspired by
Speaker 2: Air's time in The Boy Scouts, which would make sense
Speaker 2: Tintin is basically a boy Scout, but he's also an
Speaker 2: iconic character visually because of that tuft of red hair
Speaker 2: and his outfit blue sweater, white collar shirt, brown pants,
Speaker 2: and the question of who inspired Tintin, both in his
Speaker 2: look and his lifestyle. Yeah, that's one that Tintinologists, which yes,
Speaker 2: are people who study Tintin. It's one they've been, you know,
Speaker 2: trying to figure out basically since Tintin first appeared.
Speaker 1: I love Tintinologists, Like it's not something that was offered
Speaker 1: as a major at my college. But is there an
Speaker 1: answer do they figure out who Tintin is based on?
Speaker 2: Well, no, but there are lots of guesses. For example,
Speaker 2: one idea is that he's based off of Airjay's younger
Speaker 2: brother Paul, who apparently looked enough like Tintin, especially with
Speaker 2: the hair style, that when he was an adult and
Speaker 2: in the army, fellow soldiers call called him Major Tintin.
Speaker 2: In fact, Paul Paul got pretty sick of the nickname.
Speaker 2: He eventually changed his hair style because he was so
Speaker 2: tired of the comparison.
Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, so brother Paul is one of the possibilities.
Speaker 1: Who are the other contenders?
Speaker 2: Another is a Danish boy named pell Hooled. In nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty eight, when Pella was fifteen, he entered a newspaper
Speaker 2: competition celebrating the Jules Verne centennial, and the paper was
Speaker 2: looking for a teenage boy to reenact the journey of
Speaker 2: around the world in eighty days. The rules were that
Speaker 2: he'd have forty six days to get himself around the
Speaker 2: world without using airplanes, and he would need to do
Speaker 2: it alone anyway. Pele, who was also a boy scout,
Speaker 2: won the competition, and his travels were all over the
Speaker 2: news after.
Speaker 1: He made it home.
Speaker 2: He wrote a book about it, which was published in
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty nine, which you'll note is the same year
Speaker 2: the first Tintin strips came out. And it's been confirmed
Speaker 2: that erge Red Pele's book, so's you know, some people
Speaker 2: think he may have modeled Tintin after him got it.
Speaker 1: So we've got the brother with the hairstyle of this
Speaker 1: young kid who's traveling around the world. Anyone else in
Speaker 1: this mix?
Speaker 2: Yeah, My favorite contender is this French journalist named Robert six.
Speaker 2: He was a war correspondent and a motorcycle enthusiast. Apparently
Speaker 2: he both looked and dressed like Tintin and had a
Speaker 2: best friend named Milu, which is, you know, phonetically the
Speaker 2: name of Tintin's dog, Snowy in French. And if that
Speaker 2: weren't enough, Tintin's travels also seemed to mirror Robert's. His
Speaker 2: first reporting mission, it was to Moscow.
Speaker 1: So we've got the dog, we've got the motorcycle, we've
Speaker 1: got the mission to Moscow. All this is starting to
Speaker 1: come together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then Robert goes to the Congo and the
Speaker 2: US after that, which is where Tintin goes next.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where Tintin goes it's pretty alling.
Speaker 2: There's enough there. Even the air Jay Foundation acknowledges the
Speaker 2: similarities between Tintin and Robert. They even admit that some
Speaker 2: of Airja's drawings in the books seem to have been
Speaker 2: directly inspired by the photographs Robert took personally, though, I
Speaker 2: think the most likely answer is that it, you know,
Speaker 2: may have been a mix of all of these guys.
Speaker 2: But for what it's worth, whenever he was asked about it,
Speaker 2: air Jay would simply answer, Tintin Simoa or Tintin is me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. I'm sure it's all the parts
Speaker 1: of his personality he loved most right, inspired realities others.
