Next month’s American debut of “The Adventures of Tintin” will serve as an introduction for many moviegoers to a character long adored by Europeans, the boy reporter with a nose for mystery and a trademark tuft of orange hair.
The widely anticipated movie, a 3-D animated feature with A-list credits — Steven Spielberg directed and Peter Jackson served as a producer — is to be released on Dec. 21. It is based on “The Secret of the Unicorn,” a title from the Tintin series of graphic novels published from 1929 to 1976, hugely popular in Europe but not nearly so well known in the United States.
In the first trailer for the film, which appeared on the Internet last spring, there is a scene with Tintin running breathlessly out of a doorway, only to see a blue coupe turn around and roar off into the distance.
The movie, like the book it is based on, takes its automobiles seriously, so the fleeing coupe is no generic old-timer. It is a faithfully recreated 1937 Ford V-8, animated to reflect the actual car as well as the unique style of the artist who wrote and illustrated the book.
The artist behind “The Adventures of Tintin,” Georges Remi, was an avid driver and a collector who peppered his work with an array of precisely rendered cars spanning the 47 years during which he drew the books. It is appropriate, then, that the daring exploits of one of the most popular fictional characters of the 20th century — long predating franchises like the James Bond films that cast cars in prominent roles — featured such a diverse selection of vehicles.
The treks provided the material for 24 books, which have collectively sold more than 300 million copies in over 80 languages worldwide. The first book, “Tintin in the Land of Soviets,” arrived in 1929 and the final volume, “Tintin and the Picaros,” was released in 1976.
Although Hergé died in 1983, his books and the characters he created remain as popular as ever. In 2007, Hergé was the subject of an exhibition at the Pompidou Museum in Paris, honoring what would have been his 100th birthday.
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