alt.hn

1/9/2025 at 11:47:50 PM

Celebrating the timeless allure of Tintin's aesthetics

 https://collegetowns.substack.com/p/celebrating-the-timeless-allure-of

by thunderbong

1/13/2025 at 12:01:17 PM

Thanks to a Hacker News comment, my kids, ages 7-13. Have been watching an episode of Tintin from the internet archive every week, and they love it. Link: https://archive.org/details/tintinseries43

by exhilaration

1/13/2025 at 12:25:11 PM

Get them the comic books; they are well worth the money. The stories, the imagination, the artwork, the language, the settings across the world, the spirit of exploration all together fires one's mind. They are some of the best comics ever written.

Here they are:

1) https://archive.org/details/01TintinInTheLandOfTheSoviets/01...

2) https://readtintin.blogspot.com/

PS: Also Asterix comics - https://readasterix.blogspot.com/

by rramadass

1/13/2025 at 12:58:51 PM

I would say: skip the early ones. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and especially Tintin in the Congo are outrageously bad (Tintin in the Congo is horrendously racist). Tintin didn't really become the Tintin we know and love until Blue Lotus, though Cigars of the Pharaoh is still readable.

Like, the parts of Tintin that capture the imagination, the world travel, the realistic depiction of different cultures, the great adventure stories, all of that starts with Blue Lotus.

When people criticize Tintin for being racist, what they're really criticizing are those early stories. In the later stories, the ones that everyone falls in love with, Hergé went to enormous trouble to depict cultures accurately, gathering huge amounts of references to depict everything accurately (you see that in this article, with the image from Blue Lotus). In these stories, almost without exception, Tintin is the champion of colonized and oppressed peoples, and the stories hold up extremely well.

by OskarS

1/14/2025 at 3:10:04 AM

I espouse precisely the opposite opinion: actively try to get Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo, preferably the original/uncensored version of the latter. They’re hilarious. They weren’t supposed to be serious—it was humour. It was only from Tintin in America that he headed in the direction of being more serious (and yeah, it took about three more books to really settle).

Just as a couple of examples, one from each, which I believe are fairly representative of the tone (and probably my favourite bits in each):

• Car breaks down, so pull the engine apart completely, then realise it was a flat tyre, so punch a guy, chase him till he’s out of breath, then stick the valve in his mouth so he reinflates your tyre; then toss all the bits of the engine back in, throw away the few bits that don’t fit, drive off, and remark about how reliable these cars are.

• When hunting a rhinoceros and bullets don’t work, drill a hole in its hide (somehow unnoticed), put in some dynamite, light the fuse, hide behind a tree, explosion, rhinoceros obliterated, and say (loose translation) “oops, guess I used too much dynamite”.

The latter incident was removed from the 1975 edition of Tintin in the Congo by Hergé (45 years after initial publication), and by then he said he regretted its big game hunting stuff (understandable; that and the race issues certainly haven’t aged well!). But really, it was never supposed to be taken seriously, it was a fun and gloriously unrealistic story. Instead of getting upset, I wish people would just enjoy its absurdity, as I think was originally intended.

But definitely don’t treat those two as containing the same Tintin as in later books. They feature his slapstick humour twin brother.

by chrismorgan

1/14/2025 at 2:01:57 PM

A very hard disagree with your comment. The GP is right in that the early ones were badly racist and cannot be construed as "hilarious" or "slapstick humour" particularly for impressionable young minds. Hence it is better kept away from them.

As this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42691442 points out even the later ones were biased but at least they are just tired old cliches and stereotypes without being overtly racist.

by rramadass

1/13/2025 at 1:17:56 PM

Right.

Wikipedia as usual has the details - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin#Contr...

Note: The archive.org collection has some parodies and pastiches which are decidedly not meant for children - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin#Parod...

by rramadass

1/13/2025 at 1:39:56 PM

I'm not sure I understand the sequence with the rhino. Is he actually killing the rhino by drilling a hole in its back and lighting a stick of dynamite inside the hole? Or am I reading this wrong? That seems pretty out there.

by silvester23

1/13/2025 at 3:21:43 PM

It's really not that far out, considering the backdrop of what actual Belgians were doing to actual Congolese at the time.

by causi

1/13/2025 at 1:52:28 PM

It would work. There are guides for obliterating (large) animals with explosives. An RPG would be safer if it's still moving.

by Vecr

1/13/2025 at 2:26:52 PM

Tintein in america is such a fun rollercoaster though, the instance he climbs out of that skyscraper window to escape the gangsters is so exhilerating

by trgn

1/13/2025 at 3:33:21 PM

Don't worry about reading them in order. Start kids with Le sceptre d'Ottokar, the tightest early story without Capitaine Haddock.

by philistine

1/14/2025 at 12:09:35 AM

I love Tintin comics, but even the later ones Tintin is very much the archetype white savior. Everywhere he goes, he's saving the cowering savages and poor natives from themselves or racist whites, and the good ones are always groveling and indebted to the brave and wise Sahib.

Which is okay as a superhero story, but if one is terrified of their children being incapable of separating fact from fiction or inability to develop their own understanding of the time and environment these were created in, they may not be ideal.

There are a bunch of other problems too.

* I'm not big on everything having to be about equal representation all the time, but there is a glaring omission of women. Which I guess would be okay given the times, but the few that do show up are vain, narcissistic, selfish -- Castafiore and General Alcazar's American wife are two I can remember.

* Haddock can get a little racist when he's drunk. It does help that most of his more colorful insults are so old that they've fallen off the treadmill and kids wouldn't understand what they mean (or maybe they've been censored in recent editions?).

* Speaking of which, depictions of Haddock's alcoholism are for comedic value. Tintin often enables and exploits his addiction and gets him inebriated in order to consent to things he had refused. While his drinking usually ends in disaster, he generally comes out unscathed or even ahead and faces no real consequences.

* Non-whites / savages are often treated as simpletons, emotionally driven, gullible and superstitious. Quickly resorting to violence, being fooled by ventriloquism or other cheap tricks, terrified of spells and gods, etc.

I'm skeptical whether these kinds of things actually harm children. I read these as a young child and could recognize all these issues and understand they were based on stereotypes or opinions, but again if people don't think their children are capable, I would advise reading them first. Ones where he stays in Europe are generally pretty safe IIRC.

