Mention the word Tintin and most people will have heard of the intrepid reporter’s exploits across the globe, detailed in 24 books, with Captain Haddock and dog Snowy in tow.
But his creator Herge is more a mystery, writes Emily Ashton.
Pierre Assouline’s biography Herge: The Man Who Created Tintin (Oxford University Press, £16.99) offers a rare insight into the man behind one of the best-loved characters of all time.
Accused after the Second World War of being a Nazi sympathiser, it took many decades for Herge to shed his hated image.
He suffered bouts of depression and as his career progressed, he would regularly disappear for months at a time.
Assouline describes the work by Herge and his colleagues to “correct” earlier books by turning black people into whites and removing every image of Captain Haddock drinking straight from a bottle in The Crab With The Golden Claws.
But Herge is also revealed to be a good-hearted man, who replied personally to every letter he received from his child readers. Assouline delves deeply into Herge’s career and personal life, as well as the development of the Tintin books — but this is a biography for die-hard fans only.
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