Georges Remi |
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Georges Prosper Remi (22 May 1907 - 3 March 1983), better known by the pen name Hergé, was a Belgian comics writer and artist. "Hergé" (French pronunciation: ) is the French pronunciation of "RG", his initials reversed. His best known and most substantial work is The Adventures of Tintin, which he wrote and illustrated from 1929 until his death in 1983, which left the twenty-fourth Tintin adventure Tintin and Alph-Art unfinished. His work remains a strong influence on comics, particularly in Europe. He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003.
The notable qualities of the Tintin stories include their vivid humanism, a realistic feel produced by meticulous and wide ranging research, and Hergé's ligne claire drawing style. Adult readers enjoy the many satirical references to the history and politics of the 20th century. The Blue Lotus, for example, was inspired by the Mukden incident that led to the Chinese-Japanese War of 1934. King Ottokar's Sceptre can be read against the background of Hitler's Anschluss; whilst later albums such as The Calculus Affair depict the Cold War. Hergé has become one of the most famous Belgians worldwide and Tintin is still an international success. Hergé's work was heavily influenced by his involvement since his youth with Scouting. The long-awaited Hergé Museum was opened in Louvain-La-Neuve on June 2, 2009. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Christian de Portzamparc, the museum reflects Hergé's huge corpus of work which has, until now, been sitting in studios and bank vaults.
Georges Prosper Remi was born in 1907 in Etterbeek, in Brussels Belgium to middle class parents, Alexis Remi and his wife Elisabeth Dufour. His four years of primary schooling coincided with World War I (1914-1918), during which Brussels was occupied by the German Empire. Georges, who displayed an early affinity for drawing, filled the margins of his earliest schoolbooks with doodles of the German invaders. Except for a few drawing lessons which he would later take at l'école Saint-Luc, he never had any formal training in the visual arts.