Word: tintin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...story sounds less and less like a CNN news brief once it's revealed that the rocket is actually bound for the moon, manned by a doddering old scientist, an alcoholic sailor, a teenage reporter named Tintin and his cockerspaniel, Snowy. No need to stop the presses--it's only the premise for Destination Moon (1959), a Sputnik-era comic book by the Belgian illustrator Herge. Tintin and his two human companions, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus, eventually touch the surface of the moon, romp about in orange space suits and endure who-knows-how-many plots to steal...
...Tintin's 21 illustrated adventures, which have been translated into over 28 different languages (including Icelandic, Catalan and Welsh), hold some claim to the title of "Greatest Children's Books Ever Written." As a child, I gobbled up these slim, multi-colored volumes like chocolate. I don't remember how I first came across them. Perhaps my parents bought one for me on a lark, or I saw them in a school library or at a friend's house. In any case, they were the perfect companion for a child who spent large chunks of his days poring over maps...
...More so than anything else I read at a young age, Tintin kindled my fascination with writing, foreign affairs and travel. The eponymous hero of Herge's series is a young newspaper journalist who travels about the world solving one scandalous affair after another (and manages to spend surprisingly zero time at the office). Opium smuggling in the Orient, counterfeiting schemes in Scotland and underwater treasuring hunting pose no problem for the resourceful Tintin. With the aid of Captain Haddock and pet dog Snowy, Tintin makes short work of the thugs and brings the ringleaders to justice...
PARIS: France's legislature would never be caught dead discussing anything as trivial as an extramarital affair. Not when it could be debating the politics of that intrepid cartoon adventurer, Tintin. On Wednesday, the National Assembly marked the 70th anniversary of the character's birth by debating his political allegiances. "It's a little tongue-in-cheek," says TIME Paris correspondent Bruce Crumley. "The Gaullists are arguing why Tintin encapsulates the virtues of center-right nationalism, while the socialists claim him for the center-left by pointing to his compassion and altruism." And then of course the traditional chorus...
...Delegates can, however, agree on Tintin as the prototype citizen of the new Europe: "He was created in Belgium and adopted by France, but in translation he has been embraced by the whole continent," says Crumley. "They see him as a European counterbalance to Mickey Mouse." As if an anti-Mickey were needed in a country that honored Jerry Lewis as a cultural treasure...