Speaker 1: So why don't we get back to the story. So
Speaker 1: Tintin's starting to catch on in Belgium where we leave
Speaker 1: off and this successful comic album Tintin in the Land
Speaker 1: of the Soviets, Father Wailea is excited to keep the
Speaker 1: ball rolling. He has his strips published in book form
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty and air Jay starts on the next installment,
Speaker 1: which is Tintin in the Congo, which was originally serialized
Speaker 1: in the paper. And this is between nineteen thirty and
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one, and just like with the Land of
Speaker 1: the Soviets, it was Father Wailea who suggested the new
Speaker 1: book's location, which is the Congo, and he chose it
Speaker 1: because there was this hyper conservative colonial mindset in Belgium
Speaker 1: at the time, which Juaala had fully bought into.
Speaker 2: Of course he did. And of course this is the famous,
Speaker 2: most problematic of the Tintin albums.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, this is the one you could not get
Speaker 1: in India when I was growing up. And we'll get
Speaker 1: into that a little bit. But the result is a
Speaker 1: book that's full of Tintin quote civilizing the natives who
Speaker 1: are portrayed as these super cringy caricatures. They worshiped Tintin
Speaker 1: as he educates them on how wonderful Belgium's colonial system is.
Speaker 2: It's you know, it's it's really bad. Yeah, And I
Speaker 2: do think it's probably helpful at this point to remind
Speaker 2: folks what kind of relationship Belgium had with the Congo.
Speaker 2: Belgium was an especially violent colonial power, particularly under Leopold
Speaker 2: the Second.
Speaker 1: Yes, Leopold the Second, who is possibly but probably not
Speaker 1: air Jay's grandfather, is believed to be responsible for the
Speaker 1: deaths of millions and millions of Africans, and this is
Speaker 1: through brutal force, labor, famine. This wasn't something that was
Speaker 1: all that well understood in Belgium at the time, like
Speaker 1: most Belgians who weren't really paying attention to what was
Speaker 1: happening in Africa, didn't know the magnitude of the destruction there.
Speaker 1: And it's honestly still a pass that Belgium is reckoning
Speaker 1: with anyway. So Leopold the Second passes away. In nineteen
Speaker 1: oh nine, his nephew Albert the First becomes king, and
Speaker 1: right around that time the Congo becomes an official colony
Speaker 1: of Belgium known as the Belgian Congo. The congleates were
Speaker 1: forced to work as indentured servants on plantations and minds,
Speaker 1: and the Belgian authorities' attitudes towards the Congolese people reflected
Speaker 1: this common conservative European belief at the time of needing
Speaker 1: to quote civilize Africa, right, it's like the white man's
Speaker 1: burden essentially, and they treated Africans as if they were
Speaker 1: chill children who needed to be taught how to live
Speaker 1: and airj put out Tintin in the Congo. Right when
Speaker 1: all of this was happening.
Speaker 2: So Belgian readers they weren't like offended by this at all.
Speaker 1: No, in fact, it was the opposite. It was a
Speaker 1: huge success. And to celebrate the strip's conclusion, Father While
Speaker 1: even organized this event a real life Tintin after his
Speaker 1: return from Africa.
Speaker 2: What does that even mean?
Speaker 1: Though? So the paper, the paper had actually tried something
Speaker 1: like this before when Tintin had returned from USSR, and
Speaker 1: that event had gone so well that they decided to
Speaker 1: try it again. And so the just as they dress
Speaker 1: up a little boy to play Tintin, uh, they've got
Speaker 1: a little white dog to play Snowy. And then the
Speaker 1: actor would arrive via train in the main Brussel station
Speaker 1: where this real life crowd celebrates his arrival. Right, and
Speaker 1: for this particular event, they also had ten Congolese men
Speaker 1: accompanying him and a bunch of circus animals they'd rented,
Speaker 1: I guess to make it seem more African. And it
Speaker 1: worked because five thousand people showed up to this train
Speaker 1: station to watch Tintin come home. So it was clearly
Speaker 1: a success right from the start.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just such a shame, because you know, these
Speaker 2: are great stories in so many ways, but obviously some
Speaker 2: of the early depictions, they are just really rough, really problematic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not the type of thing you pick up
Speaker 1: on as a kid, right, But as you get older
Speaker 1: you really see this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially if the harmful stereotypes don't refer to you
Speaker 2: or people who look like you. Is a kid, it's
Speaker 2: easy to overlook that kind of thing, but once you
Speaker 2: see it, oh man, it is impossible to ignore. Which
Speaker 2: makes me wonder if Airja ever grappled with any of
Speaker 2: this himself, Like, do you know if he ever acknowledged
Speaker 2: how insensitive these books were.
