of the adventures of Totor, yet on his return in 1927 he entered a new position with the Vingtième, that of apprentice photographer/photo-engraver and illustrator for special pages, and in Le Boy-scout Belge (as it was now called) after intermittent absence and with a paragraph recap, Totor’s exploits picked up where he had left them.
Over the next few years Hergé’s skills as an illustrator and graphic designer matured considerably as he took on a great range of work. René Weverbergh as a Catholic book publisher had a number of titles in need of illumination and for which he engaged Hergé. At the Vingtième a new supplement began in the Autumn of 1928 called Le Vingtième Litérraire et Artistique. It was published weekly and during its life saw Hergé produce well over a hundred rich and varied illustrations. Another supplement aimed at women called Votre Vingtième Madame also appeared shortly after to which Hergé contributed. But it is not only the number of pictures that show his prodigious talent but also the range of different styles that he would use to achieve them, especially tailoring his graphics to respective audiences. All rendered in pen and ink Remi managed to suggest both the delicacy of a pencil sketch and the boldness of a print. From realistic figure drawing through to caricature, cartoon and even stylish Art Deco forms, he would experiment and adapt to suit both subject matter and graphic intention. It is often noted that the most remarkable of these styles was a pseudo-woodcut effect; although there is no knowledge of Hergé ever actually working in woodcut, with indian ink and white gouache he developed a strong graphism that mimicked genuine prints. To some extent Hergé may have created this great range in his graphic vocabulary as he was apparently the only illustrator in the employ of the paper and he was aware of the importance of variety to the reader’s eye. Nevertheless, such flexibility was to be to treat gain in another area of Remi’s interest: advertising
As Benoît Peeters notes in Les Débuts d’un illustrateur, Hergé’s ambitions at the end of the Twenties were more towards publicity than bande dessinée. It is in this domain that we see him as a competent graphic designer aware of stylistic trends and skilful in creating memorable advertisements. Like the precocious Atelier de la Fleur de Lys, Remi was the sole worker at the eponymous Atelier Hergé which came about at this time. Its name appeared on a wide range of advertisements mainly in newspapers and magazines for shops and services in Brussels itself, though others would have achieved a wider circulation. It was here that his typography both with conventional typefaces and hand-drawn letterforms really developed, being obviously a crucial element in any publicity. Hergé would call on the various styles in his portfolio to execute different jobs, but often he would resort to BD, creating characters who were to become as familiar as actors in advertisements today. The beginning of the Thirties saw the birth of a whole host of stars: Tim L’Ecureuil, héros du Far West for the department store L’lnnovotion; Jef, le manoeuvre humoristique in La Reyue Facq; Antoine, Antoinette, Dropsy and Plouf’s many adventures for les Confiseries Antoine; les Mésaventures de Jef Debakker for Union charcoal briquettes; L’Aimable Monsieur Mops for Le Bon Marché, and others whose names went unmentioned and who were never seen again. Yet Hergé seldom cruelly discarded his creatures and they often underwent a form of re-incarnation or occasionally resurrection. Tim L’Ecureuil later metamorphosed into a bear and the story became Popol et Virginie chez les Lapinos – a story which remains in the Hergé canon his only lasting attempt at working solely with non-human characters. Antoine and company were in many ways precursors of the adventures of Jo, Zette and their monkey Jocko. And Monsieur Mops, who was quite clearly a Charlie Chaplin look-alike and act-alike, re-appeared in Quick and Flupke strips and is a raw type of the sublime idiot which pervades Hergé’s work. When Hergé found a character he liked he would rarely lose them, working them through various incarnations, developing the character’s persona, their virtues and vices, purging or even adding to their sins, honing their visual strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps a good example of this is when Totor became Tintin.
To be precise, Totor continued to exist after Tintin was born and even after Hergé had ceased to draw him – an artist called Evany continued to animate the young scout in Les Memoires de Totor for six months in 1930. But the true spirit of the hero came to reside in the heart of a reporter who was a deadringer for his predecessor, albeit sporting a quiff and partnered by a talking dog. Tintin was born almost out of necessity as Hergé had been given new responsibilities which afforded him the chance to create a young adventurer. Fr. Norbert Wallez, the editor of the Vingtième and a great encourager of the young Remi, having already created various special supplements in attempts to increase the journal’s circulation, put Georges in complete control of a new children’s supplement called Le Petit Vingtième.
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