Week One

How does Farr (1991) justify Tintin's appeal to adults?


According to Farr (1991) in Tintin: the complete companion he believes that Tintin’s popularity has been brought down to the different ways in which its work can be appreciated. As quoted by Herge in Farr (2001) he says that Tintin is aimed at “all young people aged from seven to seventy-seven” (p.6). Herge’s idea was not originally for the adult reader instead a comic strip for a children’s column in a catholic newspaper. Its popularity grew by creativity that Herge showed with use of adult themes and hidden messages. Farr (1991) says that the children were “gripped by the excitement of Tintin” (p.6) and the comedy, and adults enjoyed this also but could find and comprehend the additional ‘political satire and parody, puns and prescience’ present in the comic strips. Herge used current events in Tintin’s adventures which made the appeal more to adults as well as making a mockery of these events which coincided with a majority of the everyday people’s views to those events during that time. Adults may also appreciate Herge’s dedication to the visual aspects of his comic scripts with amazing attention to detail it was almost life like. The time period in which Tintin was most popular from the 1930’s up until 1980’s the child population from that time grew up enjoying Tintin and continued up through their adulthood traveling with Tintin on his journeys. If those generations of readers had not carried on that tradition to the next generation then you could say that appeal stayed with that adult generation. But more importantly I believe that Tintin had a great appeal to adults as a way of comic relief with adult interpreted ideas which were not common during its time of popularity.


References:
Farr, Michael. (1991). Tintin: the complete companion. London: John Murray.