Speaker 1: He does to a certain extent, and that's actually part
Speaker 1: of why I like Ja. He does tend to grow
Speaker 1: over the years, but he never outright apologizes or anything.
Speaker 1: He did want to say about the early books that quote,
Speaker 1: they are not very intelligent, I know, and they do
Speaker 1: me no honor. So he's clearly acknowledging it. And later
Speaker 1: he says these stories were created quote in the spirit
Speaker 1: of the pure paternalism which reigned at the time in Belgium.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to excuse myself. I admit that my
Speaker 1: early books were typical of the Belgium bourgeois mentality. Of
Speaker 1: the time and even later he doesn't want Tinton in
Speaker 1: the Land of the Soviets to be republished, and he
Speaker 1: redraws Tinton in the Congo in the nineteen forties. He
Speaker 1: makes some changes, like turning one of the school lessons
Speaker 1: Tinton gives into a math lesson instead of one about
Speaker 1: Belgian superiority. But you know, the caricatures and the drawings
Speaker 1: don't really change that much.
Speaker 2: So basically his opinion was that it was almost impossible
Speaker 2: for a Belgian man from his background at that time
Speaker 2: to avoid absorbing, you know, this kind of perspective about
Speaker 2: other races and cultures.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Though the public response is of course different now,
Speaker 1: right like today when people criticize specific Tinton books like
Speaker 1: you and I were saying, Tinton in the Congo is
Speaker 1: the one that everyone points to. In two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: for example, the UK's Commission for Racial Equality recommended that
Speaker 1: not be sold due to its quote hideous racial prejudice,
Speaker 1: and there have been attempts to ban it or limit
Speaker 1: its availability in the US, Sweden and Belgium. Like I
Speaker 1: was saying, in India, you couldn't find it in libraries.
Speaker 1: It was very difficult to find and as an American publisher,
Speaker 1: Lil Brown hasn't printed it for quite a while.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because if Airja had stuck to creating Tintin
Speaker 2: in the Belgian mentality of the time, he might have
Speaker 2: continued drawing xenophobic, racist comics for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: But that's not at all what happened. Instead, he had
Speaker 2: this life changing encounter that transformed the way he thought
Speaker 2: about other cultures and about Tintin's place in the world.
Speaker 2: It's a fascinating story and we're going to tell you
Speaker 2: all about it right after this quick break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius is two part exploration
Speaker 1: of air Ja and Tintin and Gabe. When we left off,
Speaker 1: you were just about to tell us, but I believe
Speaker 1: is the redeeming part of this story about how air
Speaker 1: Jay's life changed forever and for the better.
Speaker 2: So have that, yes, yes, finally we get here. So
Speaker 2: by the early nineteen thirties, Tintin has been around for
Speaker 2: a couple of years. He's getting more popular, and he's
Speaker 2: traveling the world. But I am talking about Tintin here
Speaker 2: Airja himself. He is not traveling the world. He's just
Speaker 2: sitting at his desk at a conservative Catholic newspaper, so
Speaker 2: a lot of the cultural details he'd include came from
Speaker 2: secondary sources, full of their own assumptions and prejudices, which
Speaker 2: he would then pairrot. But as many scholars have pointed out,
Speaker 2: there was a real change in that approach for the
Speaker 2: fifth Tintin installment, The Blue Lotus, and it happened almost
Speaker 2: by chance. When the newspaper announced that Tintin's next journey
Speaker 2: would take place in China, a Belgian priest who worked
Speaker 2: with Chinese student at a local university got in touch
Speaker 2: with air Ja. The priest was like, Hey, my students
Speaker 2: are big fans of Tintin, but they'll be pretty upset
Speaker 2: if China and Chinese characters get portrayed as stereotypes, which
Speaker 2: you are known to do.
