Word: herge
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Situated in Louvain-La-Neuve, a new town some 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Brussels, the Hergé Museum is a stunning piece of architecture. Designed by Pritzker Prize winner Christian de Portzamparc, its sleek concrete, steel and glass form makes it look like a stranded ocean liner, an image that deliberately echoes Tintin's many maritime exploits. Built at a cost of $20 million, and financed by Hergé's second wife Fanny, the museum reflects Hergé's huge corpus of work, much of which has, until now, been languishing largely unseen in studios and bank vaults...
...Hergé's real name was Georges Remi; his pseudonym comes from the French pronunciation of his inverted initials, R.G. He was just 21 when he created Tintin, who made his debut in January 1929 in the children's newspaper Le Petit Vingtième. The comic strip was an instant success. Readers lapped up the stories of Tintin's adventures, which Hergé filled with quick wit and rich personalities (enthusiasts say he should be recognized as a literary great). They were illustrated in a style that Hergé perfected called ligne Claire, or clear line: simple lines...
...Tintin comic strip ran for over half a century, but Hergé maintained that his boy wonder was always just shy of his 18th birthday. Ostensibly a reporter - although he is seen filing a story in only one frame in the entire 24-book oeuvre - Tintin took on various roles as detective, Boy Scout and secret agent. As time went by, he accumulated friends: along with his astute and faithful dog, Snowy, his retinue included cantankerous sailor Captain Haddock; eccentric egghead Professor Calculus; and the doltish, bowler-hatted, doppelgänger detectives, Thomson and Thompson. And his adventures took...
...Hergé rarely traveled to the far-flung places he described so vividly in stories such as Tintin in Tibet and Tintin in the Congo. But he researched fastidiously, and the museum displays some of the 30,000 cuttings from magazines and newspapers that he hoarded over the years. In one of the eight themed galleries, original artwork sits alongside photos of speeding cars, royal palaces and African witch doctors, which Hergé used for reference and inspiration. "He had a forensic dedication to accuracy," says Nick Rodwell, head of Moulinsart, the organization that runs Hergé's estate...
There is also a gallery devoted to the science of Tintin, with scale models of cartoon inventions like Professor Calculus' glorious red-and-white moon rocket; another holds examples of imaginative merchandising that Hergé himself oversaw. Together, the displays are a testament to what Michael Farr, author of Tintin: The Complete Companion, describes as Tintin's timeless appeal: "Tintin is universal. He transcends fashion, age and nationality. These are classic, inexhaustible stories, beautifully drawn, beautifully written...