The Shooting Star
The Shooting Star (L'Étoile mystérieuse) | |
---|---|
Date | 1942 (colour) |
Series | The Adventures of Tintin |
Publisher | Casterman |
Creative team | |
Creator | Hergé |
Original publication | |
Published in | Le Soir |
Date of publication | 20 October 1941 – 21 May 1942 |
Language | French |
Translation | |
Publisher | Methuen |
Date | 1961 |
Translator |
|
Chronology | |
Preceded by | The Crab with the Golden Claws (1941) |
Followed by | The Secret of the Unicorn (1943) |
The Shooting Star (French: L'Étoile mystérieuse) is the tenth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised daily in Le Soir, Belgium's leading francophone newspaper, from October 1941 to May 1942 amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin, who travels with his dog Snowy and friend Captain Haddock aboard a scientific expedition to the Arctic Ocean on an international race to find a meteorite that has fallen to the Earth.
The Shooting Star was a commercial success and was published in book form by
Synopsis
A giant
On the day of the Aurora's departure, Bohlwinkel has a henchman plant a stick of
Tintin and Snowy (who followed on the plane) make camp on the meteorite while the Aurora's engines are repaired after developing trouble. The next day he finds immense explosive mushrooms, and discovers that Phostlite accelerates growth: his apple core grows into a large tree while a maggot turns into a huge butterfly, and he and Snowy are menaced by a giant spider that escaped from his lunch box, before the seaplane arrives again. A sudden
History
Background
Amidst the
During its initial serialization, The Shooting Star featured the United States as the primary antagonists; explaining this, Hergé asserted that the story revolved around the theme of "the rivalry for progress between Europe and the United States".[14] Although not disliking Americans themselves, he had a strong disdain for American big business,[15] and had exhibited anti-American themes in earlier works, in particular in Tintin in America.[16] During serialisation of The Shooting Star, in December 1941, the U.S. entered the war on the side of the Allies, thus coming into direct conflict with Germany.[17] All of the scientists featured were from Axis, neutral, or occupied countries which might be a reflection of the strip's anti-Allies political slant.[18][19] Hergé biographer Harry Thompson stated this should not be interpreted as a strong anti-Ally bias, for the only two nation-states in Europe that were part of the Allies at that point were the Soviet Union and United Kingdom, and that the characters of Haddock and Chester were British.[15]
As he had done for other Adventures of Tintin which featured sea travel, Hergé was careful to obtain as much data about ships as possible in order to make his portrayals more realistic. The design of the Aurora was based on the RRS William Scoresby, while that of the Peary was most likely based upon another Antarctic ship, the RRS Discovery.[20] The seaplane on which the expedition travels was based on the German Arado 196-A.[21] Hergé nevertheless later criticised his own efforts in this area, saying that if Aurora had been a real ship, it would probably be unseaworthy.[22]
The Shooting Star shared plot similarities with
Antisemitism
"All I actually did was show a villainous financier with a Semitic appearance and a Jewish name: Blumenstein, in The Shooting Star. But does that mean there was anti-Semitism on my part? It seems to me that in my entire panoply of bad guys there are all sorts; I have shown a lot of "villains" of various origins, without any particular treatment of this or that race... We've always told Jewish stories, Marseillaise stories, Scottish stories. But who could have predicted that the Jewish stories would end as we know now that they did, in the death camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz?"
Hergé to Numa Sadoul[25]
Under Nazi control, Le Soir was publishing a variety of antisemitic articles, calling for the Jews to be further excluded from public life and describing them as racial enemies of the Belgian people.[26] Hergé biographer Pierre Assouline noted that there was a "remarkable correlation" between the antisemitic nature of Le Soir's editorials and The Shooting Star's depiction of Jews.[17] Within months of the story's publication, legislation was passed to collect and deport Jews from Belgium to Nazi concentration camps.[27] Thus, The Shooting Star reflected trends in the Belgian political situation at the time.[27] However, the story was not the first time that Hergé had adopted such a perspective in his work; he had recently provided illustrations for Robert de Vroyland's Fables, a number of which contained antisemitic stereotypes, reflecting the racism in much of de Vroyland's book.[28] Similarly, his depiction of the character of Rastapopoulos, who was introduced in Tintin in America, has been cited as being based upon antisemitic stereotypes.[29]
When The Shooting Star appeared in Le Soir, Hergé featured a gag in which two Jews hear the prophetic news that the end of the world is near. They rub their hands together in eagerness, and one comments: "Did you hear, Isaac? The end of the world! What if it's true?" The other responds: "Hey, hey, it vould be a gut ding, Solomon! I owe my suppliers 50,000 francs, and zis way I von't haf to pay vem!" Hergé omitted this scene from the collected edition.[30]
The character of Blumenstein displays antisemitic stereotypes, such as having a bulbous nose and being an avaricious, manipulative businessman.