On a completely different note, it's funny in the English editions, they seemed to me to imply that he's living in Britain, but if you keep an eye out you can spot the inconsistencies. Cars drive on the right, he takes a ferry to get to Scotland, etc.

by starspangled

1/13/2025 at 11:58:48 PM

Even the later tintin books are awkward: its the comic equivalent of a sausage fest; The only 2 women I recall are: Tintin's cleaning lady and Captain Haddock's favorite Bianca Castafiore (a comical drama queen and opera singer).

Practically every other character is a man.

by DoctorOetker

1/14/2025 at 1:19:52 AM

Instead of downvoting, please construct a list of male and a list of female characters, and prove me wrong.

The females rank even lower than the Tintin's dog, in heroic exploits.

by DoctorOetker

1/15/2025 at 10:24:01 PM

[dead]

by sunking72

1/13/2025 at 3:19:35 PM

[flagged]

by abc123abc123

1/13/2025 at 3:14:49 PM

also spirou, also theres a lot more franco belgian comics

also books like the le petit nicolas series, little nicholas, by Sempe & Goscinny (who also did asterix) so funny and great for children!

by asimovfan

1/13/2025 at 4:16:52 PM

Yoko Tsuno!

by bigmattystyles

1/13/2025 at 10:23:26 PM

Oh man, is there a way to get them in the original French on PDF?

by cryptonector

1/13/2025 at 12:18:21 PM

Nice post about Tintin, one of my top childhood influences. I have a new edition of all the albums (much better than mine) unopened and ready for when my kid grows enough. The TV show wasn't so good IMHO - of course the narrative was great because it came from the comics, but animation quality was just so-so, or at least that's how I remember it.

If you liked Tintin and long for more comics of the same kind, I recommend you to try Blake and Mortimer. They're different (e.g. with a more serious and wordy style, hardly any comical gags, but also with more fantastic elements). But they are the closest I know, and in some aspects even better (I personally prefer them although I'm aware it's due to very subjective factors, most people would still rank Tintin higher overall and Blake and Mortimer don't have such a universal acclaim).

The only thing I dislike about the post is the gratuitous rant on AI at the end. It is great news that Tintin joins the public domain. Especially great because it's one of these cases where the owners have been especially abusive, chasing fan efforts done as a labor of love, lest they harm their sales of overpriced merchandising.

Why exactly should be worry about people generating AI images of Tintin? What is the harm done? We know what the original albums are, they will probably be preserved as long as there is human civilization (despite copyright, not thanks to it), and we can freely decide if we also want to read/watch/see derivative works (and which) or not. I just don't see the problem at all.

by Al-Khwarizmi

1/13/2025 at 12:24:17 PM

What also comes to mind is Yoko Tsuno [1]. I'm not sure how well known this is in the US. The creator Roger Leloup was supporting Hegré on the technical drawings. For people who like the 'ligne claire' style, definitely check it out. The science fiction aspect of it might appeal to the audience on HN.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Tsuno

by svl7

1/13/2025 at 2:41:53 PM

I would second this. There is archeology, space travel, time travel... Loads of fun. I'm still trying to get a hold of all the titles.

Oh, and evil AI! Right in the first album. Had totally forgotten about that.

by rcarmo

1/13/2025 at 9:50:57 PM

I was massively into Tintin as a kid in Ireland and when I met my Belgian wife she introduced me to this and I loved it. I was hoping I'd find it mentioned in here already!

by jaymzcampbell

1/14/2025 at 3:45:51 AM

If we're going to recommend comics I'm gonna pitch The Red Knight. I have some of the old monochrome prints and they're an absolute blast.

by tmtvl

1/13/2025 at 12:26:39 PM

Had never heard of it (in spite of being European, not from the US) and it looks like my cup of tea, so definitely will check it out.

by Al-Khwarizmi

1/13/2025 at 11:27:56 AM

> Artists in Europe have already been fighting to protect the copyright of Tintin to keep the artwork away from large language models (LLMs) training various AI algorithms.

There is no copyright in the character anymore, so there’s nothing to protect.

I really do not understand this perspective. Do people also wish to use legal force to prevent others from working with, for example, Gainsborough, or Moliere, or Julius Caesar, or Homer? Come on: at some point something has to enter the public domain and become part of the shared treasure of all mankind.

by eadmund

1/13/2025 at 11:58:38 AM

While I don't have a dog in that fight, describing the opponents position as being against Tintin "becom[ing] part of the shared treasure of all mankind" seems rather unfairly dismissive.

I would expect that most of those artists don't mind the journey into public domain. Rather, the are against large corporations hoovering up that treasure and regurgitating it with a profit motive.

by fnordian_slip

1/13/2025 at 12:50:46 PM

So they don't mind work entering the public domain, but they do mind people making use of that work in an organized way after it has? Seems a bit strange.

by Gormo

1/13/2025 at 3:33:03 PM

LLMs are not people, and some organized way are worse than others, yes.

In the same way we defined "fair use" for those reviewing a movie for instance to be ok, but we don't find it acceptable to put 99% of the movie with a single comment.

by mihaic

1/13/2025 at 3:46:40 PM

LLMs are tools used by people, like typewriters, paintbrushes, and other types of algorithm.

If a work is in the public domain, that means that people are free to copy it, redistribute it, modify it, and create derivative works from it, using whatever tools suit them.

by Gormo

1/13/2025 at 4:24:34 PM

Right and sometimes thats cool and sometimes it sucks.

Fwiw, I think its a tragedy that our great works of culture can be appropriated to sell Coca-Cola and merchandise

by spencerflem

1/13/2025 at 6:20:43 PM

Why is it a tragedy that people are using "our great works of culture" to engage in other activities within our culture?

by Gormo

1/14/2025 at 11:58:31 AM

You're asking it as a moral question, when I honestly care about the end result. And the end result seems to be going in the same direction as movies, as the range gets narrower in terms of what's produced, and everything is a sequel, remix, reshuffle of previous work. There are exceptions, but their percentage is far lower than in previous decades.

by mihaic

1/15/2025 at 3:29:53 PM

> You're asking it as a moral question,

I'm asking questions about what I could only interpret as a moral proposition.

> I honestly care about the end result.

You're applying normative criteria to evaluate something, whether it is the initial action or the consequences that proceed from it.

But before we event get to normative evaluations, I'm trying to understand what the substantive difference in the two things you're comparing are. It's seems bizarre to consider something to be the cultural inheritance of humanity as a whole, and then complain about certain humans adapting it to cultural activities that you for some reason don't like.

