Hergé

Did You Know?

• Hergé is the ninth-most-often-translated French-language author according to UNESCO's Index Translationum.
• An asteroid, 1652 Hergé, within the main belt was named after him in 1953.
• The Dalai Lama bestowed the International Campaign for Tibet's Light of Truth Award upon the character of Tintin in 2006.

Early life

Georges Prosper Remi came into the world on 22 May 1907 at his family home in Etterbeek, a central suburb of Brussels. His father, Alexis Remi, a Walloon, laboured in a confectionery factory, while his mother, Elisabeth Dufour, a Flemish woman, managed the household. They had married in January 1905 and first lived at 25 rue Cranz, where Georges was born, but moved to 34 rue de Theux when he was a year old. French was his first language, yet because Brussels was bilingual, he picked up Dutch too, speaking it with a Marollien accent inherited from his maternal grandmother.

A brother named Paul arrived five years after Georges. Though Roman Catholic like most Belgians, the family was not deeply religious. Looking back, Remi painted his Etterbeek childhood as monotonously grey and deeply dull. The biographer Benoît Peeters has proposed that this early sadness may have been worsened by sexual abuse at the hands of a maternal uncle, Charles Arthur Dufour.

Cinema captivated the young Remi, especially Winsor McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur and comedies starring Charlie Chaplin, Harry Langdon, and Buster Keaton—influences that later shaped his comic strips. He was not an avid reader but enjoyed Huckleberry Finn, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, The Pickwick Papers, and novels by Alexandre Dumas. Drawing was a pastime; he filled the margins of his schoolbooks with everyday scenes, including German soldiers, since his primary school years at Ixelles Municipal School No. 3 fell during World War I, when Brussels was under German occupation.

In 1919 he started secondary school at the secular Place de Londres in Ixelles, but transferred in 1920 to Saint-Boniface School, run by Catholic priests. He excelled academically, finishing at the top of his class in July 1925.

Rising fame

In November 1932 Hergé announced that Tintin would go on an adventure to Asia, initially titled The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter, in the Orient, later renamed Cigars of the Pharaoh. This mystery story introduced recurring characters Thomson and Thompson and Rastapopoulos. Through his friend Charles Lesne, Hergé began producing illustrations for Casterman, and in late 1933 they took over publication of The Adventures of Tintin and Quick and Flupke in book form; the first Casterman book was the collected volume of Cigars.

In January 1934 he founded the Atelier Hergé advertising company with two partners, but it was liquidated after six months. After editor Norbert Wallez was removed in August 1933, Hergé became despondent and tried to resign in March 1934, but stayed after his salary was increased and his workload reduced. From February to August 1934 he serialized Popol Out West in Le Petit Vingtième.

Later life

After the war, Sinave devised the idea of naming a new magazine Tintin, believing it would attract a wide audience. The Dutch-language edition was titled Kuifje. The magazine adopted the slogan 'The Newspaper for the Young Aged 7 to 77' and used a logo featuring Tintin. Capital was provided by Raymond Leblanc (50%), managing director Georges Lallemand (40%), and Hergé as artistic director (10%).

Hergé assembled associates including Van Melkebeke, Jacobs, Paul Cuvelier, and Jacques Laudy. Van Melkebeke was initially editor-in-chief but was arrested for working for the collaborationist Le Nouveau journal; his involvement was kept secret to avoid controversy, and he continued providing work under pseudonyms until his imprisonment from December 1947 to October 1949. The first issue of Tintin magazine was published on 26 September 1946. Hergé produced a two-page spread each week, concluding The Seven Crystal Balls and then embarking on Prisoners of the Sun.

The magazine also included Laudy's The Legend of the Four Aymon Brothers and Jacobs' The Secret of the Swordfish, the first in the Blake and Mortimer series. It competed with Spirou and proved an immediate success, selling 60,000 copies in three days, and boosted Hergé's book sales. In 1947, a Belgian film adaptation of The Crab with the Golden Claws was produced. Hergé contacted Disney Studios, but they declined his offer to adapt The Adventures of Tintin.

In May 1947, his artistic collaboration with Jacobs ended after an argument; Hergé had been jealous of Jacobs' success and turned down Jacobs' request to be credited as co-creator of the new Adventures of Tintin. That same month, Hergé broke from his manager Thiery after discovering he had been siphoning money.

Personal life

Hergé was a highly private person, described by biographer Harry Thompson as reserved and unostentatious. Biographer Pierre Sterckx noted that he appeared very conventional in public but was extremely erudite with an insatiable curiosity. He enjoyed walking in the countryside, gardening, art collecting, and jazz music. He disliked public appearances but insisted on personally responding to all fan mail, stating that not replying to children's letters would betray their dreams.

Friends described him as humorous, known for self-deprecating jokes. Colleagues described him as egocentric, an assessment he agreed with; he was authoritarian with assistants and refused to share credit. Throughout his first marriage he had affairs. He had no children, having been rendered sterile by radiation treatment, but in the 1950s offered to adopt his brother Paul's two children when their parents had relationship trouble; Paul declined.

Hergé was raised Catholic but was never devout; his adherence declined as he developed an interest in Taoism and became agnostic. He was a fan of the Tao Te Ching, Arnaud Desjardins' The Path to Wisdom, Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics, and the work of Jean-Émile Charon.