To graphic novel specialist Hugo Frey, the competing expeditions are presented as a simplistic race between good and evil, wherein Blumestein displays the stereotypes of Jews held by advocates of the
Publication
The Shooting Star was serialised daily in Le Soir from 20 October 1941 to 21 May 1942[10] in French under the title L'Étoile mystérieuse (The Mysterious Star).[39] Tintin's previous adventure, The Crab with the Golden Claws, had been serialised weekly until the demise of Le Soir's children's supplement, Le Soir Jeunesse, before continuing daily in the main newspaper itself; the earlier serial had ended the day before The Shooting Star began.[40] The Shooting Star was the first Tintin adventure to be serialised daily in its entirety.[39] As with earlier Adventures of Tintin, the story was later serialised in France in the Catholic newspaper Cœurs Vaillants, where it first appeared on 6 June 1943.[41]
On page 20 of the published book, Hergé included a cameo of the characters
On 21 May 1942, The Shooting Star concluded serialisation. Less than a week later, the occupied government proclaimed that all Jews in Belgium would have to wear a yellow badge on their clothing, and in July the Gestapo began raids on Jewish premises, followed by deportations of Jews to Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, resulting in around 32,000 Belgian Jews being killed.[43] Hergé later recalled: "I saw very few Jews wearing the yellow star, but finally I did see some. They told me that some Jews were gone; that people had come for them and sent them away. I didn't want to believe it".[44]
The earlier Tintin albums reproduced the newspaper strips, which had come to appear weekly in Thursday supplements, two-page allotments of three tiers to a page. War shortages reduced the space for the strip by a third, and later the supplements disappeared completely; the comic appeared daily in the main newspaper as a four-panel strip. For publication in book form, Casterman insisted that Hergé must adhere to a new album format of four sixteen-page signatures, which gave sixty-two pages of story plus a cover page. Though the format reduced the page count, it maintained the same amount of story by reducing the size of the panels reproduced. As The Shooting Star progressed, Hergé cut up and laid out clippings of the strip in an exercise book in preparation for the new layouts.[45] It was the first volume of The Adventures of Tintin to be originally published in the 62-page full-colour format that thereafter was the series standard (as opposed to first being published in a black and white newspaper strip reproduction format that all prior books had done).[46] Casterman published the album in September 1942.[47] Unlike the previous books in the series, because it was printed immediately in colour, it did not need to be totally redrawn.[48] The 177 daily strips from the original serialisation were not enough to fill the 62 pages Casterman had allotted, so Hergé added large panels, such as a half-page panel of a giant telescope on page three.[33] Hergé wanted to include a small gold star inside the "o" of "Étoile" on the cover page, but Casterman refused, deeming it too expensive.[49]
In 1954, Hergé began making various changes to the story for its re-publication. Aware of the controversy surrounding the depiction of Blumenstein, he renamed the character "Bohlwinkel", adopting this name from bollewinkel, a Brussels dialect term for a confectionery store. He later discovered that, by coincidence, Bohlwinkel was also a Jewish name.[50] Trying to tone down the book's anti-American sentiment, he also changed the United States to a fictional South American nation called São Rico, replacing the U.S. flag flown by the Peary's crew with that of the fictional state.[51] In 1959, Hergé made a new list of changes to be made to the artwork in The Shooting Star, which included altering Bohlwinkel's nose, but the changes were postponed and never made.[44]
Adaptations
In 1957, the animation company
In 1991, a
In 2010, American cartoonist Charles Burns authored X'ed Out, a graphic novel with a variety of allusions to The Adventures of Tintin. In one scene, the protagonist Nitnit discovers a warehouse containing white eggs with red spots, akin to the mushrooms in The Shooting Star,[54] with the cover of Burns' book paying homage to Hergé.[55] In 2015, the original front cover sketch of the book was sold for €2.5 million to a European investor, Marina David of Petits Papiers-Huberty-Breyne, at the Brussels Antiques and Fine Art Fair.[56]
Critical analysis
"The Shooting Star remains to this day a blot on Hergé's record. How did the man who had so eloquently defended the Native Americans in Tintin in America and the Chinese in The Blue Lotus, who only three years before denounced fascism in King Ottokar's Sceptre, become a propagandist for the Axis remains hard to understand. It did not have to be that way".
Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier [34]
Pierre Assouline remarked that Hergé's attention to accuracy lapsed in The Shooting Star. For instance, the meteorite's approach toward Earth caused a heat wave, while the meteorite itself proceeded to float on the surface of the ocean. In reality, no such heat wave would have been caused, while the meteorite would have plunged to the sea floor, causing a tsunami.[17] He noted that the concept of madness was a recurring theme throughout the story, and that there was "an unreality in the whole adventure".[17] Fellow biographer Benoît Peeters asserted that The Shooting Star was "of great power and brilliant construction".[14] Elsewhere, Peeters wrote that the book was "notable for the entry of the fantastic into Hergé's work".[57]
Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier deemed the antisemitism a "sad moment" in the series, awarding the story one out of five stars.
Harry Thompson described The Shooting Star as "the most important of all Hergé's wartime stories", having "an air of bizarre fantasy" that was unlike his prior work.[61] He observed that the character of Professor Phostle was a prototype for Professor Calculus, introduced later in the series.[62] Michael Farr asserted that the apocalyptic setting of the story reflected the wartime mood in Europe.[39] He characterises the opening pages of the story as being "unique in [Hergé's] work for the feeling of foreboding they convey", adding that "Hergé daringly eschews the strip cartoonist's recognised means of denoting a dream, deliberately confusing the reader".[39] He felt that the "flow of the narrative is less accomplished" than in other stories, with "spurts and rushes followed by slower passages, upsetting the rhythm and pace".[63]
Literary critic Jean-Marie Apostolidès psychoanalysed The Shooting Star, describing it as "the final attempt of the foundling [i.e. Tintin] to rid himself of the bastard [i.e. Haddock] and to preserve the integrity of his former values", pointing out that the first thirteen pages are devoted purely to the boy reporter.[64] He also argued that Phostle and Philippus represent two-halves of "an ambivalent father figure" within the story, with the former prefiguring Calculus "more than any other previous character".[65] He suggests that when hiding on the Aurora, Philippus can be compared to The Phantom of the Opera, as he steals a stick of dynamite and climbs up the ship's mast before threatening to detonate the weapon.[66] Apostolidès believed that the shooting star itself is "more a religious mystery than a scientific one" and that Tintin is therefore "the perfect one to figure it out in some religious way—that is, unrealistically".[65] Apostolidès analysed the political component of the story in terms of "the incarnation of unregulated capitalism against the spirit of European values", arguing that Hergé was adhering to "a utopian vision that, in 1942, smacks of pro-German propaganda".[67]
Literary critic Tom McCarthy believed that The Shooting Star represents the apex of the "right-wing strain" in Hergé's work.[68] He highlighted the instance in which Tintin impersonates God in order to give commands to Philippus as representing one of various occasions in The Adventures of Tintin where "sacred authority manifests itself largely as a voice, and commanding—or commandeering—that voice is what guarantees power".[69] McCarthy further observes that the image of a giant spider in a ball of fire, which appears near the start of the story, reflects the theme of madness that is again present throughout the series.[70] Discussing the political elements of Hergé's series, McCarthy also noted that in the original publication of the story, the spider which climbed in front of the observatory telescope and was thus magnified greatly was initially termed Aranea Fasciata; he saw this as an intentional satire of the threat to Europe posed by fascism.[71]
References
Notes
- ^ Le Soir as published during the occupation was known by Belgians as Le Soir volé (The Stolen Soir) as it was published without the approval of its original owners, Rossel & Cie, who regained ownership after the Liberation.[6]
Footnotes
- ^ Hergé 1961, pp. 1–14.
- ^ Hergé 1961, pp. 15–28.
- ^ Hergé 1961, pp. 29–62.
- ^ a b Assouline 2009, pp. 70–71; Peeters 2012, pp. 116–118.
- ^ Assouline 2009, p. 72; Peeters 2012, pp. 120–121.
- ^ Assouline 2009, p. 70; Couvreur 2012.
- ^ Assouline 2009, pp. 68–69; Goddin 2009, p. 70; Peeters 2012, p. 114.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 45.
- ^ a b Peeters 1989, p. 66; Thompson 1991, p. 102; Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 45; Assouline 2009, p. 78; Peeters 2012, p. 125.
- ^ a b Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 48; Frey 2008, p. 28; Assouline 2009, p. 80.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 52.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 52; Goddin 2009, p. 116.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 124; Farr 2001, p. 118; Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 55; Assouline 2009, pp. 98–99.
- ^ a b Peeters 2012, p. 132.
- ^ a b Thompson 1991, p. 107.
- ^ a b Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 51.
- ^ a b c d e Assouline 2009, p. 81.
- ^ Binick & Delcroix 2014.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 107; Farr 2001, p. 100; Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 50.
- ^ Nygård 2013, pp. 120–128.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 50; Farr 2001, p. 100; Peeters 2012, p. 133.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 110; Peeters 1989, p. 71.
- ^ a b Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 49.
- ^ Remy 2012, p. 22.