> And the end result seems to be going in the same direction as movies, as the range gets narrower in terms of what's produced, and everything is a sequel, remix, reshuffle of previous work.

The vast majority of all creative work has always been a remix or reshuffle of previous work. When we were younger, and were being exposed to things for the first time, everything seemed novel and original.

Maybe the first time you saw The Lion King, it didn't occur to you that it's essentially a rework of Hamlet, or you never counted how many episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation were based on recycled plots from Homer. But this has always been going on. Sure, it's a little bit more explicit today when you are dealing with big Hollywood productions, since Hollywood has built up a large library of its own output to remix and reshuffle, and people do want to see new iterations of the specific things they grew up with.

Still, amidst all that, there's a lot of novel independent creative work being produced. By definition, though, that's all going to be found in niches and not in the mass market -- but it's always been that way.

We've also had a massive shift in the specific media people use to express creativity, thanks to the internet. Lots of small-scale independent work just gets self-published on YouTube these days, and doesn't filter through the mass-market studios and publishers anymore. Consider that the increased ability for independent creators to work outside the legacy media has the effect of also limiting the amount of novel work that the legacy media have access to.

> There are exceptions, but their percentage is far lower than in previous decades.

And vastly higher than in previous previous decades. Compare modern movies to the stuff that Hollywood was putting out during the era of the Hays code. After the collapse of those restrictions, there was an outpouring of pent-up creativity that lasted a few decades. Maybe modern movies aren't as distinct or creative as the ones from the '70s, '80s, and '90s, but try comparing them to the average film from the '40s, '50s, or '60s.

by Gormo

1/15/2025 at 4:24:47 PM

While I think that you're mostly correct in everything you're saying, I don't think it's the best kind of correct.

> You're applying normative criteria to evaluate something

I'm explicitly not trying to be objective, purely trying to judge the end result, if I like or dislike it, and what I estimate the future products would look like if the trend continues. I want a world where humans want to create, where the creative process itself is rewarding, and where our common culture is filled with most of the best works. I have no arguments further than that is what I want.

> it's essentially a rework of Hamlet

When humans rework something, they impart a piece of themselves into the final product. The end result feels like it has soul. An amalgamation designed to maximize revenue no longer feels like it has soul.

> try comparing them to the average film from the '40s, '50s, or '60s

You're right, some periods were really worse. I don't want to emulate those. But there were miraculous decades in both music and film that I want to use as a benchmark, since we know what's possible at least.

by mihaic

1/16/2025 at 5:11:03 AM

> I want a world where humans want to create, where the creative process itself is rewarding, and where our common culture is filled with most of the best works.

Well, that's definitely a moral proposition. And it's also a good description of the world as it already is.

> When humans rework something, they impart a piece of themselves into the final product.

Personally, I've never encountered any human residue while watching a movie or reading a book. Only memes that propagate independently of their point of origin.

I've also never encountered any "soul", though I have often encountered enjoyable, enlightening, and relatable works irrespective of whether the creators intended to maximize their revenue.

> I don't want to emulate those. But there were miraculous decades in both music and film that I want to use as a benchmark, since we know what's possible at least.

If you use the absolute best of everything as the benchmark against which to measure everything else, and you oppose the very existence of anything that doesn't measure up, then you are fostering an environment that is exactly the opposite of the world you claim to want.

by Gormo

1/16/2025 at 1:02:46 PM

> Personally, I've never encountered any human residue while watching a movie or reading a book.

In that case, I think we're simply debating if we like vanilla or chocolate.

I find modern culture to be crap. Whatever arguments you have against this, the fact still remains that I not longer can find what I want, something I once had.

I don't care if it hurts the economy or makes the lives of some people worse, I want movies that I enjoy watching.

by mihaic

1/16/2025 at 5:51:54 PM

> I find modern culture to be crap.

So did Socrates. Ironically, being jaded about contemporary culture is older than the hills.

My own personal feelings aren't that far off from yours -- a lot of aspects of life seem to have been much better in the past, especially in the '90s -- than today. But I'm only in my mid-40s and understand that my particular perceptions are likely informed by the bulk of my life experience taking place during a particular time slice of what very well may be a recurring cultural cycle.

Looking at how the overall cultural mood of American society has developed over time, I think I would have liked living between the 1920s and 1970s far less than today, but agree that things seem to have been getting particularly bad over the past ten years or so.

by Gormo

1/17/2025 at 2:22:37 PM

> So did Socrates. Ironically, being jaded about contemporary culture is older than the hills.

Well, Socrates did have some good points. Even in the Golden Age of Pericles, there was some breakdown of trust between citizens, and professional litigators started making money by simply bringing random people to court.

Even when there's growth, you can still have decline in many areas.

My point is that even though decline is inevitable, the rate and magnitude of that decline can be somewhat controlled, but the discussion has to start from acknowledging the situation and what can be done.

by mihaic

1/13/2025 at 9:59:23 PM

Why? Some of the greatest bits of culture is advertising. Some not all not most but some.

While Coke commercials didn't create the image of americanized Santa as is often claimed they helped shape it. Wily Wonka and the chocolate factory is widely viewed as a classic despite it being a giant Candy ad

by rat87

1/14/2025 at 1:34:37 AM

Interesting! It seems that although the original book was not an ad at all, the 1979 movie adaptation was indeed meant to work as marketing for an upcoming chocolate.

> Cadbury and Rowntree's were England's two largest chocolate makers and they each often try to steal trade secrets by sending spies, posing as employees, into the other's factory. Because of this, both companies became highly protective of their chocolate-making processes. It was a combination of this secrecy and the elaborate, often gigantic, machines in the factory that inspired Dahl to write the story.

https://roalddahl.fandom.com/wiki/Charlie_and_the_Chocolate_...

> Wonka Bars were created by Quaker Oats (in conjunction with the producers of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory). The movie was funded largely by Quaker Oats for the intention of promoting the soon to be released Wonka Bars. However, Quaker Oats chose not to market the bars, instead selling the brand to their manufacturer Sunline.

> Other varieties of Wonka Bars were subsequently manufactured and sold in the real world, formerly by the Willy Wonka Candy Company, a division of Nestlé. These bars were discontinued in January 2010 due to poor sales.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonka_Bar

by codetrotter

1/13/2025 at 6:05:44 PM

Because a lot of interested people do not want the images and style to be destroyed by A.I. usage.

by ForOldHack

1/13/2025 at 6:43:24 PM

The images are not destroyed, they all still exist.

