Tintin trapped under glass

Musée Hergé, Louvain-la-Neuve

How best to celebrate Tintin and his creator Hergé? The question nags me throughout my visit to the museum dedicated to the Belgian cartoonist, an hour by train from Brussels.

Opened in 2013, the building alone rewards a visit. A complex and dramatic structure over three floors, it was designed by the Pritzker-wining architect Christian de Portzamparc. Walls swoop, gangways twist, and the atrium soars. Decorated in a Hergé pallet, it manages to be modern, playful and joyous without ever seeming silly. Its dramatic and unconventional fenestration must make a spectacular view at night.

The scale and ambition of the building (it cost €15m to build) clearly telegraph the museum’s approach to the plucky boy reporter, whose adventures sold at least 200 million books, and spawned (among many films) a Spielberg blockbuster.  This is Tintin’s Cathedral, a place for devoted reverence.

For true disciples, there is much to delight. Eight vitrine-packed galleries trace the life of George Remi, Tintin’s creator, whose pen name is based on an inversion of his initials. There are artefacts – his Leica, and drawing equipment, initial sketches, photo-ready artwork and much else besides. Among the larger exhibits are a life-sized model of the shark submarine from Red Rackham’s Treasure, and an actual green Citroën Type C, much like the one Thomson and Thompson abused in Land Of The Black Gold.

Those not already in thrall to Haddock, Calculus and Snowy, however, might wonder at the devotion they inspire? There is little in the museum that sets the stories within the context of twentieth century Belgium, for example. Le Vingtième, the newspaper in which Tintin first appeared, was Catholic and determinedly of the right. Most of Tintin’s escapades are imperial fantasies, and are not without racial stereotypes that today make uncomfortable viewing.

More troubling still, Tintin’s stories continued throughout the second world war, when Belgium was occupied, and Nazis controlled the press. Along with other ‘collaborators’, Remi had several challenging years after 1945 – something that is said to have deeply pained him. Exploring the backdrop against which the stories appeared might be a focus to encourage exploration, rather than just veneration.

Unpicking the tropes of derring-do could be another point of entry. Tintin shares exotic locations, foreign baddies, and serial cliffhangers with the heroes of Stevenson, Buchan, Fleming. But why are these devices such popular propellents of narrative? Interactive consideration of story structure might be a fresh route to appreciating Hergé’s genius.

The museum was created and is owned by the foundation that controls, and aggressively protects, rights in Hergé’s work. Since opening it has reportedly sought state help to support its finances. When I visited, midsummer, midweek, there can’t have been more than a dozen visitors, so it is easy to see why this might be the case?

What it lacked more than anything was the means to engage with those in the midst of actual, as opposed to revisited, childhood. Maybe that will be left to “Tintin’s immersive adventure” a touring exhibition that projects animated versions of the comics onto vast gallery walls?

Better still, perhaps, just enjoy the books and accept that the best adventures don’t take place in glass cases.