- ^ Sadoul 1975; Peeters 2012, p. 134.
- ^ Assouline 2009, p. 82; Peeters 2012, p. 134.
- ^ a b Frey 2008, pp. 28–30.
- ^ Peeters 2012, pp. 131–132.
- ^ Frey 2008, p. 33.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 49; Peeters 2012, p. 133.
- ^ Assouline 2009, p. 81; Peeters 2012, p. 133.
- ^ Screech 2005.
- ^ a b Farr 2001, p. 100.
- ^ a b c d Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 50.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 59.
- ^ Frey 2008, p. 28.
- ^ Frey 2008, p. 29.
- ^ a b Frey 2008, p. 30.
- ^ a b c d Farr 2001, p. 99.
- ^ Farr 2001, p. 99; Goddin 2009, p. 86.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 48.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 109; Farr 2001, p. 99; Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 49.
- ^ Assouline 2009, pp. 81–82; Peeters 2012, p. 135.
- ^ a b Peeters 2012, p. 135.
- ^ Taylor 2009.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 108; Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 48.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 48; Frey 2008, p. 28.
- ^ Remy 2012, p. 23.
- ^ Assouline 2009, p. 83.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 108; Farr 2001, p. 100; Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 49; Peeters 2012, p. 135.
- ^ Thompson 1991, pp. 107–108; Farr 2001, p. 100; Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 49; Assouline 2009, p. 162; Peeters 2012, p. 135.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, pp. 87–88.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 90.
- ^ Schwartz 2010.
- ^ Das 2012.
- ^ TST 2015.
- ^ Peeters 1989, p. 70.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, pp. 48–49.
- ^ Bruckner 2013, p. 63.
- ^ Goddin 2009, p. 92.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 106.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 109.
- ^ Farr 2001, p. 103.
- ^ Apostolidès 2010, p. 126.
- ^ a b Apostolidès 2010, p. 127.
- ^ Apostolidès 2010, p. 129.
- ^ Apostolidès 2010, p. 133.
- ^ McCarthy 2006, p. 38.
- ^ McCarthy 2006, p. 52.
- ^ McCarthy 2006, p. 81.
- ^ McCarthy 2006, p. 40.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-8047-6031-7.
- ISBN 978-0-19-539759-8.
- Binick, Charles; Delcroix, Olivier (9 December 2014). "Raciste, antisémite, sexiste: Tintin sur le banc des accusés" [Racist, antisemitic, sexist: Tintin indicted]. Le Figaro (in French). Archived from the original on 10 December 2014. Retrieved 2 November 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-7456-7870-2.
- Couvreur, Daniel (22 June 2012). "Le strip perdu du "Soir volé"" [Lost Strip of "The Stolen Soir"]. Le Soir (in French). Belgium. Archived from the original on 7 October 2015. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
- Das, Indrapramit (16 September 2012). "The Call of the Lizard Brain: Charles Burns's X'ed Out and The Hive". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-7195-5522-0.
- Frey, Hugo (2008). "Trapped in the Past: Anti-Semitism in Hergé's Flight 714". History and Politics in French Language Comics and Graphic Novels. Mark McKinney (ed.). ISBN 978-1-60473-761-5.
- ISBN 978-0-86719-724-2.
- ISBN 978-0-316-35851-4.
- ISBN 978-1-904048-17-6.
- ISBN 978-1-86207-831-4.
- Nygård, Severi (2013). Tintinföreningens årsbok Volym 6: Tintinism 2013 [Tintin Society Yearbook Volume 6: Tintinism 2013] (in Swedish). Generation T. ISBN 978-91-85083-05-3. Archived from the original on 21 June 2013.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link - ISBN 978-0-416-14882-4.
- ISBN 978-1-4214-0454-7.
- Remy, Frédérique (2012). "Cap sur le Pôle". In Giezbert, Franz-Olivier (ed.). Les Personnages de Tintin dans l'Histoire: les Événements qui ont inspiré l'Œuvre de Hergé. Vol. II. La Libre Belgique-Historia.
- ISBN 978-2-08-080052-7.
- Schwartz, Ben (19 November 2010). "Book review: 'X'ed Out' by Charles Burns". Los Angeles Times.
- Screech, Matthew (2005). Masters of the Ninth Art: Bandes Dessinées and Franco-Belgian Identity. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-0-85323-938-3.
- Taylor, Raphaël (2009). "Rewriting Tintin". European Comic Art. 2 (1).
- ISBN 978-0-340-52393-3.
- "Iconic Tintin cover fetches near-record 2.5 mn euros". The Straits Times. 3 February 2015. Archived from the original on 18 October 2015. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
External links
- The Shooting Star at the Official Tintin Website
- The Shooting Star at Tintinologist.org