I'm not sure if a style is something that can be destroyed, but I don't think AI has done that yet.

by kyle-rb

1/13/2025 at 10:31:22 PM

I used to be a fan of Star Wars. Then Disney bought the franchise, and transformed it into something that a large number of fans, including me, did not like.

That the old movies exist* does not redeem the current franchise for me.

*: albeit in reality the original films are being preserved by fans and not by the official rights holder.

by Findecanor

1/14/2025 at 1:13:53 AM

It's all relative. I thought Lucas let Star Wars wither for too long, extended universe not withstanding. Most of the Disney works based on it have pleased my family and I.

by paulryanrogers

1/13/2025 at 9:10:20 PM

Styles can absolutely become wack, if the context they're used in becomes wack.

by spencerflem

1/13/2025 at 7:10:15 PM

Some countries have moral rights which are perpetual, and are meant to prevent works from being mutilated, defaced, misattributed, or otherwise could cause reputational damage to the author.

It's not unreasonable for an author to want their creation to be enjoyed as it was designed to be, but not torn apart to be reassembled in different ways.

by jfim

1/13/2025 at 9:55:32 PM

Quick, burn Picasso's Las Meninas! Burn iitttt!!! Velazquez would not have approved, I can tell you that!! Of course he wouldn't have approved, everyone can tell.

/s

Seriously, you can't and should not want to stop others from creating derivative works of works that are in the public domain. Sure, some such will be horrible, so you ignore them and hope others do too. But some will be creative in ways you could not have imagined before seeing/hearing/experiencing them.

by cryptonector

1/13/2025 at 3:31:19 PM

It’s not strange if you think how the worth of the images have plummeted down to zero, both emotionally and monetarily, in the last few years. I’m not an artist, nor directly in AI field, but it is weird how I have zero emotional response to any image I see, because I think it might be AI generated.

by tokioyoyo

1/13/2025 at 3:45:43 PM 

  the fact that you can’t enjoy a good image or not without wondering whether or not it’s an AI image is the problem here; not the AI

by kouru225

1/13/2025 at 5:02:33 PM

What about that seems strange?

by marxisttemp

1/13/2025 at 6:57:59 PM

Well, it's a fundamental contradiction, for starters. Public domain is public domain, as in out of copyright. You can't have something in the public domain, but still have its use be restricted.

by Gormo

1/13/2025 at 10:33:59 PM

The disagreement is not about what is, but what should.

by Findecanor

1/16/2025 at 5:55:18 PM

I'm seeing a lot of prevarication between the two, and a lot of taking for granted of even the existence of copyright, despite the it being a modern creation entirely of positive law.

by Gormo

1/13/2025 at 3:28:21 PM

In Europe, Tintin is under copyright until 2053 (death + 70 years).

And the rightsholders (Tintinimaginatio, previously Moulinsart) are very aggressive about it, even more so than Disney. They don't have the lobbying power of Disney, but they are going to do everything in their power to protect and possibly overstep their rights. It includes using trademark laws and publishing new Tintin adventures against the will of the original author as an attempt to renew their copyright.

by GuB-42

1/13/2025 at 4:44:09 PM

If he sold his rights then it's not really against his wishes anymore.

by jeffreyrogers

1/13/2025 at 6:04:43 PM

“It appears, from a 1942 document… that Hergé gave publishing rights for the books of the adventures of Tintin to publisher Casterman so Moulinsart is not the one to decide who can use material from the books,”

( in Dutch )

https://www.livreshebdo.fr/sites/default/files/assets/docume...

by ForOldHack

1/13/2025 at 5:32:34 PM

He died. So pedantically you can say he doesn't have any wishes any more, but it's clear they meant that it's against what he wanted when alive.

by swores

1/13/2025 at 6:42:34 PM

Well he chose not to make those wishes known in his will apparently, or in any of the contracts which assigned his IP to others.

by jeffreyrogers

1/14/2025 at 7:03:33 AM

He did. Hergé wished that the series should not be continued after his death.

by bazoom42

1/13/2025 at 6:02:53 PM

Silly me, I thought there was ethics beyond The Profit Motive.

by andrepd

1/13/2025 at 6:44:06 PM

The author owns the copyright unless they transfer it. His transference of those rights shows that he was motivated by profit.

by jeffreyrogers

1/13/2025 at 3:18:49 PM

Tintin is notable in that the series was not continued by other artists after the desth of Hergé. While the estate is critized for guarding the IP too zealously, I greatly respect this decision, which is part of what makes it such a classic.

by bazoom42

1/13/2025 at 4:15:07 PM

Maybe not in the official series, though I’d love to see Al-far one finished by someone. But as far as tintin, there may not be official series, but there is a lot of new work based on it, from merch to the Spielberg movie, as bad as it was.

by bigmattystyles

1/13/2025 at 11:13:59 PM

Several fans have created their own (unauthorized) completed versions of the Alph-Art. Most famous is Yves Rodier's version from 1991.

by lcouturi

1/14/2025 at 3:52:11 AM

I’ll check it out, and thanks for the correct spelling, I was too lazy to look it up.

by bigmattystyles

1/14/2025 at 12:22:57 PM

European comics are usually done by one artist only. I can’t explain why but it’s very different from American comics where the same concept (one character with a simple background) can be derived by a hundred people.

Both are good but I guess they come from a different background and tradition. You have Joachim Phoenix playing a joker without Batman, but people would never understand why a new Tintin would have a different art style than the old one. It would be very confusing even to me.

by JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B

1/16/2025 at 2:42:05 PM

Hergé had a whole studio working on the Tintin albums though.

by bazoom42

1/13/2025 at 9:53:29 PM

There's been weights on Civit.ai [1] for months, and I just assumed this was already done and a lost cause. When I asked ChatGPT/Dall-E for an image "... in the style of Herge" it didn't do a half bad job enough for me to see the inspiration either.

[1] https://civitai.com/models/488165/herge-tintin-sdxl

by jaymzcampbell

1/13/2025 at 12:12:00 PM

I can see a difference between being allowed to publish an expired work as-is, and profit from it, vs reusing the characters for a completely different story.

by mongol

1/13/2025 at 3:23:31 PM

Right, so by that rule, someone could stage a theater production or movie of the exact text of one of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books, but could not make anything similar to the characters and relationships of Holmes and Watson. Forever.

