Tintin (OT)

[Eta Beta]

LARS

>I don't know Uderzo's attitude on this in detail, but Hergé certainly
>*will* care (from the aforementioned grave). Go see the documentary
>"Tintin et moi". That movie makes it very clear why nobody but Hergé
>should make Tintin stories.

This is a very interesting matter, and maybe we can even bring it
back slightly on topic...

The peculiarity of Disney production makes this question entirely
hypothetical, of course, but what if Barks had the power of "retiring"
his own characters when he retired himself, and used it, hm ?

No more Scrooge, Gyro, Magica etc. after 1967...

Belgian genius Andre' Franquin did just about that when, at the end
of the sixties, he left Spirou, taking along with him one of the best
characters in the series, the Marsupilami. True, the Marsu later took
on a series by himself, and with nice results, too, but far from
exceptional, and as for Spirou, well, I still appreciate it, but it
never entirely recovered from the blow, imho, even though the new
authors were all pretty good.

And Franquin, whom I consider among the greatest geniuses in comics
histoy, let that be clear, also "killed" Gaston Lagaffe, which is
almost unforgivable...

Authors (non-Disney, of course) possess the right of doing whatever
they like with their characters, but do they possess the *knowledge*
that another author couldn't do as well, if not better than they did
with them ?

Think again Barks and Franquin: they took on nice characters and
made them true masterpieces, creating around them those things we
call "universes" (and rant and rave about ;-)

How could Herge' *know* some new Barkses or Franquins wouldn't be
there, ready to pick up his old characters and situations, and possibly
bring them to new heights ? Did he really had the "moral" right of
"killing" Tintin, when millions around the world had "adopted" him
through the years ?

I've read several Tintin "pastiches", or apocriphal stories if you
want, and some were VERY good, clearly done with love, devotion AND
artistic skills, maybe not as good as real Herge' but good nonetheless.
The reprise of the Blake & Mortimer series, some 20 years after Jacobs'
death, is encountering a great success of both public and critics.

On the other hand, I'm ready to admit other classics have, after their
original authors' demise, withered and dragged along unimaginatively,
think Popeye...

Well, at the end of the day I really don't have an answer myself,
maybe Herge' and Schulz were right, but the problem is that we
will never know if they were wrong...


Cheers!

Eta Beta