Grrrrr! Who are you? What do you want?
You're a reporter? I guess that's all right. I thought you were a member of the accursed Mossad. Those people never forget. Look at what they did to poor Eichmann.
You want to know what Tintin is really like? You've come to the right place. I've been with him since the beginning. Forget about Captain Haddock--he's a hopeless alcoholic. The Thompson twins? Don't make me laugh--they're synonymous with imbeciles. Professor Calculus? There's a picture of him in Wikipedia next to "absentminded."
And of course Tintin is the worst of all to ask. Totally empty-headed, that one. No interior life. Strictly a man of action. I recruited him for his looks, not his brains. Blond hair, blue eyes, white skin--the Aryan ideal. Now if we could only do something about those atrocious golf pants,
Those were heady days back in the1930s. We thought we were going to rule the world. All we needed was a spokesman, a charismatic leader who would move the masses. Spain had Franco, Italy had Mussolini, Germany had Hitler, but Belgium was still searching. Fate made me a small, furry quadruped--cute, but not inspiring. But in Tintin I found the perfect mouthpiece.
I also found the perfect cartoonist to capture Tintin's adventures for the semi-illiterate masses: Georges Remi. Better known by his nom de guerre, Hergé. Hergé's style--simple, straight lines, obsessively realistic details--perfectly harmonized with the Nazi aesthetic. None of that decadent Jewish impressionism, cubism, or abstractionism.
Under my guidance, Hergé drew such early Tintin classics as Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1930), about the global Communist/Zionist conspiracy, Tintin in the Congo (1931), about the benefits of colonization, and The Shooting Star (1942), about the glorious Axis powers. (The bad guys in The Shooting Star are the Allies, led, of course, by an evil, big-nosed Jew named Blumenstein.) These were first published in serialized form in Le Petit Vingtième or Le Soir, good Belgian fascist newspapers.
Then disaster struck: the Nazis lost the war. We had to go underground. It was ruff! Hergé redrew the strips from that period, removing the most offensive--and potentially treasonous---images and language. After the war, he was investigated four times for collaboration, but never convicted. He wisely played dumb. He claimed he was apolitical--apolitical during World War II!--and compared cartooning with bricklaying: "I was only laying bricks." (The embarrassing fact that those bricks were used to build concentration camps didn't come up.)
But we never lost sight of our true agenda. We didn't just roll over and play dead. We revived a villain from the good old days: Roberto Rastapopoulos, who first appeared in Cigar of the Pharaohs (1934). Rastapopoulos was ostensibly Greek, but he was described as a "Hollywood producer" (wink, wink). He was also a secret drug dealer and arms merchant (more winks). Our message was still there, if one only knew where to look.
Tintin went on to become one of the most popular comics in the world. There were books, t-shirts, cartoons, toys, action figures, lookalike contests, theme parks...We were rolling in Belgian francs. We no longer had to sit up and beg for funding.
Now time--not the Mossad--was our enemy. We all get older. (Everyone except me--in addition to being a talking dog, I am also immortal.) Captain Haddock died of cirrhosis of the liver. The Thompson twins formed a new wave band. Professor Calculus went to work for DARPA.
Tintin became a hairdresser. For a while, his signature quiff was all the rage. (Of course, this increased the rumors about his sexual orientation. There are no major female characters in Tintin except annoying opera singer Bianca Castafiore. And she's a transvestite.)
And Hergé...Hergé was my greatest disappointment. He left fascism for Taoism (Tintin in Tibet, 1960). He left his wife for a much younger woman (Tintin and the Trophy Wife, 1977). He died peacefully in bed at the ripe old age of seventy-five, having never repudiated our collaboration. We cut off his head and preserved it cryogenically, à la Disney.
But I never lost heart. Boston terriers are known for their faithfulness. I knew someday we would rise again, like the Third Reich. But I never expected the catalyst: Steven Spielberg. Yes, that Steven Spielberg. Mr. Schindler's List, Mr. Saving Private Ryan. He bought the rights to Tintin in 1983, in between Indiana Jones movies.
Speak about life imitating art! I wonder if Spielberg, who I have on good authority is a Hollywood Jew--not unlike Rastapopoulos!--knows he is working for the Nazis? It makes me want to piddle with excitement! (No word on whether Spielberg is a secret drug smuggler or arms merchant. But one can always hope.)
Peter Jackson, Mr. Lord of the Rings, is producing. He is using the same "mocap" technology he used to animate Gollum. (My favorite character in LOTR; he reminds me of me.) Critics complain that the characters look like zombies, neither entirely alive nor entirely dead. But I think that is perfect for Tintin; after all, it is perpetuating an ideology that is neither entirely alive nor entirely dead.
The movie opens in the United States December 23rd, right before Christmas. Excellent! Nothing says Merry Christmas like cartoon undead zombie Nazis. A whole new generation of Tintin fans will arise. Sieg heil! Tintin! Tintin über alles!
Author's note: At this point in the interview, Snowy started foaming at the mouth like a mad dog and had to be put down.
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Valerie Atherton
kenneth houck
Mara Shapshay
Snowden
EdTraceyinHomer
Erica K
Salon.com
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