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Celebrating the timeless allure of Tintin's aesthetics
- rcarmo 2y agoThe detail in panels like the Luxor (mid-article) was always my favorite part about Tintin. The world Hergé created felt lived in, but not worn out, and that was a big draw.
- baggy_trough 2y agoNot an original, but it's in keeping with the aesthetic.
- eadmund 2y ago> Artists in Europe have already been fighting to protect the copyright of Tintin to keep the artwork away from large language models (LLMs) training various AI algorithms. There is no copyright in the character anymore, so there’s nothing to protect. I really do not understand this perspective. Do people also wish to use legal force to prevent others from working with, for example, Gainsborough, or Moliere, or Julius Caesar, or Homer? Come on: at some point something has to enter the public domain and become part of the shared treasure of all mankind.
- Timwi 2y agoI think I understand this perspective somewhat. It's coming from a mindset where it's easier for the author to imagine the end of human civilization than it is to imagine a world without capitalism. They don't really want to keep Tintin from the common folk, but they want to keep it from the hands of greedy capitalists, and they assume that those will always be with us.
- Gormo 2y ago> it's easier for the author to imagine the end of human civilization than it is to imagine a world without capitalism Well, yeah, it absolutely is easier to imagine civilization collapsing than to imagine it a world in which human being do not expect to benefit from their efforts. Noting, of course, that "capitalism" as you mean it doesn't really even exist in the first place, as it's just an analytical model used to describe patterns of behavior that emerge from the motivations people already have.
- Vecr 2y agoDuck Duck Go: end of human civilization than it is to imagine a world without capitalism limit to last year I get: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-civilization-collapse-world-end-apocalypse-b2665336.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-civilizatio... (The end of the world as we know it? Theorist warns humanity is .) https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/its-still-easier-to-imagine-the-end https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/its-still-easier-to-imagine... (It's Still Easier To Imagine The End Of The World Than The End Of ...) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/apocalypse-stories-allure-dorian-lynskey-glenn-adamson/681097/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/apocaly... (A History of the End of the World - The Atlantic) https://medium.com/write-a-catalyst/imaging-a-world-after-capitalism-1e966b2952f0 https://medium.com/write-a-catalyst/imaging-a-world-after-ca... (Imaging a World After Capitalism - Medium) https://orwellsociety.com/can-we-truly-rebel/ https://orwellsociety.com/can-we-truly-rebel/ (Can We Truly Rebel? - The Orwell Society) Yes I think that's known. Astral Codex is about AI, so maybe we'll get the end of the world, and the end of capitalism, and huge quantities of AI slop Tintin!
- Gormo 2y agoYou're looking at aggregate patterns of human behavior, which originate in the pre-existing inclinations and motivations of those humans, and then trying to attribute them to some externalized, reified abstraction. "Capitalism" construed as some entity unto itself simply does not exist. There is no "end of capitalism" that isn't itself an element of a general collapse of social organization and economic exchange.
- marxisttemp 2y agoSo feudalism was a general collapse of social organization and economic exchange? Your analysis of capitalism is blinded by your obvious ideological bias
- Gormo 2y agoNo, that's another abstraction. "Feudalism" is a descriptive term for a particular pattern of reciprocal obligations that was common in Western societies (though not dominant in the particular society that our own evolved from) in the past. The emergent patterns shifted, but the underlying reality -- that it all is just patterns of behavior engaged in by human beings with the same fundamental motivations and intentions -- remains. There was never an separate entity called "feudalism" just as there is no entity called "capitalism" acting as a causal agent. And the problem here is that the things you're arguing against aren't particular to that emergent pattern -- they're the lower-order motivations that inform the underlying behavior itself. There is no "analysis of capitalism". Your either analyzing real-life human beings or you're analyzing imaginary phantoms in your own mind.
- spencerflem 2y agoWhen capitalism falls, we can reevaluate those laws. Both are equally impermanent ideas
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago>When capitalism falls, we can reevaluate those laws. If it falls, "we" won't get to reevaluate them, because neither of us will be allowed to express any opinion at all, let alone anything resembling political influence.
- spencerflem 2y agoI think you are confusing capitalism and democracy. But my point stands: being against a law because it wouldn't make sense without capitalism is a silly reason to oppose something when we live under capitalism for the foreseeable future
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago>I think you are confusing capitalism and democracy. You might think that. But the kind of people who show up to tear down a system from the inside aren't very democratically oriented, even if that's the rhetoric they espouse to rile up the crowds they need to tear it all down.
- labster 2y agoI look out my window and see the fires and the smoke and the homes lost forever. I look at Google News and half the stories are about cryptocurrency. The end of human civilization is much, much easier to imagine than the end of capitalism.