Speaker 1: And knowing this Tintin universe, there had been some Chinese
Speaker 1: characters in earlier at tinton books, and obviously they were
Speaker 1: not portrade very fairly.
Speaker 2: That's right, yes, But to air Jay's credit, he was
Speaker 2: really cool about the whole thing. He asked the priest, okay,
Speaker 2: can you find someone who could advise me on China?
Speaker 2: So the priest introduced him to a man named Jiang
Speaker 2: chong Ren, who was around the same age as air
Speaker 2: Je and a student at Brussels Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
Speaker 2: So for about a year the two men met each
Speaker 2: Sunday to talk and Jiong explained Chinese current affairs and
Speaker 2: taught Airja about calligraphy. He also introduced him to concepts
Speaker 2: like Buddhism and Taoism, which Aja took a real interest in,
Speaker 2: especially later in his life. And so you know, an
Speaker 2: actual friendship started to emerge from this. In fact, Xiang
Speaker 2: later said that they were like brothers.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love The Blue Loadus. There's so many
Speaker 1: great details in that book, like it takes place mainly
Speaker 1: in Shanghai. There are a lot of scenes that feature
Speaker 1: Chinese calligraphy in the background. And I don't understand Chinese,
Speaker 1: just like I don't pronounce French. Well, but it looked
Speaker 1: really beautiful.
Speaker 2: That's so funny because that writing that you're talking about,
Speaker 2: it was actually done by Jiang. The calligraphy. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: according to an article about The Blue Lotus on the
Speaker 2: website The World of Chinese, the book includes quotes from
Speaker 2: the Old Book of Tong praising the virtues of an
Speaker 2: ancient doctor there were also posters on the street with
Speaker 2: messages like abolish unfair treaties and down with imperialism. And
Speaker 2: that's because the story is set around the time when
Speaker 2: Japan invaded Manchuria.
Speaker 1: I like that Tintin, or rather air Jay just kind
Speaker 1: of like absorbs the influences of the people around him, right,
Speaker 1: like father Wallay's politics feed it, and like Jiang saw
Speaker 1: influence seems to be there. But but how did this
Speaker 1: friend of his influence the storytelling?
Speaker 2: Well, he encouraged airj to use, you know, real events
Speaker 2: to inspire Tintin's adventures. So in the story, Tintin defends
Speaker 2: the Chinese against the Japanese, but also against American businessmen
Speaker 2: who are shown as ignorant and racist and aggressive. And
Speaker 2: none of this was really happening in other Belgian comic
Speaker 2: strips at the time. And by the way, if the
Speaker 2: name of the arts student Jiang chong Ren sounds familiar
Speaker 2: to you and any other Tintin readers out there listening,
Speaker 2: it's because it sounds a lot like the name that
Speaker 2: appears in the Blue Lotus, Chong chong Chen. So he's
Speaker 2: the young Chinese orphan that sounds a lot lighter.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I figured that part.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, yeah. He's the young Chinese orphan that
Speaker 2: Tintin saves from drowning towards the end of the book
Speaker 2: and later becomes friends with. Their friendship in the book
Speaker 2: actually echoes the men's real life relationship. So right after
Speaker 2: Tintin and Chong meet in the story, they discuss the
Speaker 2: misconceptions Europeans have of Chinese people and the stereotypes that
Speaker 2: their cultures have of one another, and they acknowledge that
Speaker 2: all of these are incorrect. And so while Airja is
Speaker 2: still trying to educate the reader in future books, it's
Speaker 2: just in a different, more open minded way. For example,
Speaker 2: there's a scene towards the end where the British detectives
Speaker 2: Thompson and Thompson trying to disguise themselves by wearing what
Speaker 2: they believe is typical Chinese clothing, but in reality it's
Speaker 2: this outdated stereotype of what Westerners think Chinese people look like.
Speaker 2: So the Chinese characters see the detectives and they just
Speaker 2: start laughing, And this time, you know, the reader is
Speaker 2: in on the joke. I love that.
