An original drawing of Belgian comic legend Tintin went under the hammer for $1.12 million (€987,000) on Saturday, Heritage Auctions told the Agence France-Presse news agency.
The drawing of the roving reporter and his dog first appeared as a supplementary illustration to Tintin in the Land of the Soviets in February 1930, and was the only one in a series of 24 comic stories by Belgian comic legend Herge to be published solely in black and white.
The drawing shows Tintin carving a tree trunk into a makeshift propeller for his plane, watched by Snowy who is covered in bandages.
The anti-communist tale, first printed in the Belgian Catholic weekly Le Vingtieme Siecle (The 20th Century), was long regarded as apart from the rest of the stories in the series, with some people questioning whether the young Tintin character was yet fully developed.
Read more: Tintin and Snowy turn 90 — haven't aged a day
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Cult cartoonist, painter and designer Hergé revealed in Paris exhibition
The father of the 'ninth art'
If Brussels is recognized as the capital of European comics, it's thanks to the pioneering work of cartoonist George Rémi, who wrote under the name Hergé. In 2016, the Grand Palais Museum in Paris opened a huge retrospective on the creator of cartoon character Tintin.
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Cult cartoonist, painter and designer Hergé revealed in Paris exhibition
Tintin around the world
Hergé is most famous for creating Tintin, a young reporter covering stories around the world. Hergé produced 24 volumes of his adventures (the last one was unfinished, however). These books, popular among readers of all ages, have been translated into 110 languages and dialects; over 250 million albums have been sold worldwide.
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Cult cartoonist, painter and designer Hergé revealed in Paris exhibition
Pen name, RG
Born in 1907, Georges Rémi started signing his illustrations as Hergé, the phonetic transcription of his initials, RG, in 1924. In 1928, he became editor of the "Petit Vingtième," a weekly supplement for the Belgian paper "Vingtième Siècle," where the adventures of Tintin were first published.
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Cult cartoonist, painter and designer Hergé revealed in Paris exhibition
First adventure: 'Tintin in the Land of the Soviets'
The first volume of Tintin's adventures was initially published from 1929 to 1930 in the weekly. In this anti-communist propaganda, Tintin was sent off to the Soviet Union with his dog Snowy, where he was hunted down by the secret police while doing research on Joseph Stalin's Bolshevik government.
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Cult cartoonist, painter and designer Hergé revealed in Paris exhibition
Reflecting on Belgian colonialism: 'Tintin in the Congo'
For his second adventure in 1931, Tintin was sent to the Belgian Congo. Shown here is a page of the album that Hergé later redrew and colored for the books published by Casterman, like all his other early works. This volume was later criticized for its racist colonial views. Countries such as Belgium, Sweden, the UK and the US tried to have it banned or restrict its access to children.
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Cult cartoonist, painter and designer Hergé revealed in Paris exhibition
An influential Chinese friend
Although his early albums drew on stereotypes for comedic purposes, Hergé was fascinated by ancient civilizations. While studying in Brussels, he met the Chinese artist Zhang Chongren, who helped Hergé depict his home country in "The Blue Lotus." Pictured is a cover of the "Petit Vingtième" where it was first published in 1934. From then on, Hergé would depict foreign societies more sensitively.
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Cult cartoonist, painter and designer Hergé revealed in Paris exhibition
Landing on the moon years before Armstrong
Hergé did extensive research to make his spacecraft as realistic as possible for his albums "Destination Moon" and "Explorers on the Moon," initially published in 1950 as strips in the weekly "Tintin" and as albums in 1953 - years before human space travel was achieved. The visionary cartoonist even created a mock-up of the rocket that appears in those stories, on show at the Paris exhibition.
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Cult cartoonist, painter and designer Hergé revealed in Paris exhibition
Working for a collaborationist paper during the war
In 1940, Belgium was invaded by the Nazis. The weekly that published Hergé's work was banned. The cartoonist moved on to another paper, "Le Soir," which was controlled by the occupiers. Although Hergé did not collaborate actively, an interview in the exhibition shows how his passivity under the occupation remained "a stain on his career," curator Jerome Neutres told news agency AFP.