- fnordian_slip 2y agoWhile I don't have a dog in that fight, describing the opponents position as being against Tintin "becom[ing] part of the shared treasure of all mankind" seems rather unfairly dismissive. I would expect that most of those artists don't mind the journey into public domain. Rather, the are against large corporations hoovering up that treasure and regurgitating it with a profit motive.
- Gormo 2y agoSo they don't mind work entering the public domain, but they do mind people making use of that work in an organized way after it has? Seems a bit strange.
- tokioyoyo 2y agoIt’s not strange if you think how the worth of the images have plummeted down to zero, both emotionally and monetarily, in the last few years. I’m not an artist, nor directly in AI field, but it is weird how I have zero emotional response to any image I see, because I think it might be AI generated.
- kouru225 2y agothe fact that you can’t enjoy a good image or not without wondering whether or not it’s an AI image is the problem here; not the AI
- mihaic 2y agoLLMs are not people, and some organized way are worse than others, yes. In the same way we defined "fair use" for those reviewing a movie for instance to be ok, but we don't find it acceptable to put 99% of the movie with a single comment.
- Gormo 2y agoLLMs are tools used by people, like typewriters, paintbrushes, and other types of algorithm. If a work is in the public domain, that means that people are free to copy it, redistribute it, modify it, and create derivative works from it, using whatever tools suit them.
- mongol 2y agoI can see a difference between being allowed to publish an expired work as-is, and profit from it, vs reusing the characters for a completely different story.
- Gormo 2y agoWhat you're seeing might be a smudge on your glasses. Legally, there is no such difference.
- oharapj 2y agoAnd legal differences are the only differences that exist, right?
- bazoom42 2y agoTintin is notable in that the series was not continued by other artists after the desth of Hergé. While the estate is critized for guarding the IP too zealously, I greatly respect this decision, which is part of what makes it such a classic.
- bigmattystyles 2y agoMaybe not in the official series, though I’d love to see Al-far one finished by someone. But as far as tintin, there may not be official series, but there is a lot of new work based on it, from merch to the Spielberg movie, as bad as it was.
- lcouturi 2y agoSeveral fans have created their own (unauthorized) completed versions of the Alph-Art. Most famous is Yves Rodier's version from 1991.
- bigmattystyles 2y agoI’ll check it out, and thanks for the correct spelling, I was too lazy to look it up.
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y agoEuropean comics are usually done by one artist only. I can’t explain why but it’s very different from American comics where the same concept (one character with a simple background) can be derived by a hundred people. Both are good but I guess they come from a different background and tradition. You have Joachim Phoenix playing a joker without Batman, but people would never understand why a new Tintin would have a different art style than the old one. It would be very confusing even to me.
- bazoom42 2y agoHergé had a whole studio working on the Tintin albums though.
- GuB-42 2y agoIn Europe, Tintin is under copyright until 2053 (death + 70 years). And the rightsholders (Tintinimaginatio, previously Moulinsart) are very aggressive about it, even more so than Disney. They don't have the lobbying power of Disney, but they are going to do everything in their power to protect and possibly overstep their rights. It includes using trademark laws and publishing new Tintin adventures against the will of the original author as an attempt to renew their copyright.
- jeffreyrogers 2y agoIf he sold his rights then it's not really against his wishes anymore.
- swores 2y agoHe died. So pedantically you can say he doesn't have any wishes any more, but it's clear they meant that it's against what he wanted when alive.
- jeffreyrogers 2y agoWell he chose not to make those wishes known in his will apparently, or in any of the contracts which assigned his IP to others.
- bazoom42 2y agoHe did. Hergé wished that the series should not be continued after his death.
- andrepd 2y agoSilly me, I thought there was ethics beyond The Profit Motive.
- jeffreyrogers 2y agoThe author owns the copyright unless they transfer it. His transference of those rights shows that he was motivated by profit.
- spencerflem 2y agoYes, or at least, we should prevent companies from cheapening our cultural legacy with endless tackyness, spin-offs, merchandice, advertisements, and other vulgar things.
- kmeisthax 2y agoIn Europe (and Japan), training LLMs and AI "art" generators on copyrighted work is explicitly permitted. So this is doubly confusing to me, since even if it wasn't public domain, it'd still be legal to train on it.
- Findecanor 2y agoIn legal terms, that is not entirely correct. In practice, it is however. For now. EU (which is not the whole of Europe) has regulation that allows a copyright owner to opt out of data mining for AI training. But the framework is incomplete: there does not exist a generally agree-upon method to actually opt out. There are a few protocols and file formats from a couple of organisation but none which has been given any official status. While a publisher may use one, a web scraper might support only another. Japan has traditionally been quite strict on copyright law. I would not be surprised if the law would get tightened to explicitly disallow AI training on copyrighted works.