Speaker 1: So I read that the Blueloadus is also where Erge
Speaker 1: learned to go deeper for force photographs for different locations,
Speaker 1: and so before he'd been using whatever generic images were
Speaker 1: being used in popular media. But all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: now there's more nuance, more accuracy for these details, and
Speaker 1: that didn't really exist in Tintin's previous adventures.
Speaker 2: Yeah you can really tell too, like you can see it.
Speaker 2: Which is not to say that the book is perfect.
Speaker 2: This is nineteen thirty four, and there is still a
Speaker 2: paternalistic attitude towards the Chinese.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the villains right, like the villains and the
Speaker 1: Blue Lotus are the imperialist drug dealing Japanese. So unsurprisingly
Speaker 1: the Japanese were not fans of the book. They wanted
Speaker 1: it benn which you can see why.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, But but it was a hid in China, right,
Speaker 2: So Airje was even invited by the First Lady to
Speaker 2: visit the country. And perhaps more importantly, it's set a
Speaker 2: new standard for how Erje approached Tintin's adventures and depictions
Speaker 2: of places far from Belgium, you know, with deeper research
Speaker 2: and a wider range of content imporiary sources. Getting these
Speaker 2: details right mattered to him. But that said, there were
Speaker 2: still issues in later books. For example, in Tintin and
Speaker 2: the Broken Ear, which came out right after The Blue Lotus,
Speaker 2: Er Jay didn't know anyone who spoke South American indigenous languages,
Speaker 2: so he just made one up and later got a
Speaker 2: lot of criticism for having some pretty overtly racist details
Speaker 2: and characters in nineteen forty one's The Shooting Star. He
Speaker 2: did later revise that book, but again he didn't really apologize.
Speaker 2: He said, basically, this was just reflecting the politics and
Speaker 2: style of the time. Deal with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously, meeting Jong doesn't erase all his prejudices and biases,
Speaker 1: but there is definitely a change in his approach and
Speaker 1: certainly this attempt to capture some truth about a location.
Speaker 1: So now we're going to jump ahead to the late
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties and Air Jay is going through a tough
Speaker 1: personal time. He is not a great husband, so his
Speaker 1: first marriage apart after about a year, and he's having
Speaker 1: these regular nightmares where everything in it turns white. He
Speaker 1: in one of these dreams, he is climbing the stairs
Speaker 1: of a tower and he looks down and it's just
Speaker 1: a bunch of bones and skulls and demons, all white stuff,
Speaker 1: like that, and it's really disconcerting. So Airj goes to
Speaker 1: a Youngian psycho analyst, and this is in Switzerland, an
Speaker 1: actual student of Carl Jung, And he's like, I've been
Speaker 1: having these awful dreams, Doc, what should I do?
Speaker 2: I'm picture I got to stop you on picturing. This
Speaker 2: psychoanalyst he's smoking a pipe, right, and there's like a
Speaker 2: view of Lake Zurich in the background. I'm just trying
Speaker 2: to set the scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there is no photographic evidence of this meeting,
Speaker 1: so let's say that's where it occurs. But then the
Speaker 1: doctor tells air Ja, this is very simple. These dreams
Speaker 1: are all metaphors for being professionally and emotionally exhausted, and
Speaker 1: the only thing you can do to stop them is
Speaker 1: to stop drawing.
Speaker 2: Stop drawing, telling the artist to stop drawing, like forever,
Speaker 2: just stop more or less.
Speaker 1: So he tells Airj he can't work and recover from
Speaker 1: this personal turmoil at the same time, so he's got
Speaker 1: to pick one. And Airj is super shaken by this, right,
Speaker 1: and he does consider it because in some ways it's appealing.
Speaker 1: He loves Tinton, but Tinton has also become a burden
Speaker 1: and he's already been considering taking up abstract art instead.
