Herge: The Man Who Created Tintin

If you are a real fan of TinTin afficionado style, you MUST read this book. Pierre Assouline really catches the whole Hergé. You will enjoy reading TinTin even more with the knowledge Assouline has given you with this book.

This book is perfect for any one who is a fan of Tintin. A good readable book which gives a lot of insight into the man who created Tintin, highly recommend this book.

A super book well investigated and clearly diagnosed, well reccommended

As a long time fan of Herge and Tintin I found the book to be a fascinating study of the man and his work and his raison d'etre.

Super fine

This book certainly has its shortcomings, but with respect to Mr. Drummond and his review, I'm not sure it's a two star book.It's an average book, most valuable for the way in which it outlines for the newcomer the basic details of Herge's life and work. As Mr. Drummond suggests, however, it lacks detail and leaves you wanting to know a lot more at times (for example, the sections on Herge's disappearances in the early 50's are rather sketchy, when more could have been said about the root cause for his tendency to run off and hide when things got on top of him).Overall, then, it's okay but it reads more like an extended magazine profile rather than an in-depth study. To be honest I gleaned far, far more about Herge from the superb documentary "Tintin and Me". Having seen Michael Farr interviewed in that film I'm going to turn to his books next in the hope of a more informed, insightful and incisive account of Herge's life and work.One final point as regards the style of this book: the translator does a fair job but the prose creaks in places and there are several glaring errors (e.g. "Barbado" for Barbados and "mostache" for moustache (or even the variant mustache); even Calculus is referred to at one point as "Dr. Calculus" rather than receiving his proper title). What's the matter Oxford University Press? Too tight to employ proofreaders or editors anymore? And while I'm telling you how to do your job, might I suggest that it might be a good idea to include a few PICTURES in a book about one of Europe's most significant illustrators ever?Gripes aside, get it if you want to start learning more about Herge, but borrow it from your local library rather than buying it.

This is a book that is really only going to interest hardened Tintin fans, but thanks to its complete lack of illustrations and the author's numerous errors in his plot summaries, it is almost certain to disappoint.While the discussion of Remi's wartime past, method of work and lifestyle is quite interesting, what is really lacking is any in-depth analysis of why he chose particular plotlines, how his characters evolved and how the Tintin series developed. Surely, this should be at the heart of a book like this.Having no illustrations in a work about a cartoonist also seems a very odd decision, and closes off many interesting lines of enquiry. Why the author decided to do without them seems to to be a complete mystery.It would be boring to recount all the errors the author makes regarding the various Tintin stories, but his description of Red Sea Sharks is typical in that it wrongly attributes the crash (strictly speaking a +crash landing+)of Tintin's plane to Dawson's bomb, when in reality it was due to a chance engine fire. Though some may say this is a minor detail, it hardly gives the reader any confidence in those parts of the book he cannot so easily check.Another niggle is the Americanised translation from the original French, which is made worse by an uneven and awkward style that hardly encourages the reader.If you happen to be doing a project about Tintin or Remi, you will need to read this book, if only to cover all bases. Otherwise it is best avoided, for even as a remainder - like my copy - it will be a disappointment.

Having read this book, I have to say that I was deeply disapointed. I have been waiting a long time for a good English biography of Georges Remi (aka. 'Hergé) - Harry Thompson's 'Tintin: Herge and his Creation' is good, but too short and has long out of print and difficult to get hold of.Unfortunately Assouline's book fails on a number of levels. Whilst it is a straight biography of Georges Remi, it seems to focus less on his life as Georges Remi, than on his role as creator of Tintin. Thus we are given minute detail of Remi's role in the publishing of the Tintin cartoons, but precious little insight into his inner life. Important events in Remi's life, such as his multiple breakdowns and his sudden departures from Brussels or his inner life receive only passing mentions, with little exploration, whilst much ink is spent on Remi's professional relationships and his life in publishing.Whilst Thompson's biography is slightly more populist than Assouline's book, the former does give some detail which the latter misses out. One such detail is the problems Remi's brother faced when it became apparant that Remi had based aspects of Tintin on his brother. Such detail gives Thompson's biography some needed colour, something which is sorely missing from Assouline's book.Sadly the prose is also wooden/leaden. It's not clear whether this is down to translation (the biography was originally published in French and then translated into English for OUP.) However, it comes accross as being somewhat dry and dense, focusing on concrete facts, rather than linking Remi into the life of his creation and vice versa. Clearly Remi's life transcends that as creator and publisher of Tintin. Unfortuantely the biography gives little sense that this is the case. It's more a technical description than a labour of love.