- eboynyc32 2y agoI agree 100%.
- jaymzcampbell 2y agoThere's been weights on Civit.ai [1] for months, and I just assumed this was already done and a lost cause. When I asked ChatGPT/Dall-E for an image "... in the style of Herge" it didn't do a half bad job enough for me to see the inspiration either. [1] https://civitai.com/models/488165/herge-tintin-sdxl https://civitai.com/models/488165/herge-tintin-sdxl
- zol 2y agoAhh Tintin. This takes me right back to the pre-internet era perusing the Tintin section at my school’s library. It was such a delight to occasionally come across one that I hadn’t read yet. Somehow this happened surprisingly often, I guess a bunch of us borrowers kept the series under heavy rotation.
- tetris11 2y agoSame, always a surprise to see that "book" was even there along with Asterix comics.
- mamcx 2y agoWhen both were unavailable, I had no other option to read the other books. I think I manage to devour almost all the (for kid) library back them.
- aa-jv 2y agoIn my school there was always a mad scramble every month to get first access to the latest addition to our school librarys' Tintin and Asterix sections; it resulted in many a schoolyard scrap, in fact. So much so, that our school librarian would often 'scramble' the day of the week that she'd release it into the collection .. some of us worked out that the release day of the week was simply incremented each month, however. I vividly remember my disappointment that some of the richer kids just got their own 'subscription' to the Tintin/Asterix comics at home, and therefore often spoiled the stories for those of us dependent on the school library. Was very non-Tintin like behaviour, I have to say .. which I eventually trumped by bringing to school a well-worn Lucky Luke collection that had been gifted to me, in order to share with the oik kids, exclusively ..
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoI grew up on Tintin. I learned French, reading him (and Asterix). I have since, almost entirely forgotten the language :( My favorite Tintin fan art: https://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3270528/random-cool-tintin-done-h-p-lovecraft-style/ https://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3270528/random-cool-tinti...
- ArnoVW 2y agoI received 4 years of schoolboy-level French education in high-school. Totally sucked at it, and dropped it the moment I could. I moved to France in 2007, married a French girl in 2011. I obtained French nationality beginning last year. During my first years in France it was tough, but those 4 years did come back. A couple of years ago I also amortized 4 years of German when I had to translate our ontology into German. My conclusion : the ROI on learning a language is better than you think. And your investment will come back to you. If you want to top up your French, try watching Netflix in French audio, or with French subtitles (or both!). Or even better, watch some of the French shows that they now offer : Call My Agent, Lupin, etc)
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoI tried watching HPI[0], but she talks really quickly. Maybe I should try again. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPI_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPI_(TV_series)
- ArnoVW 2y agoYea, Spanish and French (well, Parisian) often suffer from that blight =) Perhaps try slowing down the video? Also, there is a French / German public broadcaster called Arte. They have amazing content (documentaries, concerts, etc). Generally things where the Words Per Minute rate is a lot lower. https://www.arte.tv/fr/ https://www.arte.tv/fr/ One of my favorite shows is Karambolage. 20 minute items about French and German culture, spoken in perfect French at a leisurely speed. https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/RC-014034/karambolage/ https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/RC-014034/karambolage/
- 2y ago
- james-bcn 2y agoI think it's only the case that the first book has entered the public domain, not all the others, so technically you are breaking copyright if you use images from later books (as does this article). Also copyright is not the same as a trademark, and I expect "Tintin", and perhaps the visual image of Tintin, are trademarked.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoThat would be Tintin in the Land of the Soviets[0], I believe. Hergé's depiction of black people was pretty awful, sadly. I know that many folks don't like to admit that Tintin in the Congo[1] exists. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Land_of_the_Soviets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Land_of_the_Sovi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Congo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Congo
- lexicality 2y agoHe drew caricatures that would be easy for 1930s children to identify. There are very few depictions of non-white characters in the books that aren't in same way questionable. It's unfortunate, but a lot of literature of the time needs to be read with the general ambient racism that was sloshing around in mind.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoThis is true. I have a couple of DVDs of old Tom and Jerry cartoons. There's no way those cartoons would be released, today.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoCome to think of it, Asterix wasn't really any better[0]. There just weren't so many black people to show. [0] https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/asterix/images/b/ba/The_main_pirate_trio.JPG https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/asterix/images/b/ba/The_ma...
