Word: tintin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...surface, Tintin's moral universe is fairly simple. There's little moral ambiguity: The good guys are good, the bad are guys bad, although sometimes the good guys also turn out to be bad guys. No one acts out of mixed motives, and no evil deed goes unpunished for too long...
...when I return to these children's books with an adult eye, this world becomes a stranger and much more melancholic place. For all his glamor and gumption, Tintin is an emotionally inscrutable character. Like another eternally young character, Peter Pan, Tintin's refusal to grow up (or settle down) betrays an ineffable sadness that clings to his beige trenchcoat...
...sooner does Tintin solve one mystery than he is plunged headlong into the next--a mysterious stranger collapses at his doorstep, a treasure map is discovered, or Professor Calculus is kidnapped (once again) by shady foreign spies. Caught in a world of constant motion, there's hardly a moment for him to catch his breath before setting off again on some new adventure. The last panel of a Tintin book rarely depicts anything other than a scene of departure: we bid farewell to the boy reporter as he steams away on an ocean liner, boards an airplane or blasts...
...What keeps Tintin moving at this relentless pace? The young reader takes it for granted that Tintin will always be on the move, just as he assumes that the Hardy Boys will always be on the trail of one more mystery. But for the grownup reader, it's difficult not to interpret Tintin's constant motion as an evasion of mortality. Tintin's metabolism, like that of all other children's book characters, is governed by a simple law: Stop moving and you grow old and die. Archie and Jughead keep driving around suburbia for the very reason that once...
...Hence Tintin's mysterious age. He's evidently not a grownup, but not quite a boy either. All the tell-tale signs of puberty, such as facial hair and acne, are strangely absent. His skin is as baby-smooth in "The Blue Lotus" (set in 1930s Shanghai) as it is in his final adventure, "Tintin and The Picaros" (set in 1970s Latin America). Forty years without a single zit or wrinkle! That's as amazing an ability as Superman's X-ray vision...