French Court Rules Against Artist Who Created ‘Tintin’ Parody

ArtNet reports a parody cartoonist lost a lawsuit in France over parodies he drew of George Remi’s Tintin series:

A French appeals court has ruled against an artist who claimed parody rights to recontextualize the beloved comic book character Tintin and others from the series “The Adventures of Tintin.”

Belgian company Tintinimaginatio filed a lawsuit against artist Xavier Marabout in French court over his artworks that reimagine the character created by the Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi under the pen name Hergé in 1929. Marabout, who has been creating work as a parodist since 2004, has become known for his pieces staging Tintin in scenes inspired by Edward Hopper paintings, according to court documents translated from French.

Marabout’s work has been seen publicly since 2014 at various exhibitions, including one titled “Tintintamarre.” The company learned about a sale of the artist’s paintings held online in 2015 that included “unauthorized adaptations of various elements” extracted from Hergé’s work and sent him a formal notice requesting he withdraw his work from sale.

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I suppose if there’s one valid issue the Belgian company may have, it’s whether it’s appropriate to sell this stuff. Beyond that, it’s ludicrous to go after the guy over satirical illustrations. But if you want to know of a really surprising reason the company overseeing publication of the Tintin comics took issue with anybody they felt was violating copyrights, here’s something really odd:

“The humorous effect is established by the reversal of the situations in which Tintin is usually portrayed,” Marabout argued in legal documents. It is also not the first time Tintin has been recontextualized: in 1980, Jan Bucquoy wrote an erotic parody comic strip titled “The Sex Life of Tintin.”

But Tintinimaginatio appealed in October 2023, stating that the use of “sexy women” distorts Hergé’s work and that the lower court applied an “excessively broad” interpretation of “humorous intent,” among other legal arguments.

At the time Tintin was originally created, there were some very galling restrictions on how women could be portrayed in European comicdom, that only were shed by the late 50s-early 60s. This certainly was the case when it came to anything considered children’s fare. If the Belgian publisher is saying Tintin can’t have a girlfriend/wife, seriously, that’s low. Ditto if they’re saying comedy’s unsuitable for stuff like this.

The appeals court decision could yet be overturned by the judges of the Court of Cassation, and Marabout said he intends to appeal to the top court “to defend freedom of expression and the notion of parody.”

I honestly hope he does, if only because Remi’s approach to women – or lack thereof – is one of the reasons why Tintin hasn’t aged well. Considering it became easier to depict a woman as a girlfriend/wife, along with romance themes, by the 1960s, as Barbarella’s creation can indicate, you’d think Remi could’ve taken the challenge of adding a lady for Tintin to romance, and it didn’t have to all be limited to just friendships with Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus and the twin detectives Thompson and Thomson. (Not to mention the unfortunate characterization of Madame Castafiore as an annoying singer.)

Someday, the Tintin copyright in Europe will expire into public domain, and then it’ll be easier to do something that might actually respect the character even more than his creator did.

Originally published here.