And exactly how similar must the new production be? Can there be any deviation from the exact words written by Doyle? It seems your rule would certainly ban the excellent BBC production of Sherlock [0]

What about Shakespeare? It seems this would ban the entire writing and production of West Side Story (of course a 1950's riff on Romeo and Juilet) [1,2].

That sounds like a permanent extension of copyright, with a limited media exception.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018ttws

[1] https://www.westsidestory.com/

[2] https://www.folger.edu/blogs/shakespeare-and-beyond/west-sid...

by toss1

1/13/2025 at 10:20:21 PM

We have tons and tons of derivative works not remotely faithful to the original. The list of examples is very long. What about Roxane? What about A Fifth of Beethoven? What about all those novels with biblical inspiration? The works of H. G. Wells, and Jules Verne, and many others have been adapted endlessly.

Derivatives have to be allowed to differ markedly from the original, even offensively. As you point out, the definitions problems that arise in trying to control derivatives are intractable / inherently political rather than legalistic.

by cryptonector

1/13/2025 at 10:27:09 PM

Gawd yes, the list is ENDLESS! All of culture is new riffs on old stuff. The GP just wants to shut all that down. —Yikes!— if you don't like the new stuff, don't watch it, just re-watch and appreciate the old...

There is plenty of old art that I deeply appreciate, and see most new copy and riffing attempts as lame at best, but some are just brilliant. I don't think even the idea of shutting it down after the copyright period makes sense, even beyond the utter impossibility of drawing sensible boundaries that would not be endlessly argued...

by toss1

1/13/2025 at 10:06:02 PM

No, people have to be able to derive works from other works, especially when the latter are in the public domain. Up-thread I sardonically said to burn Picasso's Las Meninas, and I repeat that here because I think it's a good example, and I think you can probably think of many more on your own. E.g., A Fith of Beethoven vs. Beethoven's Fith Symphony -- good or bad?

by cryptonector

1/13/2025 at 12:46:11 PM

What you're seeing might be a smudge on your glasses. Legally, there is no such difference.

by Gormo

1/13/2025 at 3:14:02 PM

And legal differences are the only differences that exist, right?

by oharapj

1/13/2025 at 3:20:02 PM

In relation to something that is entirely a legal construct (i.e. copyright) in the first place? Yes.

by Gormo

1/13/2025 at 3:24:08 PM

Just because there's currently no legal basis for something does not mean that the perspective that it shouldn't happen is invalid

by oharapj

1/13/2025 at 3:43:55 PM

Copyright is a legal construct in its entirety. The perspective that there is a difference between which use cases are "allowed" for public-domain works absolutely is invalid.

If you are proposing some creating some new framework distinct from copyright for restricting the way people may adapt ideas originated by others to their own use cases, that calls for a great deal more explanation and argumentation than you've yet offered.

by Gormo

1/13/2025 at 4:22:49 PM

I fear you're failing to understand the distinction between having a perspective that something is wrong with the current system, and having all the legal answers about how to successfully encode such distinction into law. OP's comment was that that people shouldn't want there to be a legal difference.

You're also failing to understand that I am not even making a claim that there should be a difference, I'm merely pointing out that your dismissal of the artists that wish to prevent Tin-Tin from being gentrified is shallow and essentially amounts to 'that's the way things are'.

When people ask 'why is x wrong' the answer isn't usually 'because it's against the law'. This is a boring statement and sheds no real light.

by oharapj

1/13/2025 at 6:55:18 PM

Gentrified is one thing, while rule 34 is another, while. the misuse...

"One of the guys had brought a comic book porn magazine of the ******."

The current system protects the rights of the owner for a while, and the opportunity for nefarious use by trolls, while it prevents the innovation for other beneficial uses like the association with benevolent organizations.

This is not a hard problem, its a very hard problem, for which the current frameworks used to be merely inadequate, are not woefully inadequate, to the point of being very damaging to the intent of the artist, and to the artistic process.

by ForOldHack

1/13/2025 at 10:14:42 PM

This is not a very hard problem. It's not even a problem. We've got a framework for protecting the rights of content creators as to their content, and we have it that after some time those works enter the public domain because that is actually quite valuable for society.

Pornography might be a problem, specifically as to this case or even generally -- many think reasonably think it is. Pornography does generally get less protection than other contents/speech, so you could limit the sorts of pornographic contents that are ok, and you could ban pornographic parodies of historical persons and characters that have entered the public domain. You could even see an outright ban on all pornography, which would completely solve that part of the "problem" that you see. But distasteful use of works that have entered the public domain is absolutely not a problem in and of itself because we have long ago decided that all works eventually entering the public domain is a very desirable outcome.

by cryptonector

1/13/2025 at 6:01:20 PM

> I fear you're failing to understand the distinction between having a perspective that something is wrong with the current system

The problem with that perspective is that the concept of copyright originates from and only exists within that system. Copyright itself is a legal contrivance. If you want to propose some other way of doing things, you need to argue from first principles and articulate the normative assumptions that you are starting from.

> I'm merely pointing out that your dismissal of the artists that wish to prevent Tin-Tin from being gentrified is shallow and essentially amounts to 'that's the way things are'.

And I'd like to merely point out that entire concept of a cartoon being 'gentrified' is something that you and/or the people you're attributing these opinions to have just made up out of thin air, and what you're actually implicitly arguing for is creating a new type of copyright that restricts what other people are allowed to do, without offering any justification for that additional system of restrictions in any meaningful way.

Copyright, at least in the US, stems from a pragmatic desire to "promote the progress of science and useful arts", and not out of some normative notion that ideas ought to be treated like rivalrous property simply because some people have emotional attachments to them. If that latter proposition is what you're bringing into the discussion, you need to explicitly argue your case for it, and not just sneak it in like it's something everyone already understands and accepts.

by Gormo

1/13/2025 at 7:26:09 PM

I am not making this up from thin air, I actually cited a post on another server, that has an actual example. I would hesitate to post a Rule 34 example, as it would appeal to prurient interests, but I will just so I can show effective counter examples.

The original intent of the copyright law is now of little interest and little use in the onslaught of A.I.. A.I. Cannot survive without a relaxing of the copyright laws:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/08/ai-tools-...