Speaker 1: You find us with a lot of artists, right, like
Speaker 1: Bill Waterson had to take a spell. Conan Doyle retired
Speaker 1: from homes for a bit before returning. Anyway, he thinks
Speaker 1: about it and then he says, you know what, I
Speaker 1: don't really like this advice, so maybe I should just
Speaker 1: lean into the white instead. And so, with his mind
Speaker 1: made up, he goes to work. And he'd rent a
Speaker 1: ton of books on Tibet, mostly by Western explorers and
Speaker 1: people going through the Himalias and the snow capped mountains there.
Speaker 1: He'd also read at least one book by this native
Speaker 1: Tibetan and so he's really inspired, and he studies maps
Speaker 1: and photographs. He searches for photos and Belgian Alpine society,
Speaker 1: and he was so committed to getting the details right.
Speaker 1: Then one photo which he found in a book, it
Speaker 1: only showed the lower half of a policeman in New Delhi,
Speaker 1: and he actually writes the author asking for the original
Speaker 1: photo so you can see the whole uniform, because he
Speaker 1: really wants to depict it fully.
Speaker 2: You that's awesome, Yeah, that is some serious commitment.
Speaker 1: It's incredible when you see the details and you notice
Speaker 1: what's actually drawn and incorporated into the story. There's a
Speaker 1: bit in this cafe that I remember and like it's
Speaker 1: a cafe in Nepal and the way the waiters stressed,
Speaker 1: and then I saw a photo of the time that
Speaker 1: he'd used. It's remarkable anyway. What's also really interesting about
Speaker 1: Tinton and Tibet is that the plot is different from
Speaker 1: all the other Tintin books. It's not really about capturing
Speaker 1: a villain, and there's no car chases or classic Tintin
Speaker 1: tropes like that. Instead, the book is about Tinton's quest
Speaker 1: to find his friend Chong.
Speaker 2: Blue Lotus Chong the same gun, yeah, the same one.
Speaker 1: And I actually think that proves how much the real
Speaker 1: Jong meant to j right like that he brings them
Speaker 1: back into the stories during this what feels like a
Speaker 1: pretty difficult period of his life. And in Tintin Inti
Speaker 1: that everyone thinks Chong has died in a plane crash,
Speaker 1: but Tintin refuses to believe it, and so he risks
Speaker 1: his life and his limbs to save him. And also
Speaker 1: there's a Yetti in this book, this appearance, which is
Speaker 1: just super fun and sweet and.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, any points for YETI.
Speaker 1: Anyway said that it was his favorite of the albums
Speaker 1: he ever drew, and he calls it quote the story
Speaker 1: of a friendship. Ah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something really poetic in this. You know that
Speaker 2: the lessons he learned from his real friend Jong helped him,
Speaker 2: you know, make his favorite book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. It's also sort of like a perfect place
Speaker 1: to end today's episode. But we are not done with
Speaker 1: Tintin yet, because this is just part one of the story.
Speaker 2: That's right, So be sure to tune back in to
Speaker 2: hear part two, where we'll talk about Jay's behavior during
Speaker 2: World War Two, comic bands in America, and serious long
Speaker 2: lost play that one of our good friends actually just rediscovered.
Speaker 1: It is an amazing story, and in the meantime, we'd
Speaker 1: love to hear what you think about Tinton or anything else.
Speaker 1: Email us at high Geniuses at gmail dot com. That's
Speaker 1: Hi Geniuses at gmail dot com, or give us a
Speaker 1: call on a hotline that is three oh two four
Speaker 1: oh five five nine two five. I love that it's
Speaker 1: a three or two areo code for all my Delawareans.
Speaker 1: And you can also find us on Instagram and Blue Sky.
Speaker 1: No matter how you get in touch, you know we'd
Speaker 1: love hearing from you. This episode was written by the
Speaker 1: always adventurous Mursa Brown. Thank you, Marissa. It was also
Speaker 1: edited by Gabe and from Dylan, Mary, Gabe, Will and myself.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
Speaker 1: a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
Speaker 1: by Will Pearson and me Mongshatikler and researched by our
Speaker 1: goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced
Speaker 1: by the wonderful Dylan Fagan, with support from Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvel
Speaker 1: and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
Speaker 1: trustee Dara Potts and Vine Shorey. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.