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Cult cartoonist, painter and designer Hergé revealed in Paris exhibition
A modern art lover
A little-known side of the cartoonist is on show at the Hergé exhibition. He was also a painter and a collector of art. This photo features some of his paintings, revealing influences from artists such as Miró, Holbein and Rembrandt. However, painting remained a hobby for Hergé.
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Cult cartoonist, painter and designer Hergé revealed in Paris exhibition
Hergé is pop art
In 1979, US pop artist Andy Warhol was commissioned by Hergé to produce a series of four portraits of him, shown in the exhibition. That same year, Tintin celebrated his 50th anniversary - though the reporter never aged over the years.
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Cult cartoonist, painter and designer Hergé revealed in Paris exhibition
A productive career
The cartoonist was also a graphic designer. His advertising work, as shown through these posters, featured a high level of formal creativity. Beyond Tintin, Hergé was also the creator of several other characters, such as Quick and Flupke, as well as Jo, Zette and Jocko, whose adventures were told in five volumes. The productive artist died in 1983.
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Cult cartoonist, painter and designer Hergé revealed in Paris exhibition
Most comprehensive exhibition on Hergé
The exhibition titled "Hergé" was held at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, from September 2016 to January 2017. It was considered to be the most important retrospective of the artist's work, whose style inspired many other cartoonists worldwide.
Author: Elizabeth Grenier
Political thrillers
The other stories that followed, such as Tintin in America and Blue Lotus, were initially also published in black and white, but were reissued in color starting in the 1940s. They depict a smart, teenage Tintin traveling the world with his white dog Snowy, getting to the bottom of all sorts of mysteries.
Tintin's creator, Georges Remi, under the nom de plume Herge, combined well-researched plots in stories which ranged from swashbuckling adventures to political thrillers and science fiction. The stories used slapstick humor, sophisticated satire and political and cultural commentary to hook a young audience and hold them well into their teenage years.
Most of the old Tintin cover illustrations are on display at the Herge museum in Louvain-la-Neuve, near the Belgian capital.
The identities of seller and buyer of the drawing sold in Saturday's auction have not been released. Other Tintin works have also attracted big spenders to auction, with some surpassing $1.5 million.
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The comic - a success story
Mickey Mouse
Although at the time, comics were still considered the work of the devil in Germany, the first German edition of Mickey Mouse was published on August 29, 1951. Now worth thousands of euros to collectors, not even half of the original 300,000 copies were sold; the ones that went unsold were given away for free to schools or ended up in the trash. By now, Mickey Mouse is seen as a literary classic.
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The comic - a success story
Wilhelm Busch, the forefather of comics
Many experts see German illustrator Wilhelm Busch as the forefather of comics. The German artist inspired the early comic artists of New York, and later on even Walt Disney. The protagonists he created from the 1860s onwards included animal torturers, drunk priests, hypocritical nuns and two poorly behaving kids named Max and Moritz.
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The comic - a success story
Comic pioneers
An exhibition running through September 18, 2016 at the Frankfurt Art Museum, Kunsthalle Schirn, presents six predominantly US pioneers of comics, among them Cliff Sterrett (pictured: "Polly and Her Pals.") The exhibition presents the artists as "another avantgarde" creating their own art form, while anticipating later developments such as Surrealism and Expressionism.
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The comic - a success story
Newspapers equaled comic success
Comics largely owe their early success to newspapers, as decreasing paper costs and more efficient printing machines made them more accessible to a greater public in the early 20th century. Comics came to play an important role in the resulting competition between different newspapers. Sometimes, the success of a particular paper depended to a large extent on the popularity of its comics.