Copyright law may have been created early on to promote progress, through profits, but now, in the wake of both the SCO Group lawsuits:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group,_Inc._v._Novell,_Inc.

I would disagree with your use of the term "Gentrification." As gentrification implies "Gentrification is a process that occurs when a community's values and profits are raised, often displacing long-time residents. The term was coined in 1964 by British sociologist Ruth Glass." raising the values... where as A.I. may just result in the perversion of the values and destroy the profits.

by ForOldHack

1/14/2025 at 3:22:38 AM

>The problem with that perspective is that the concept of copyright originates from and only exists within that system. Copyright itself is a legal contrivance. If you want to propose some other way of doing things, you need to argue from first principles and articulate the normative assumptions that you are starting from.

That's great, I'll keep that in mind next time I'm building a legal case for the artists in the attached article. Until then, I'll keep an open mind and not dismiss opinions about what should be the case on the basis of 'that's not the law'

I will say that the idea that certain works that have artistic and cultural significance shouldn't be plundered and watered down for corporate gain isn't overly complicated and fits entirely within the framework of "promoting the progress of science and useful arts". Preservation of existing successful ideas and mythology is important, and existing ideas and mythology can absolutely be ruined by new works produced by uncaring entities

Should this actually be the law? Maybe its implementation would be impossible/too messy/hurt more than it helps. I don't know. Is it good that people have opinions that go against the status quo, and should we dismiss those opinions by saying 'that's not the status quo'! Yes and absolutely not

by oharapj

1/13/2025 at 3:27:19 PM

But you haven't presented a first-principles argument for why that perspective is valid, other than saying that you can see a difference.

by airstrike

1/13/2025 at 3:42:10 PM

Actually, I didn't even state that I can see a difference

by oharapj

1/13/2025 at 3:58:08 PM

OP did, sorry. Didn't realize different folks.

by airstrike

1/13/2025 at 3:51:01 PM

Some jurisdiction have the concept of “moral rights”.

by bazoom42

1/13/2025 at 6:20:40 PM

In Europe (and Japan), training LLMs and AI "art" generators on copyrighted work is explicitly permitted. So this is doubly confusing to me, since even if it wasn't public domain, it'd still be legal to train on it.

by kmeisthax

1/13/2025 at 10:43:55 PM

In legal terms, that is not entirely correct. In practice, it is however. For now.

EU (which is not the whole of Europe) has regulation that allows a copyright owner to opt out of data mining for AI training. But the framework is incomplete: there does not exist a generally agree-upon method to actually opt out. There are a few protocols and file formats from a couple of organisation but none which has been given any official status. While a publisher may use one, a web scraper might support only another.

Japan has traditionally been quite strict on copyright law. I would not be surprised if the law would get tightened to explicitly disallow AI training on copyrighted works.

by Findecanor

1/13/2025 at 4:30:23 PM

Yes, or at least, we should prevent companies from cheapening our cultural legacy with endless tackyness, spin-offs, merchandice, advertisements, and other vulgar things.

by spencerflem

1/13/2025 at 8:06:59 PM

I agree 100%.

by eboynyc32

1/13/2025 at 11:58:17 AM

I think I understand this perspective somewhat. It's coming from a mindset where it's easier for the author to imagine the end of human civilization than it is to imagine a world without capitalism. They don't really want to keep Tintin from the common folk, but they want to keep it from the hands of greedy capitalists, and they assume that those will always be with us.

by Timwi

1/13/2025 at 5:14:32 PM

I look out my window and see the fires and the smoke and the homes lost forever. I look at Google News and half the stories are about cryptocurrency. The end of human civilization is much, much easier to imagine than the end of capitalism.

by labster

1/13/2025 at 4:27:53 PM

When capitalism falls, we can reevaluate those laws.

Both are equally impermanent ideas

by spencerflem

1/13/2025 at 5:06:29 PM

>When capitalism falls, we can reevaluate those laws.

If it falls, "we" won't get to reevaluate them, because neither of us will be allowed to express any opinion at all, let alone anything resembling political influence.

by NoMoreNicksLeft

1/13/2025 at 5:19:31 PM

I think you are confusing capitalism and democracy.

But my point stands: being against a law because it wouldn't make sense without capitalism is a silly reason to oppose something when we live under capitalism for the foreseeable future

by spencerflem

1/13/2025 at 6:25:35 PM

>I think you are confusing capitalism and democracy.

You might think that. But the kind of people who show up to tear down a system from the inside aren't very democratically oriented, even if that's the rhetoric they espouse to rile up the crowds they need to tear it all down.

by NoMoreNicksLeft

1/13/2025 at 12:49:29 PM

> it's easier for the author to imagine the end of human civilization than it is to imagine a world without capitalism

Well, yeah, it absolutely is easier to imagine civilization collapsing than to imagine it a world in which human being do not expect to benefit from their efforts. Noting, of course, that "capitalism" as you mean it doesn't really even exist in the first place, as it's just an analytical model used to describe patterns of behavior that emerge from the motivations people already have.

by Gormo

1/13/2025 at 1:01:56 PM

Duck Duck Go: end of human civilization than it is to imagine a world without capitalism

limit to last year

I get: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-civilizatio...

(The end of the world as we know it? Theorist warns humanity is .)

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/its-still-easier-to-imagine...

(It's Still Easier To Imagine The End Of The World Than The End Of ...)

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/apocaly...

(A History of the End of the World - The Atlantic)

https://medium.com/write-a-catalyst/imaging-a-world-after-ca...

(Imaging a World After Capitalism - Medium)

https://orwellsociety.com/can-we-truly-rebel/

(Can We Truly Rebel? - The Orwell Society)

Yes I think that's known.

Astral Codex is about AI, so maybe we'll get the end of the world, and the end of capitalism, and huge quantities of AI slop Tintin!

by Vecr

1/13/2025 at 3:23:17 PM

You're looking at aggregate patterns of human behavior, which originate in the pre-existing inclinations and motivations of those humans, and then trying to attribute them to some externalized, reified abstraction.

