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 but controversial: Belgian cartoonist Herge
Auction records
The Artcurial auction "The World of Herge," held on November 20, features 122 lots, including this 1969 drawing paying tribute to the Apollo XI moon landing. Another highlight is an original ink drawing from "Tintin: Land of Black Gold." The auction record for the most expensive work of comic book art is a Herge drawing that sold for €3.2 million ($3.8 million) in January 2021.
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Cult but controversial: Belgian cartoonist Herge
The father of the 'ninth art'
If Brussels is recognized as the capital of European comics, it is thanks to the pioneering work of cartoonist George Remi, who wrote under the name Herge. In 2016 and 2017, the Grand Palais Museum in Paris held a huge retrospective on the creator of various cartoon series, including Tintin.
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Cult but controversial: Belgian cartoonist Herge
Tintin around the world
Herge is best known for creating Tintin, a young reporter traveling around the world for his work. Herge produced 24 volumes of his adventures; the last manuscript was unfinished but was posthumously published in 1986. These books, popular among readers of all ages, have been translated into more than 110 languages. Over 250 million books have been sold worldwide.
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Cult but controversial: Belgian cartoonist Herge
Pen name: RG
Born in 1907, Remi started signing his illustrations as Herge, the phonetic transcription of his initials, RG, in 1924. In 1928, he became editor of the Petit Vingtieme, a weekly supplement for the Belgian paper Vingtieme Siecle, in which the adventures of Tintin were first published.
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Cult but controversial: Belgian cartoonist Herge
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 Josef Stalin's government.
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Cult but controversial: Belgian cartoonist Herge
Belgian colonial views: '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 Herge 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 availability to children.
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Cult but controversial: Belgian cartoonist Herge
An influential Chinese friend
Even though his early books drew on stereotypes for comedic purposes, Herge was fascinated by ancient civilizations. While studying in Brussels, he met the Chinese artist Zhang Chongren, who helped Herge depict China in "The Blue Lotus." Pictured is a cover of the Petit Vingtieme, where it was first published in 1934. From then on, Herge would depict foreign societies more sensitively.
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Cult but controversial: Belgian cartoonist Herge
Landing on the moon years before Armstrong
Herge did extensive research to make his spacecraft as realistic as possible for the books "Destination Moon" and "Explorers on the Moon," initially published in 1950 as strips in the weekly "Tintin" and as volumes in 1953 — years before human space travel was achieved. Shown here is a mock-up of the rocket that appears in those stories, created by the visionary cartoonist.
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Cult but controversial: Belgian cartoonist Herge
Working for a collaborationist paper during the war
In 1940, Belgium was invaded by the Nazis. The weekly that published Herge's work was banned. The cartoonist moved on to another paper, Le Soir, which was under Nazi control. Although Herge did not collaborate actively, an interview in the Paris exhibition showed how his passivity under the occupation remained "a stain on his career," curator Jerome Neutres told news agency AFP.
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Cult but controversial: Belgian cartoonist Herge
A modern art lover
A little-known side of the cartoonist was also on show at the Herge exhibition. He was also a painter and an art collector. This photo features some of his paintings, revealing influences from artists such as Miro, Holbein and Rembrandt. However, painting remained a hobby for Herge.
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Cult but controversial: Belgian cartoonist Herge
Herge as pop art
In 1979, US pop artist Andy Warhol was commissioned by Herge to produce a series of four portraits of him. That same year, Tintin celebrated his 50th anniversary — though the reporter never aged over the years.
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Cult but controversial: Belgian cartoonist Herge
A productive career
The cartoonist was also a graphic designer. His advertising work, as seen in these posters, featured a high level of formal creativity. Beyond Tintin, Herge 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 prolific artist died in 1983.
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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