Tintinologists worldwide are taking up their plumes and wishing many happy returns to a 14-year-old boy who first set out on his adventures on 10 January 1929 in the serialization of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets in the Le Petit Vingtieme, Le Vingtième Siècle’s supplement for young readers.
Since then Hergé’s cub reporter and his dog Snowy have become a worldwide phenomena – General Charles de Gaulle “considered Tintin his only international rival” and by the time of the centenary of Hergé’s birth in 2007, Tintin had been published in more than 70 languages with sales of more than 200 million copies.
The Tintin brand was recently given a serious boost with the release of Steven Spielberg’s motion capture 3D film The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011).
Walk the streets of Brussels and you will find the boy with the quiff painted on walls, metro stations and taking up pride of the place in the Comic Book Centre. And if you’re a seriously dedicated fan get yourself along tomorrow 11 January to Brussels Ice Magic, which is dominated by ice sculptures of comic book characters. They will be throwing a party for Tintin – visitors dressed up as one of the famous characters from the Tintin albums or showing up with their own Snowy (white fox terrier) will get free admission. In addition, the visitors showing up between 11:00 am and 1:00pm have the chance to win Tintin prizes!
Brussels Ice Magic
Place des Palais from 20 December to 9 February 2014
