‘Tintin’ First Cover from 1939 Sold for $ 1.1 Million
The illustration was drawn by the creator of ‘Tintin’, Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi who is known by his pseudonym ‘Herge’.
The original drawing used for the first published “Tintin” cover was sold at an auction recently for $1.12 million by the Heritage Auctions house in Dallas. The identities of both the seller and the buyer were not officially released. Other Tintin works have also drawn big attention at the auction, with some even surpassed $1.5 million.
The illustration was drawn by the creator of ‘Tintin’, Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi who is known by his pseudonym ‘Herge’, shows the young reporter Tintin is sitting on a tree stump and carving a makeshift propeller for his plane after the original propeller was damaged in a rough landing somewhere in the Soviet Union. His loyal dog Snowy is also seen sitting beside him in the drawing, bandaged from tail to nose.
So far, the popular Tintin books have been translated into more than 70 languages. In the year 1929, 22-year-old Herge was working as an employee of Belgian daily Le Vingtieme Siecle (The Twentieth Century) and was responsible for the young journalist’s story in the supplement pages of Le Petit Vingtieme (The Little Twentieth), dedicated to the kids of the time.
The serial Tintin stories over the years became very popular, thereby compelling Le Petit Vingtieme to published Tintin’s story in 16-page installments instead of the original 8 pages. It was around this time on February 13, 1930, Herge made the cover dedicated to Tintin.
A few months later the first book on Tintin, “Tintin in the Land of the Soviets,” was published, which was a series of two dozen Tintin’s adventure stories. So far more than 200 million Tintin books have been sold across the world.
Herge museum in the Belgian town of Louvain-la-Neuve displays a number of old Tintin cover illustrations according to the contents of the Heritage Auctions catalogue designed and written by Philippe Goddin, who is also regarded as an authority in Tintin research and has so far written several books on Tintin and Herge, which also includes a seven-volume chronology.
The drawing, which was auctioned recently, also has a signature of Herge. A Heritage Auctions spokesman said that the illustration is one of the “rare cover illustrations signed by Herge in private hands”, which is also one of the oldest creations of the artist.
The author and artist often set his Tintin tales in the most exotic locations across the world but had rarely left Belgium in his lifetime. Herge died in the year 1983.