"Capitalism" construed as some entity unto itself simply does not exist. There is no "end of capitalism" that isn't itself an element of a general collapse of social organization and economic exchange.

by Gormo

1/13/2025 at 5:05:26 PM

So feudalism was a general collapse of social organization and economic exchange? Your analysis of capitalism is blinded by your obvious ideological bias

by marxisttemp

1/13/2025 at 6:08:25 PM

No, that's another abstraction. "Feudalism" is a descriptive term for a particular pattern of reciprocal obligations that was common in Western societies (though not dominant in the particular society that our own evolved from) in the past. The emergent patterns shifted, but the underlying reality -- that it all is just patterns of behavior engaged in by human beings with the same fundamental motivations and intentions -- remains. There was never an separate entity called "feudalism" just as there is no entity called "capitalism" acting as a causal agent.

And the problem here is that the things you're arguing against aren't particular to that emergent pattern -- they're the lower-order motivations that inform the underlying behavior itself.

There is no "analysis of capitalism". Your either analyzing real-life human beings or you're analyzing imaginary phantoms in your own mind.

by Gormo

1/13/2025 at 11:31:37 AM

Ahh Tintin. This takes me right back to the pre-internet era perusing the Tintin section at my school’s library. It was such a delight to occasionally come across one that I hadn’t read yet. Somehow this happened surprisingly often, I guess a bunch of us borrowers kept the series under heavy rotation.

by zol

1/13/2025 at 11:58:57 AM

Same, always a surprise to see that "book" was even there along with Asterix comics.

by tetris11

1/13/2025 at 2:54:20 PM

When both were unavailable, I had no other option to read the other books. I think I manage to devour almost all the (for kid) library back them.

by mamcx

1/13/2025 at 12:38:12 PM

In my school there was always a mad scramble every month to get first access to the latest addition to our school librarys' Tintin and Asterix sections; it resulted in many a schoolyard scrap, in fact. So much so, that our school librarian would often 'scramble' the day of the week that she'd release it into the collection .. some of us worked out that the release day of the week was simply incremented each month, however.

I vividly remember my disappointment that some of the richer kids just got their own 'subscription' to the Tintin/Asterix comics at home, and therefore often spoiled the stories for those of us dependent on the school library.

Was very non-Tintin like behaviour, I have to say .. which I eventually trumped by bringing to school a well-worn Lucky Luke collection that had been gifted to me, in order to share with the oik kids, exclusively ..

by aa-jv

1/13/2025 at 6:14:54 PM

Destination Moon - the one where Tintin goes to the moon - is an absolutely remarkable piece of science fiction, considering it was published in 1950-1953, nearly twenty years prior to the actual moon landings.

The rocket design in that one is SO iconic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Moon_(comics)

by simonw

1/13/2025 at 11:10:40 AM

The detail in panels like the Luxor (mid-article) was always my favorite part about Tintin. The world Hergé created felt lived in, but not worn out, and that was a big draw.

by rcarmo

1/13/2025 at 5:10:59 PM

Not an original, but it's in keeping with the aesthetic.

by baggy_trough

1/13/2025 at 1:20:41 PM

There is a very good documentary called "Tintin and I" (2003) [1] about Hergé's life and art. It goes quite deep into Hergé's personal life, influences, and psychology, including a dark period of his life that apparently ended up inspiring the story Tintin in Tibet (one of his best). It features some hand-animated Tintin panels that are very well done.

Looks like the whole thing is on YouTube [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_and_I

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUTwf7w7ML4

by atombender

1/13/2025 at 12:39:30 PM

Some guys I grew up with dubbed TinTin with Northern English. It's exceptionally crude, but never ceases to make me laugh.

https://youtu.be/6iV5YrLYhCA

by LilBytes

1/13/2025 at 4:06:00 PM

You know those guys? My friend and I used to come to tears to these during the old DubToons days. It's the only reason I know what a Middlesborough accent is. We still quote them!

by pvo50555

1/15/2025 at 11:06:50 AM

Aye! We went to Teeside College together. I think it's been renamed Teeside Uni now or it's something else.

Can't find it, this is going back 19 years ago now. I grew up in Hartlepool and went to college there.

by LilBytes

1/14/2025 at 5:57:00 AM

10 Tintin comics/books came as donations to my small school in a small town in India. Hardy boys were also donated but Tintin just hit the sweet spot for me.

I sometimes think it's the artsy design which feels so warm. As an 11-year-old, I was mesmerised by them. I didn't understand a ton of things Captain Haddock said with English being the 2nd language.

The adventures were sooo good. I saw the movie when it came out more than a decade ago and it brought back so many memories.

Even today, I love it's aesthetic design a lot. I discovered Asterix and Obelix when I was 17 and they had similar vibes and energy with their designs in them too.

Popular Indian comics at the time (Chacha Choudhary and others) were great too but the design aesthetic were worlds apart.

by kaushikt

1/13/2025 at 12:39:37 PM

Please correct me if I'm wrong... Tintin is in the public domain, so I can create a Tintin story where the character looks exactly like Tintin and I can call it Tintin.

But most of Herge's Tintin stories remain out of the public domain and still protected by copyright. Correct?

by glimshe

1/13/2025 at 4:08:20 PM

In Europe Copyright is the death of the author + 70 years, so until 2053. There is an exception to allow for copyright to lapse earlier if the copyright would run out in the original creator's country of origin first, to handle situations where American copyright for American authors will expire before European.

But Tintin will run out in 2053 in Europe because Herge is European.

In U.S however Tintin is public domain. You can use Tintin for things in U.S just don't try to go to Europe with it.

on edit: this applies of course to Tintin in the land of the Soviets.

by bryanrasmussen

1/13/2025 at 12:47:41 PM

I would imagine so. Hergé died in 1983, and the last finished story (Tintin and the Picaros) was published in 1973. I can't imagine its out of copyright.

The first story (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, a real stinker, this is before Tintin became Tintin) was published in 1930, in Le Petit Vingtième which was the children's edition of the newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle. The newspaper presumably had copyright to the character, but it was shut down in 1940 by the Nazis. After that, Tintin was published in Le Soir (still exists), but I have no idea how the rights transferred. From 1950 onwards, it was published by Hergé's own company.

by OskarS

1/13/2025 at 5:23:37 PM

All episodes of the 90s Tintin animated series are on DailyMotion:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x749uno

by optimalsolver

1/15/2025 at 12:48:26 AM

Brings back some great childhood memories, thanks! /

by KetoManx64

1/13/2025 at 12:01:25 PM

Very few cartoon openings have left a mark on me, but Tintin's lush opening credits paired with Ray Parker's and Tom Szczesniak's musical score and theme, still sends shivers down my spine.

by tetris11

1/14/2025 at 10:53:34 AM

If you are ever in Belgium, visit the Tintin museum in Louvain-La-Neuve (close to Brussels). It's quite nice.

by cinntaile

1/13/2025 at 11:55:00 AM

I think it's only the case that the first book has entered the public domain, not all the others, so technically you are breaking copyright if you use images from later books (as does this article).

