70 Fun Facts About The Adventures of Tintin

The Adventures of Tintin were created by a cartoonist from which country?

A six-metre replica of Tintin's Moon rocket stands in the departure lounge of Brussels Airport.

What is the real name of Hergé, the creator of Tintin?

His pen name is the French pronunciation of his initials reversed: R.G.

How many Tintin albums are there in the series, counting the unfinished final one?

By 2007 they had been published in more than 70 languages and sold over 200 million copies.

What is Tintin's job?

He is seldom seen actually filing a story, and under the German occupation his role quietly shifted from reporter to explorer.

What is Snowy's name in the original French editions?

It was the nickname of Hergé's first girlfriend, Marie-Louise Van Cutsem.

What breed of dog is Snowy?

Like the Captain he is partial to Loch Lomond whisky, and his one fear is spiders.

Tintin first appeared on 10 January 1929 in the youth supplement of which Brussels newspaper?

The supplement, Le Petit Vingtième, was run by the staunchly Catholic Abbé Norbert Wallez.

Hergé wanted Tintin's debut set in the United States, but his editor ordered it set where?

Abbé Wallez wanted anti-socialist propaganda for children; the result was serialised from January 1929 to May 1930.

Which is the only completed adventure that Hergé never redrew in colour?

He began redrawing his early adventures in colour from 1942 but decided against reworking his crude first effort.

What was the name of Hergé's Scout patrol leader who became Tintin's prototype?

Hergé described Tintin as being like Totor's younger brother; the two are graphically almost identical apart from the Scout uniform.

The name of Hergé's clean, expressive drawing style translates as what?

Ligne claire uses uniform lines and flat colour with no hatching, and influenced generations of European cartoonists.

Captain Haddock's country house, Marlinspike Hall, is modelled on which real French stately home?

Hergé left off the wings, saying it was one thing for Haddock to inherit a beautiful residence and quite another to inherit a stately home.

In which album is Captain Haddock introduced?

He starts out as a weak, drunken figure and only becomes heroic once he inherits his ancestor's treasure.

What is Captain Haddock's first name?

In French he is simply Capitaine Haddock; his ancestor is Sir Francis Haddock, the Chevalier François de Hadoque.

Complete Captain Haddock's most famous curse: 'Billions of bilious blue blistering...'

The French original is 'Mille milliards de mille sabords!', a sabord being a gunport.

Professor Calculus's French name, Tournesol, is the French word for which flower?

His full French name is Tryphon Tournesol; in English he is Cuthbert Calculus.

Professor Calculus was partly based on which real Swiss physicist?

Piccard was famous for balloon flights into the stratosphere and deep dives in his bathyscaphe.

How can you tell Thomson and Thompson apart?

Thompson 'with a P' has a flat drooping walrus moustache; Thomson 'without a P' has a flared one.

Thomson and Thompson were partly based on which relatives of Hergé?

Alexis and Léon Remi took walks together in matching bowler hats carrying matching canes.

What are the detectives called in the original French?

They suffer from chronic spoonerisms and are usually bent on arresting the wrong person.

Bianca Castafiore's party piece is the Jewel Song from which opera?

She sings it at the least provocation and mangles Haddock's name into 'Paddock', 'Stopcock' or 'Hopscotch'.

In the post-war albums, Bianca Castafiore was modelled on which real opera diva?

Hergé's Aunt Ninie, known for shrill operatic singing, was an earlier inspiration.

In which album does Bianca Castafiore make her first appearance?

The same 1939 story introduced the two fictional Balkan states that reappear in later albums.

The 1939 album about a plot to steal a Balkan king's sceptre satirised which real event?

Borduria's plot to swallow its neighbour mirrors the Anschluss of March 1938.

The name of Borduria's fascist leader, Müsstler, is a portmanteau of which two dictators?

Borduria's later ruler is Marshal Kûrvi-Tasch, whose 'military advisors' meddle in San Theodoros.

The Syldavian language in the albums is really a Slavic-looking transcription of what?

Hergé gave the kingdom a history, customs and a language, and by his own admission modelled it on Albania and Montenegro.

Which Chinese art student, whom Hergé met in 1934, transformed his research and inspired the character Chang?

Hergé lost touch with him for decades until a Brussels restaurant worker turned out to be Zhang's godson in 1979.

Which Hergé album, set in Japan's 1931 invasion of China, began his serious background research?

Its seascapes show the influence of Hokusai and Hiroshige woodcuts.

The pharaoh's tomb in Cigars of the Pharaoh introduced which two recurring elements of the series?

The story was serialised weekly from December 1932 to February 1934.

Where did Hergé work during the occupation, producing six apolitical stories?

The Nazis had closed his old paper; Le Soir was allowed to continue under German management, which caused Hergé trouble after the liberation.

Which pirate's treasure do Tintin and Haddock hunt in The Secret of the Unicorn and its sequel?

The riddle was left by Haddock's 17th-century ancestor Sir Francis, and requires three model ships of the Unicorn.

In what year was Tintin's Explorers on the Moon published as an album, long before Apollo 11?

New Scientist noted Hergé's spacesuit was close to the real thing, though his V-2-style rocket was a long way off.

Tintin's Moon rocket is launched from the Sprodj Atomic Centre in which fictional country?

The rocket's chequered red-and-white design is now a Belgian icon.

Which album, created amid nightmares during his marriage break-up, was Hergé's personal favourite?

The Dalai Lama later gave the book the Light of Truth Award.

In The Castafiore Emerald, who or what turns out to have stolen the emerald?

Castafiore leaves at the end to sing in La gazza ladra, The Thieving Magpie, in Milan.

