This carved wooden statue of Tintin and his fox terrier, Milou, standing about four feet high, was in Antibes (near the old port) selling for 800 euros (just under $1000). I really wanted it.

The Adventures of Tintin was quite popular in France and Europe in general, though it’s originally from Belgium created by Herg� (aka George Remi) in 1929 as a comic for a Belgian newspaper. Launched initially as a comic series, later became comic books, then a cartoon series with subsequent animated films. Tintin was a reporter who traveled all over the globe with his fluffy white “Milou” (Snowy). The series covered a wide span of genres: swashbuckling adventures with elements of fantasy, mystery, political thriller, and science fiction. It was known to be silly and slapsticky but oftentimes incorporating a very sophicated outlook on politics and culture.

Early works of Tintin were criticized as a racist and colonialist because Hergé caricaturized non-Europeans in overly exaggerated and unflattering ways, or he simply implied his racist leanings. Some American publishers, in fact, required Hergé to change his drawings to minimize the offensive impact of certain portrayals. For example, The Shooting Star originally had an American villain with a Jewish name, who was changed to an American with a less ethnically specific name in later editions. I think it was just the mindset of the times just like in the subject of this post.

Despite its very un-PC history, I do love Tintin memorabilia but it’s sometimes hard to find anything Tintin. I remember going to a Tintin store in San Francisco, near the square by FAO Schwartz but haven’t seen much more.

A couple of weeks ago, I did see a small boutique in Paris (in the 6th) that sold lots of Tintin stuff but was way too expensive. A little plastic statue of Tintin standing about 4 inches high was priced at over 300 euros. I wonder how much they’d charge for the same 4 foot, sculpted wooden statue I saw in Antibes!