- 2y ago
- exhilaration 2y agoThanks to a Hacker News comment, my kids, ages 7-13. Have been watching an episode of Tintin from the internet archive every week, and they love it. Link: https://archive.org/details/tintinseries43 https://archive.org/details/tintinseries43
- rramadass 2y agoGet them the comic books; they are well worth the money. The stories, the imagination, the artwork, the language, the settings across the world, the spirit of exploration all together fires one's mind. They are some of the best comics ever written. Here they are: 1) https://archive.org/details/01TintinInTheLandOfTheSoviets/01_Tintin_in_the_Land_of_the_Soviets/ https://archive.org/details/01TintinInTheLandOfTheSoviets/01... 2) https://readtintin.blogspot.com/ https://readtintin.blogspot.com/ PS: Also Asterix comics - https://readasterix.blogspot.com/ https://readasterix.blogspot.com/
- OskarS 2y agoI would say: skip the early ones. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and especially Tintin in the Congo are outrageously bad (Tintin in the Congo is horrendously racist). Tintin didn't really become the Tintin we know and love until Blue Lotus, though Cigars of the Pharaoh is still readable. Like, the parts of Tintin that capture the imagination, the world travel, the realistic depiction of different cultures, the great adventure stories, all of that starts with Blue Lotus. When people criticize Tintin for being racist, what they're really criticizing are those early stories. In the later stories, the ones that everyone falls in love with, Hergé went to enormous trouble to depict cultures accurately, gathering huge amounts of references to depict everything accurately (you see that in this article, with the image from Blue Lotus). In these stories, almost without exception, Tintin is the champion of colonized and oppressed peoples, and the stories hold up extremely well.
- rramadass 2y agoRight. Wikipedia as usual has the details - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin#Contr... Note: The archive.org collection has some parodies and pastiches which are decidedly not meant for children - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin#Parody_and_pastiche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin#Parod...
- tetris11 2y agoVery few cartoon openings have left a mark on me, but Tintin's lush opening credits paired with Ray Parker's and Tom Szczesniak's musical score and theme, still sends shivers down my spine.
- Avicebron 2y agoThse were absolute gems at my local library when I was a kid
- Al-Khwarizmi 2y agoNice post about Tintin, one of my top childhood influences. I have a new edition of all the albums (much better than mine) unopened and ready for when my kid grows enough. The TV show wasn't so good IMHO - of course the narrative was great because it came from the comics, but animation quality was just so-so, or at least that's how I remember it. If you liked Tintin and long for more comics of the same kind, I recommend you to try Blake and Mortimer. They're different (e.g. with a more serious and wordy style, hardly any comical gags, but also with more fantastic elements). But they are the closest I know, and in some aspects even better (I personally prefer them although I'm aware it's due to very subjective factors, most people would still rank Tintin higher overall and Blake and Mortimer don't have such a universal acclaim). The only thing I dislike about the post is the gratuitous rant on AI at the end. It is great news that Tintin joins the public domain. Especially great because it's one of these cases where the owners have been especially abusive, chasing fan efforts done as a labor of love, lest they harm their sales of overpriced merchandising. Why exactly should be worry about people generating AI images of Tintin? What is the harm done? We know what the original albums are, they will probably be preserved as long as there is human civilization (despite copyright, not thanks to it), and we can freely decide if we also want to read/watch/see derivative works (and which) or not. I just don't see the problem at all.
- svl7 2y agoWhat also comes to mind is Yoko Tsuno [1]. I'm not sure how well known this is in the US. The creator Roger Leloup was supporting Hegré on the technical drawings. For people who like the 'ligne claire' style, definitely check it out. The science fiction aspect of it might appeal to the audience on HN. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Tsuno https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Tsuno
- Al-Khwarizmi 2y agoHad never heard of it (in spite of being European, not from the US) and it looks like my cup of tea, so definitely will check it out.
- rcarmo 2y ago
- LilBytes 2y agoSome guys I grew up with dubbed TinTin with Northern English. It's exceptionally crude, but never ceases to make me laugh. https://youtu.be/6iV5YrLYhCA https://youtu.be/6iV5YrLYhCA
- pvo50555 2y agoYou know those guys? My friend and I used to come to tears to these during the old DubToons days. It's the only reason I know what a Middlesborough accent is. We still quote them!
- LilBytes 2y agoAye! We went to Teeside College together. I think it's been renamed Teeside Uni now or it's something else. Can't find it, this is going back 19 years ago now. I grew up in Hartlepool and went to college there.
- glimshe 2y agoPlease correct me if I'm wrong... Tintin is in the public domain, so I can create a Tintin story where the character looks exactly like Tintin and I can call it Tintin. But most of Herge's Tintin stories remain out of the public domain and still protected by copyright. Correct?
