And Hergé created Tintin
"Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" is the first album in the comics series "The Adventures of Tintin", created by Belgian cartoonist Hergé, the pseudonym of Georges Rémy. The story was pre-published in "Le Petit Vingtième" (The Little Twentieth) between 10 January 1929 and 8 May 1930, before being published as an album in September 1930. This means that it is 90 years since the young reporter and his pure-white fox terrier made their first public appearance, in the children's supplement of the conservative Catholic journal "Le Vingtième Siècle" (The Twentieth Century).
The work was commissioned by its editor-in-chief, Father Norbert Wallez, who gave Hergé the pamphlet "Moscou sans voiles" (Moscow Unveiled) as a reference document and source of inspiration. This pamphlet was the work of Joseph Douillet, former Belgian consul to Russia, where he spent 35 years of his life (from 1891 to 1926), including several years (from 1925 to 1926) imprisoned by the State Political Directorate, the GPU. The result was a comic strip by a simplistic anti-communist, but it saw the birth of characters who would go on to have an extraordinary career.
A total of 250 million albums have been sold around the world, 128 million of them in French. And despite the fact that the last album, Tintin and the Picaros, was published in 1976, Hergé's work continues to sell at a rate of 3 to 4 million albums a year. Every generation knows the little Belgian reporter, even though it is adults who remain most attached to the character who influenced their childhood. Also take a look at this page for a biography of Hergé.