Also copyright is not the same as a trademark, and I expect "Tintin", and perhaps the visual image of Tintin, are trademarked.

by james-bcn

1/13/2025 at 11:59:51 AM

That would be Tintin in the Land of the Soviets[0], I believe.

Hergé's depiction of black people was pretty awful, sadly. I know that many folks don't like to admit that Tintin in the Congo[1] exists.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Land_of_the_Sovi...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Congo

by ChrisMarshallNY

1/13/2025 at 12:20:58 PM

He drew caricatures that would be easy for 1930s children to identify. There are very few depictions of non-white characters in the books that aren't in same way questionable.

It's unfortunate, but a lot of literature of the time needs to be read with the general ambient racism that was sloshing around in mind.

by lexicality

1/13/2025 at 12:25:55 PM

This is true. I have a couple of DVDs of old Tom and Jerry cartoons.

There's no way those cartoons would be released, today.

by ChrisMarshallNY

1/13/2025 at 12:00:01 PM

The article is allowed to use moderate amounts of copyrighted material for illustration and commentary. In the US this is called “fair use”.

by Timwi

1/13/2025 at 12:04:46 PM

As a huge Tintin fan I find one of the interesting things about it is how few Tintin images you can find on the web. I expect that is because they have lawyers contacting sites that put up copyrighted images.

by james-bcn

1/13/2025 at 12:24:03 PM

Yes, the copyright owners are known in the fan community for being really aggressive and hunting even harmless not-for-profit fan works. Which makes me sympathize even less with the two last paragraphs in the post (not that I would sympathize much anyway).

by Al-Khwarizmi

1/13/2025 at 2:02:01 PM

Bizarre coincidence but on way back through town today on lunch break saw several volumes of Tintin in a charity shop window and took it as fate after reading this article.

by titchard

1/13/2025 at 2:01:20 PM

I am no expert, but I like the aesthetics, especially the colours, much more than the superhero comics of the time.

by Klaus23

1/13/2025 at 7:47:24 PM

I've been thinking about Tintin as well recently after seeing Elon's rockets. The concept of a young investigative journalist travelling the globe while solving mysteries and seeing wonders both natural and cultural certainly does have an enduring appeal.

by nuc1e0n

1/13/2025 at 11:55:56 AM

I grew up on Tintin. I learned French, reading him (and Asterix).

I have since, almost entirely forgotten the language :(

My favorite Tintin fan art: https://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3270528/random-cool-tinti...

by ChrisMarshallNY

1/13/2025 at 3:34:11 PM

I received 4 years of schoolboy-level French education in high-school. Totally sucked at it, and dropped it the moment I could.

I moved to France in 2007, married a French girl in 2011. I obtained French nationality beginning last year. During my first years in France it was tough, but those 4 years did come back.

A couple of years ago I also amortized 4 years of German when I had to translate our ontology into German.

My conclusion : the ROI on learning a language is better than you think. And your investment will come back to you.

If you want to top up your French, try watching Netflix in French audio, or with French subtitles (or both!). Or even better, watch some of the French shows that they now offer : Call My Agent, Lupin, etc)

by ArnoVW

1/13/2025 at 4:47:42 PM

My eldest brother hated learning French in school. Hated it. He even made a deal with the French teacher that he would pass Grade 12 French if he promised not to take it in Grade 13.

Then, in his late 20s, he was travelling the world and ended up in the French island of La Reunion (kind of like Hawaii with French food and social programs).

He married and has two children and is only now, after more than 30 years and acquiring French citizenship, is he talking about moving back to Canada.

by gramie

1/13/2025 at 3:40:07 PM

I tried watching HPI[0], but she talks really quickly. Maybe I should try again.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPI_(TV_series)

by ChrisMarshallNY

1/13/2025 at 4:33:26 PM

Yea, Spanish and French (well, Parisian) often suffer from that blight =)

Perhaps try slowing down the video?

Also, there is a French / German public broadcaster called Arte. They have amazing content (documentaries, concerts, etc). Generally things where the Words Per Minute rate is a lot lower.

https://www.arte.tv/fr/

One of my favorite shows is Karambolage. 20 minute items about French and German culture, spoken in perfect French at a leisurely speed.

https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/RC-014034/karambolage/

by ArnoVW

1/13/2025 at 3:44:58 PM

Try reading "French for Reading" by Karl C. Sandberg. It refreshed my French a lot, very quickly, and I was able to read young-adult-level fiction with a little help from a dictionary. Also, I can grok technical stuff pretty well. I get no practice at spoken French, unfortunately. We don't have a large population of speakers here.

by projektfu

1/13/2025 at 7:29:48 PM

That fan art is incredible. I would love to read those!

by pigcat

1/13/2025 at 12:13:22 PM

Thse were absolute gems at my local library when I was a kid

by Avicebron

1/14/2025 at 2:43:08 PM

tintin’s unique style and charm really stand out compared to most superhero comics. the mix of adventure and detailed settings makes it timeless

by fasten

1/14/2025 at 12:27:58 PM

Just came here to comment that I'm also introducing my childhood heroes, including Tintin, to my kids.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel that old comics focus on exploration and discovery. I grew up with the aspiration to visit those places, and I hope to pass that feeling on to my kids.

by wiradikusuma

1/13/2025 at 5:15:21 PM

I love this, but I feel sad that there's minimal presence of women or girls anywhere - it's almost entirely male.

Are women not expected to explore, discover the world, enjoy adventures, solve mysteries?

(I don't want to complain; it's just an observation.)

by fractallyte

1/13/2025 at 8:30:23 PM

It started in the 1930s, so I think the answer is no, they weren't expected to do those things. I expect it would have been very difficult to get hired as a reporter (Tintin's profession) as a women in the 1930s. Even the detectives of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers were men, despite the authors being women.

But, you're in luck, there's Yoko Tsuno [1], also by a Belgian, I believe, but started 40 years later.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Tsuno

by prewett

1/13/2025 at 10:40:06 PM

You might enjoy the Japanese TV series Miss Sherlock which uses female leads for a Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock style adventure series - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Sherlock

by rramadass