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The comic - a success story
A super hero is born
In 1933, at the tender age of 14, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman whom they baptized "Kal-El," which means "God is in everything" in Hebrew. But it took them five years to find a publishing house for their hero - DC Comics, which published the first edition of the series "Action Comics" in 1938. Later, at an auction in the US, a first edition was sold for 3.2 million dollars.
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The comic - a success story
Super hero boom
Superman didn't stay alone for long. Pretty soon, Batman, Captain America, Wonderwoman, The Flash and countless other superheroes and super villains were fighting each other. Among those making cameo appearances was Adolf Hitler; during World War II, Superman & Co served as a way to raise the morale of American soldiers.
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The comic - a success story
Superheroes on the screen
After the end of the war, many superheroes disappeared from the scene. Only a few permanent heroes were left to confront the aliens and criminal geniuses such as The Joker. Later, various film adaptations triggered a renewed boom for Superman & co, among them recent movies like "Deadpool," a comic figure from Marvel's "House of M".
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The comic - a success story
A choleric duck conquers fan hearts
An irritable animated duck made his debut in a 1934 animation film, nine years before he made his way into the "Walt Disney Comics." Donald Duck owes a lot of his popularity to artist Carl Barks. Over the next 20 years, Barks wrote and illustrated almost every month for Disney while creating numerous members of Donald Duck's family, including Scrooge McDuck in 1947 and Gladstone Gander in 1948.
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The comic - a success story
The Romans have lost it
Europe has produced quite a few remarkable comics in its own right. The Adventures of Asterix by French artist René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo (pictured) are among the most famous. Created in 1959, the two Gauls Asterix and Obelix play the main roles in a total of 36 original editions. Contemporary editions published today are no longer the work of their original creators.
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The comic - a success story
A reporter who travels around the world
Another world famous comic figure is Tim (Tintin), who travels around the world accompanied by his little white dog. Tintin was invented in 1929 by Belgian artist Hergé. Today, the 24 editions can be found in every bookstore. The series has even survived various accusations, including one of racism. In 2007, a Congolese student sued to stop the distribution of Tim comics in the Congo (pictured).
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The comic - a success story
Poor lonesome cowboy
Another comic star from Belgium is cowboy Lucky Luke. The guy who pulls his revolver faster than his shadow was invented by artist "Morris" to be published for the first time in the magazine "Spirou" in 1946. The first Lucky Luke album was published in 1949. Apart from the Cowboy albums, Morris also wrote 17 screenplays on Lucky Luke, among them an unforgettable movie starring Terence Hill.
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The comic - a success story
A new type of comics
At times, comics had to overcome difficult challenges, as they were seen as dumb or even as putting young people at risk. In 1977, author Will Eisner (pictured) created the term "graphic novel" which was aimed at underlining the literary character of his comics. This was a clever move, as from then on, even more conservative readers got to discover their interest in comics.
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The comic - a success story
The triumph of graphic novels
The major difference between comics and graphic novels is the fact that the latter cover an entire story and are published as books. With "Maus," Art Spiegelmann made his entrance onto bestseller lists in 1986, and was even awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 - a revolution for the world of comics. In "Maus," the American artist tells the story of his father - a Holocaust survivor.
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The comic - a success story
German comics are developing fast
In contrast to the traditional comic strongholds France and the US, there wasn't much interest in comics in Germany for a long time. By today, some German comic artists have established themselves internationally, among them Reinhard Kleist. And there is a lot of young talent as well; in 2016, Nils Oskamp published "Drei Steine" ('Three Stars') highlighting the issue of right-wing violence.
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The comic - a success story
The manga phenomenon
Mangas have long been an integral part of leisure culture in their country of origin, Japan. In Europe however, they were largely rejected until the 1990s - on account of having a reputation for featuring violent or sexist content. Thanks to TV series like "Sailor Moon" they became more acceptable. In the late 1990s, "Pokemon" triggered a manga boom in Germany, which continues today.
Author: Annabelle Steffes / ad, ct
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