One of the most beloved characters in all of comics, Tintin won an enormous international following. Translated into dozens of languages, Tintin's adventures have sold millions of copies, and Steven Spielberg is presently adapting the stories for the big screen. Yet, despite Tintin's enduring popularity, Americans know almost nothing about his gifted creator, Georges Remi--better known as Hergé. Offering a captivating portrait of a man who revolutionized the art of comics, this is the first full biography of Hergé available for an English-speaking audience. Born in Brussels in 1907, Hergé began his career as a cub reporter, a profession he gave to his teenaged, world-traveling hero. But whereas Tintin was "fully formed, clear-headed, and positive," Assouline notes, his inventor was "complex, contradictory, inscrutable." For all his huge success--achieved with almost no formal training--Hergé would say unassumingly of his art, "I was just happy drawing little guys, that's all." Granted unprecedented access to thousands of the cartoonist's unpublished letters, Assouline gets behind the genial public mask to take full measure of Hergé's life and art and the fascinating ways in which the two intertwine. Neither sugarcoating nor sensationalizing his subject, he meticulously probes such controversial issues as Hergé's support for Belgian imperialism in the Congo and his alleged collaboration with the Nazis. He also analyzes the underpinnings of Tintin--how the conception of the character as an asexual adventurer reflected Hergé's appreciation for the Boy Scouts organization as well as his Catholic mentor's anti-Soviet ideology--and relates the comic strip to Hergé's own place within the Belgian middle class. A profound influence on a generation of artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, the elusive figure of Hergé comes to life in this illuminating biography--a deeply nuanced account that unveils the man and his career as never before.

"Author of the critically acclaimed Tintin and the World of Hergé and the last person to interview Remi, Benoit Peeters tells the complete story behind Hergé's origins and shows how and why the nom de plume grew into a larger-than-Remi personality as Tintin's popularity exploded. Drawing on interviews and using recently uncovered primary sources for the first time, Peeters reveals Remi as a neurotic man who sought to escape the troubles of his past by allowing Hergé's identity to subsume his own. As Tintin adventured, Hergé lived out a romanticized version of life for Remi."--Jacket.

'This book is a delight ... the world is full of little surprises, momentary little fountains of pleasure and beauty, that could be visible to all of us if we learned to stop and notice as Miranda Keeling does.' Philip Pullman 'An odd, beautiful book ... Buy an extra copy to give to someone you love.' Neil Gaiman January: A man walking along Caledonian Road falls over onto the huge roll of bubble wrap he is hugging, perhaps for just this sort of situation. Inspired by her popular Twitter account, The Year I Stopped to Notice brings together Miranda Keeling's observations of the magic, humour, strangeness and beauty in ordinary life. Through the changing seasons, on city streets and on buses, in parks and cafes, Miranda notices things: moments between friends, the interactions of strangers, children delighting in the world around them, the quiet melancholy of lost items on the pavement. Accompanied by stunning watercolour illustrations from Luci Power, Miranda's poetic vignettes take us on journeys of discovery and share with us the joy of stopping to notice. September: On a sweltering, packed rush-hour train, my arm suddenly feels lovely and cool, and I look down to see a shopping bag held by the woman beside me - full of just-bought cartons of milk.

A GRAPHIC BIOGRAPHY OF TINTIN'S CREATOR by Jose-Louis Bocquet and Jean-Luc Fromental, Illustrated by Stanislas Barthélémy The Adventures of Hergé is a biographical comic about the world-renowned comics artist Georges Prosper Remi, better known by his pen name, Hergé. Meticulously researched, with references to many of the Tintin albums and complete with a bibliography and mini-bios for each of the main "characters," the biography is appropriately drawn in Hergé's iconic clear line style as an homage to the Tintin adventures that have commanded the attention of readers across the world and of many generations. Seven-year-old Hergé first discovered his love of drawing in 1914 when his mother gave him some crayons to stay out of trouble. He continued drawing in school when he fatefully met the editor of XXe Siècle magazine, where Tintin first appeared. His popularity skyrocketed from the 1930s through post–World War Two. Hergé was perceived by some to have aided the Nazi government in Belgium by continuing to publish Tintin in a government-sanctioned magazine, and he was briefly imprisoned in the aftermath of the war and narrowly escaped execution. Also covered are his marriage troubles in the 1950s and subsequent affair with Fanny Vlamynck, who went on to become his lifelong partner; his late career in the 1960s, as his interest in Tintin waned and he occasionally "disappeared" for weeks at a time as he contemplated giving up his career to become a fine-arts painter; and a recounting of a humorous encounter with Andy Warhol.

Discusses the artist's work and presents many of his unpublished drawings.

Contributions by Jônathas Miranda de Araújo, Guillaume de Syon, Hugo Frey, Kenan Koçak, Andrei Molotiu, Annick Pellegrin, Benjamin Picado, Vanessa Meikle Schulman, Matthew Screech, and Gwen Athene Tarbox As the creator of Tintin, Hergé (1907–1983) remains one of the most important and influential figures in the history of comics. When Hergé, born Georges Prosper Remi in Belgium, emerged from the controversy surrounding his actions after World War II, his most famous work leapt to international fame and set the standard for European comics. While his style popularized what became known as the “clear line” in cartooning, this edited volume shows how his life and art turned out much more complicated than his method. The book opens with Hergé’s aesthetic techniques, including analyses of his efforts to comprehend and represent absence and the rhythm of mundaneness between panels of action. Broad views of his career describe how Hergé navigated changing ideas of air travel, while precise accounts of his life during Nazi occupation explain how the demands of the occupied press transformed his understanding of what a comics page could do. The next section considers a subject with which Hergé was himself consumed: the fraught lines between high and low art. By reading the late masterpieces of the Tintin series, these chapters situate his artistic legacy. A final section considers how the clear line style has been reinterpreted around the world, from contemporary Francophone writers to a Chinese American cartoonist and on to Turkey, where Tintin has been reinvented into something meaningful to an audience Hergé probably never anticipated. Despite the attention already devoted to Hergé, no multi-author critical treatment of his work exists in English, the majority of the scholarship being in French. With contributors from five continents drawing on a variety of critical methods, this volume’s range will shape the study of Hergé for many years to come.

“If you are looking to understand a bit more about the circumstances that inspired The Adventures of Tintin—this book will provide a good snapshot.” —The BookBuff Review Hergé created only twenty-four Tintin books which have been translated into more than seventy languages and sold 230 million copies worldwide. The Real Hergé: The Inspiration Behind Tintin takes an in-depth look at the man behind the cultural phenomenon and the history that helped shape these books. As well as focusing on the controversies that engulfed Hergé, this biography will also look at his personal life, as well as the relationships and experiences that influenced him. “Tintin is more famous now than when Hergé was actually writing and illustrating his adventures. Sian Mye’s book is another in the excellent series about the real lives of our most famous authors, and is well worth a look. Brilliant!” —Books Monthly “It is certainly possible to enjoy the Tintin books without knowing Hergé. But they are more interesting after learning about this complex, sometimes frustrating, man. We can learn from him, even if we learn from his mistakes.” —Rose City Reader