TINTIN MOVIE

As the Steven Spielberg Tintin movie nears its debut, slated for 2011, we see more frequently evidence of legal disturbances on the Herge horizon. Lately, for instance, Bob Garcia, a British  detective novelist, jazz musician and Tintin aficionado received in November a court order to pay £35,000 or face the prospect of bailiffs seizing his house and belongings. “His crime,” reported Henry Samuel of the Telegraph, “was to have written five essays on Tintin sparked by his boyhood love for the squif-haired reporter and his dog Snowy — a passion he wanted to impart to his own children.” Other Tintin fans have been pressured to cease and desist writing about Herge’s famed boy reporter. They are all the targets of attacks by a British lawyer named Nick Rodwell, who holds “the exclusive rights to the oeuvre of the Belgian Hergé (born Georges Rémi) and Tintin since he married the cartoonist’s widow, Fanny, 16 years ago. In the Garcia case, the court ruled that he had violated the author's moral and proprietary rights,” but the disputation goes on apace.

Tintin fans are lining up on Garcia’s side, accusing Rodwell of a ruthless drive to kill off their harmless and not-for-profit passion in his bid to keep exclusive control of the Tintin brand. Garcia says his supporters had written to Spielberg asking him to intervene. Said Garcia: “Rodwell’s problem is he's walking in the footsteps of a genius and is only ever referred to as the 'husband of Hergé's widow'. It must be very frustrating and may explain his violence towards those that really love Hergé's work.” More, no doubt, will transpire.