What was the last album Hergé completed, published in 1976?

Tintin and Haddock travel to San Theodoros to free Castafiore and the detectives from General Tapioca's regime.

The unfinished 24th album, released posthumously, was about which criminal enterprise?

Tintin and Alph-Art pits him against a guru named Endaddine Akass and was left incomplete at Hergé's death.

In which year did Hergé die?

The studios were disbanded three years later and their assets transferred to the Hergé Foundation.

Studios Hergé, set up in 1950 to run Tintin like a production line, was based on which Brussels street?

Bob De Moor imitated Hergé's style so well that he did half the work.

Which British comic first published Tintin in English in 1951, describing him as 'a French boy'?

The story was the one about the Syldavian king's sceptre, and Snowy still went by his French name.

Which album was entirely redrawn in 1966 after Methuen listed 131 errors of detail about Britain?

Among the fixes: making sure British police were unarmed.

Who directed the 2011 motion-capture film The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn?

Peter Jackson produced and his company Weta Digital handled the animation; the film drew on three albums.

Who played Tintin in the 2011 Spielberg film?

Brodie-Sangster had originally been cast but left during the delays; Serkis played Haddock and Craig the villain.

The acclaimed 1991-92 animated series was co-produced by Ellipse and which Canadian studio?

It stuck so closely to the books that panels were often transposed straight to the screen, and it aired in over fifty countries.

Where did the plot of the 1961 live-action film Tintin and the Golden Fleece take him?

It was based on an original script rather than an album, with Jean-Pierre Talbot as Tintin.

Which British bookshop chain, founded in 1987, took its name from a Tintin album?

It stocked lots of Tintin merchandise until Waterstone's took it over in 2006.

Where did the first dedicated Tintin shop open in 1984?

Shops followed in Bruges, Brussels, Montpellier, Singapore and the Philippines.

The Musée Hergé, opened in 2009, is in which Belgian town?

It was designed by the French architect Christian de Portzamparc with interiors by cartoonist Joost Swarte.

Which recurring villain, a criminal mastermind of many identities, first appears in Cigars of the Pharaoh?

A visual prototype of him sits among the dignitaries at a Chicago banquet in the third album.

Which South American war inspired the conflict between San Theodoros and Nuevo Rico in The Broken Ear?

Nuevo Rico's capital Sanfacion is a play on Asunción, marking it as Paraguay.

What was the first adventure Hergé chose entirely for himself, serialised 1931-32?

He used it to push an anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist line in keeping with his paper's ultraconservative ideology.

Which comics character's success in the 1960s increasingly annoyed Hergé, according to his biographers?

Commentators had begun describing Goscinny and Uderzo's Gaul as eclipsing Tintin.

Where did Hergé's Moon rocket, as drawn in the albums, take its design from?

Hergé spent months researching the two-part Moon story.

The first successful feature-length Tintin film, made in 1947, used which technique?

It was made by a small Belgian studio, and the first live-action film did not follow until 1961.

Which album is most criticised for its racist colonial attitudes and glorification of big-game hunting?

Hergé later admitted he had been 'fed on the prejudices of the bourgeois society in which I moved'.

By 2007, the centenary of Hergé's birth, Tintin had been published in more than how many languages?

Sales had passed 200 million copies, and the books had been adapted for radio, television, theatre and film.

Roughly how many copies of Tintin albums had been sold by 2007?

By then the series had appeared in over 70 languages and been adapted for radio, TV, theatre and film.

Which publisher invited Hergé in 1946 to continue Tintin in a new Tintin magazine?

Leblanc's company Le Lombard launched Le journal de Tintin; Studios Hergé later poached its best staff.

How many new Tintin albums did Studios Hergé produce for Tintin magazine?

The studios also coloured and reformatted two older albums before being disbanded in 1986.

Which butcher's phone number is repeatedly confused with Captain Haddock's?

Bianca Castafiore likewise mangles names, calling Haddock 'Paddock', 'Stopcock' or 'Hopscotch'.

What is the profession of Jolyon Wagg, the recurring character who infuriates Haddock?

Other regulars include Portuguese salesman Oliveira da Figueira and Allan, Haddock's former first mate.

Which fictional Middle Eastern country undergoes a revolution in The Red Sea Sharks?

Emir Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab and his mischievous son Abdullah rule there; the country also features in Land of Black Gold.

Most of Flight 714 to Sydney takes place on an island whose name uses which language's word for 'islands'?

Pulau-Pulau Bompa is home to the people Hergé calls the Sondonesians.

Which American writer did Hergé name as an influence, possibly leading to an error about Incas and eclipses?

Prisoners of the Sun shows the Incas ignorant of an upcoming solar eclipse.

Which two translators produced the British English Tintin editions commissioned by Methuen in 1958?

They worked closely with Hergé, and renamed Le château de Moulinsart as Marlinspike Hall.

How much did an unused Hergé cover painting for The Blue Lotus fetch at auction in 2021?

It set a record for comic art at the time.

Which studio made the first Tintin production, Hergé's Adventures of Tintin, in 1957?

Ray Goossens directed and Belgian comic artist Greg wrote it, with Raymond Leblanc producing.

The 1969 animated film Tintin and the Temple of the Sun adapted which two albums?

It was the first traditionally animated Tintin feature.

Which company provided the animation and effects for Spielberg's 2011 Tintin film?

Peter Jackson's New Zealand studio handled the motion-capture visuals.

Which two pop artists claimed Hergé as one of their most important influences?

Lichtenstein painted fragments from Tintin comics and Warhol made a series of paintings of Hergé himself.