- OskarS 2y agoI would imagine so. Hergé died in 1983, and the last finished story (Tintin and the Picaros) was published in 1973. I can't imagine its out of copyright. The first story (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, a real stinker, this is before Tintin became Tintin) was published in 1930, in Le Petit Vingtième which was the children's edition of the newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle. The newspaper presumably had copyright to the character, but it was shut down in 1940 by the Nazis. After that, Tintin was published in Le Soir (still exists), but I have no idea how the rights transferred. From 1950 onwards, it was published by Hergé's own company.
- bryanrasmussen 2y agoIn Europe Copyright is the death of the author + 70 years, so until 2053. There is an exception to allow for copyright to lapse earlier if the copyright would run out in the original creator's country of origin first, to handle situations where American copyright for American authors will expire before European. But Tintin will run out in 2053 in Europe because Herge is European. In U.S however Tintin is public domain. You can use Tintin for things in U.S just don't try to go to Europe with it. on edit: this applies of course to Tintin in the land of the Soviets.
- atombender 2y agoThere is a very good documentary called "Tintin and I" (2003) [1] about Hergé's life and art. It goes quite deep into Hergé's personal life, influences, and psychology, including a dark period of his life that apparently ended up inspiring the story Tintin in Tibet (one of his best). It features some hand-animated Tintin panels that are very well done. Looks like the whole thing is on YouTube [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_and_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_and_I [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUTwf7w7ML4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUTwf7w7ML4
- rramadass 2y ago> the story Tintin in Tibet (one of his best) The Dalai Lama himself bestowed an award on the Herge Foundation for this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin#Awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin#Award...
- Klaus23 2y agoI am no expert, but I like the aesthetics, especially the colours, much more than the superhero comics of the time.
- titchard 2y agoBizarre coincidence but on way back through town today on lunch break saw several volumes of Tintin in a charity shop window and took it as fate after reading this article.
- fractallyte 2y agoI love this, but I feel sad that there's minimal presence of women or girls anywhere - it's almost entirely male. Are women not expected to explore, discover the world, enjoy adventures, solve mysteries? (I don't want to complain; it's just an observation.)
- prewett 2y agoIt started in the 1930s, so I think the answer is no, they weren't expected to do those things. I expect it would have been very difficult to get hired as a reporter (Tintin's profession) as a women in the 1930s. Even the detectives of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers were men, despite the authors being women. But, you're in luck, there's Yoko Tsuno [1], also by a Belgian, I believe, but started 40 years later. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Tsuno https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Tsuno
- rramadass 2y agoYou might enjoy the Japanese TV series Miss Sherlock which uses female leads for a Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock style adventure series - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Sherlock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Sherlock
- optimalsolver 2y agoAll episodes of the 90s Tintin animated series are on DailyMotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x749uno https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x749uno
- KetoManx64 2y agoBrings back some great childhood memories, thanks! /
- simonw 2y agoDestination Moon - the one where Tintin goes to the moon - is an absolutely remarkable piece of science fiction, considering it was published in 1950-1953, nearly twenty years prior to the actual moon landings. The rocket design in that one is SO iconic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Moon_(comics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Moon_(comics)
- nuc1e0n 2y agoI've been thinking about Tintin as well recently after seeing Elon's rockets. The concept of a young investigative journalist travelling the globe while solving mysteries and seeing wonders both natural and cultural certainly does have an enduring appeal.
- kaushikt 2y ago10 Tintin comics/books came as donations to my small school in a small town in India. Hardy boys were also donated but Tintin just hit the sweet spot for me. I sometimes think it's the artsy design which feels so warm. As an 11-year-old, I was mesmerised by them. I didn't understand a ton of things Captain Haddock said with English being the 2nd language. The adventures were sooo good. I saw the movie when it came out more than a decade ago and it brought back so many memories. Even today, I love it's aesthetic design a lot. I discovered Asterix and Obelix when I was 17 and they had similar vibes and energy with their designs in them too. Popular Indian comics at the time (Chacha Choudhary and others) were great too but the design aesthetic were worlds apart.
- cinntaile 2y agoIf you are ever in Belgium, visit the Tintin museum in Louvain-La-Neuve (close to Brussels). It's quite nice.
- wiradikusuma 2y agoJust came here to comment that I'm also introducing my childhood heroes, including Tintin, to my kids. Maybe it's just me, but I feel that old comics focus on exploration and discovery. I grew up with the aspiration to visit those places, and I hope to pass that feeling on to my kids.
- fasten 2y agotintin’s unique style and charm really stand out compared to most superhero comics. the mix of adventure and detailed settings makes it timeless