Tintin Publisher Dies
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 22nd, 2008
Images above are from Tin-Tin in Tibet, published in 1960.
Tintin publisher Leblanc dies at 92
22 Mar 2008
Economic Times/India Times
Brussels: Raymond Leblanc [above], the Belgian publisher behind the global rise of Tintin’s comic-book adventures, died on Friday [March 21, 2008] at the age of 92, the company he founded said.
Lombard editions paid tribute to “the qualities of the man and of the shrewd publisher who contributed to recognition of animated books as the ninth art.
“In launching the ‘Tintin journal’ and the innumerable paper heroes it gave rise to, he goes down as one of the essential figures behind the international boom in French-Belgian comic-books.”
A resistance fighter during the Second World War, Leblanc convinced Tintin’s artistic creator Georges Remi to launch a periodical for the young. Herge had encountered difficulty publishing his work during the war.
The iconic boy reporter character had first appeared in 1929, with 12 books already under Herge’s name, but the association with Leblanc saw Tintin become the hero of a fortnightly magazine born in 1946 to immediate success.
Leblanc’s simultaneous creation of the Lombard publishing house, aimed at readers “from seven to 77,” met rapid growth as Tintin’s success expanded.
Today, a giant statue of the character at their Brussels base is classed as a national monument.
In 1986, Leblanc sold Lombard to French publishers Media-Participations.
He was named the comic-book industry’s first recipient of the “Alph-Art d’Honneur” prize in 2003, at the 30th annual comic book festival in Angouleme, France, the industry’s main awards ceremony and show.
Lombard told London’s Times newspaper in May 2007 that worldwide sales of Tintin’s adventures had reached 200 million.
I grew up reading Tintin, loved the comics. A shame that Herge and Leblanc are gone, but there’s a feature Tintin film in the works…