Tintin And Destination Palma

I was having a coffee one morning with a group of people, when it dawned on me that one of them bore more than just a passing resemblance to Tintin. It also happened that he was gay. Matthew Parris would have approved.

Parris, rather as he had when recommending that piano wire strung across a road should be used against cyclists, caused a stink when he claimed that evidence of Tintin's homosexuality was "overwhelming". The cycling fraternity was appalled by the threat of decapitation, for which Parris subsequently apologised. The Tintin community has been similarly outraged, or at least stirred into great debate, by the suggestion of Tintin's queerness; there is, for example, a discussion dedicated to the subject on a Tintin website - tintinologist.org.

"Hergé's Adventures of Tintin." These dramatic words once used to boom out of an old black-and-white telly, just as Jeff Tracy's "Thunderbirds Are Go" also used to excite the prospect of daring. Cartoons or puppets, they were the suspension of belief, the animation of fantasy; who cared whether there was a propagandist or prurient sub-text. It was only much later that questions started to occur, such as quite what was the deal with Tintin and Captain Haddock and what exactly did some of the Tracy boys do with themselves all day, especially John.

No one spent time analysing any hidden meaning, innuendo, political or social statements. Tintin was just Tintin, popping up all over the world and sometimes beyond, Captain Haddock and Snowy in tow, both of them out of their heads on whisky. Hergé has been variously branded as a racist, a Nazi sympathiser and an anti-Semite. The only charge that probably sticks is the first, but he has to be seen in the context of the times, not least Belgium's imperialism in the Congo. He was by no means alone: Thomson comics still had characters encountering "darkies" in the 1960s.

Tintin has endured. His quiff is as recognisable as Elvis's. He has been translated, filmed, Americanised, put on the stage, honoured by the Dalai Lama; he has opened shops, entered museums, inspired conferences and been exhibited. At the end of October he will come to Palma.

The Tintincat Catalonian association of "tintinaires" will be transporting its annual gathering to Mallorca. Palma, reeling from having been booted out of the City of Culture qualifiers for having fielded unregistered players (or something like that; they screwed up with their documentation), will be able to claim a small bit of compensation. Hergé and not heritage.

Snowys will lap up single or blended malts, Captain Haddocks will don false beards, Thomson and Thompsons will wear bowlers. Tintin in Palma. It should be splendid. I'll have to find the coffee-drinking Tintin lookalike and take him along, though, on second thoughts, at the risk of raising the same ire as Matthew Parris did, perhaps I shouldn't.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.