Tintin (magazine)

Early history: 1946 to 1949

Raymond Leblanc and his partners had started a small publishing house after World War II, and decided to create an illustrated youth magazine. They decided that Tintin would be the perfect hero, as he was already very well known. Business partner André Sinave went to see Tintin author Hergé, and proposed creating the magazine. Hergé, who had worked for Le Soir during the war, was being prosecuted for having allegedly collaborated with the Germans, and thus was without a publisher. After consulting with his friend Edgar Pierre Jacobs, Hergé agreed.

The first issue, published on 26 September 1946, was in French. It featured Hergé, Jacobs, Paul Cuvelier and Jacques Laudy as artists, with their mutual friend Jacques Van Melkebeke serving as editor. (Due to suspicions of incivism left over from the war, Van Melkebeke was forced to step down as editor soon after.) A Dutch edition, entitled Kuifje, was published simultaneously (Kuifje being the name of the eponymous character Tintin in Dutch). 40,000 copies were released in French, and 20,000 in Dutch.

For Kuifje, a separate editor-in-chief was appointed, Karel Van Milleghem. He invented the famous slogan "The magazine for the youth from 7 to 77". (Van Milleghem gave Raymond Leblanc the idea for the animation studio Belvision, which became the largest European animation studio, producing ten feature-length movies, including a few featuring Tintin. It was Van Milleghem who also introduced Bob De Moor to the magazine and to Hergé. De Moor became a regular in the magazine and the main artist in the Studio Hergé.)

In 1948, when the magazine grew from 12 to 20 pages and a version for France was created, a group of new young artists joined the team: the French Étienne Le Rallic and Jacques Martin, Dino Attanasio and the Flemish Willy Vandersteen.

For decades, Hergé had artistic control over the magazine, even though he was sometimes absent for long periods and new work of his became rarer. His influence is highly evident in Vandersteen's Suske en Wiske for which Hergé imposed a stronger attention to the stories, editing, and a change of art style.

The Tintin-voucher

In order to keep its readership loyal, Tintin magazine created a sort of fidelity passport, called the "Chèque Tintin" in France (Tintin-voucher) and "Timbre Tintin" in Belgium (Tintin-stamp), which was offered with every issue of the magazine, in every comic album by Le Lombard, and on many food products as well. These stamps could be exchanged for various gifts not available in commercial establishments. Other brands, mostly from food companies, affiliated themselves with the Tintin voucher system: they could be found on flour, semolina boxes, etc. A Tintin soda existed, and even Tintin shoes. The French Railways Company went as far as to propose 100 km of railway transportation for 800 stamps. Among the gifts, there were super chromos extracted from the magazine issues, or even original art.

At the time the vouchers were initiated, the magazine was selling 80,000 copies in Belgium and only 70,000 in France. Due to the success of the vouchers, the circulation in France quickly rose to 300,000 a week. The vouchers disappeared by the end of the 1960s.

The 1950s

In the 1950s new artists and series showed up:

The magazine became more and more international and successful: at one time, there were separate versions for France, Switzerland, Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands, with about 600,000 copies a week. The magazine had increased to 32 pages, and a cheaper version was created as well: Chez Nous (in French) / Ons Volkske (in Dutch), printed on cheaper paper and featuring mainly reprints from Tintin magazine, plus some new series by Tibet and Studio Vandersteen.

The 1960s

In the 1960s the magazine kept on attracting new artists. The editorial line was clearly bent towards humor, with Greg (as editor-in-chief and author of series such as the remake of Zig et Puce), Jo-El Azara (with Taka Takata), Dany (with Olivier Rameau) and Dupa (with Cubitus). Other authors joined the magazine, like William Vance (with Ringo and Bruno Brazil) and Hermann (with Bernard Prince).

The 1970s

In the 1970s the comics scene in France and Belgium went through important changes. The mood for magazines had declined in favor of albums in the late 1960s. In 1965, Greg was appointed chief editor. He transformed the editorial line, in order to keep the pace with the new way of thinking of the time. The characters gained psychological dimensions, real women characters appeared, and sex. New foreign artists series were added to the magazine. Moralizing articles and long biographies disappeared as well. These transformations were crowned with success, leading to the Yellow Kid prize at the Lucca comics festival, awarded to the magazine in 1972 for the best publication of the year. Greg quit his chief editor position in 1974.

The major new authors in the 1970s were:

And more in the humor vein:

The 1980s and 1990s

The 1980s showed a steady decline of popularity of Tintin magazine, with different short-lived attempts to attract a new audience. Adolescents and adults preferred (A SUIVRE), if they read comics at all, and younger children seemed less inclined to read comic magazines and preferred albums. Still, some important new authors and series started, including Grzegorz Rosiński, with Thorgal, and Andreas, with Rork. At the end of 1980, the Belgian edition was cancelled, leaving the French edition remaining.

In 1988, the circulation of the French version had dropped to 100,000, and when the contract between the Hergé family and Raymond Leblanc finished, the name was changed to Tintin Reporter. Alain Baran, a friend of Hergé, tried to revive the magazine. The magazine disappeared after six months, leaving behind a financial disaster. The circulation of the magazine dropped dramatically, and publication of the Dutch version Kuifje ceased in 1992, and the French version, renamed Hello Bédé, finally disappeared in 1993.

International editions

Spirou and Tintin rivalry

From the beginning, Tintin magazine was in competition with Spirou magazine. As part of a gentleman's agreement between the two publishers, Raymond Leblanc of Le Lombard and Charles Dupuis of Dupuis, if one artist was published by one of the magazines, he would not be published by the other one. One notable exception, however, was André Franquin, who in 1955, after a dispute with his editor, moved from the more popular Spirou to Tintin. The dispute was quickly settled, but by then Franquin had signed an agreement with Tintin for five years. He created Modeste et Pompon for Tintin while pursuing work for Spirou. He quit Tintin at the end of his contract. Some artists moved from Spirou to Tintin like Eddy Paape and Liliane & Fred Funcken, while some went from Tintin to Spirou like Raymond Macherot and Berck.

Main authors and series