The Real Hergé, page 10
But first they needed to persuade the cartoonist. Hergé liked the idea, but was less than enthusiastic given his current situation. He was especially concerned by how the political authorities would receive the publication. Indeed, a couple of Leblanc’s acquaintances had previously considered teaming up with Hergé on a similar project, but had abandoned the plan due to his poor reputation in the aftermath of the war.
However, although he was worried how people would react to the magazine, Hergé was not in a position to turn down offers, and an association with a celebrated war hero could only help his tattered reputation. Hergé also needed to acquire the ‘certificate of civisme’ and Leblanc had connections with people who could help smooth this process along.
Pierre’s brother, William Ugeux, the former editor of Le Vingtième Siècle and an important figure in the Resistance movement, was now head of the National Information Bureau and answered directly to the prime minister. Leblanc pleaded Hergé’s case to William, who knew Hergé well from his time at Le Vingtième Siècle. He thought Hergé had been more inept than traitorous and said that he was politically naive.
To err on the side of caution, he ordered Hergé’s file to be examined before sanctioning the all-important ‘certificate of civisme’. Hergé never saw the contents of his file, but he might have been consoled to hear the opinions within. Back in March 1945, Vincotte, the military auditor wrote to the auditor-general to say that he was inclined not to press charges against Hergé, as he felt it would make a mockery of justice to attack the author of inoffensive drawings for children.
However, he investigated the situation fully, despite his reservations. In the current climate, they were working under the assumption that they should prosecute anyone who worked with the collaborationist press, even if their personal contribution did not constitute propaganda.
Vincotte was aware that due to the popularity of Hergé’s work, he was one of the people who did the most to cause Le Soir to be purchased during the Occupation. The military auditor knew he would have to prosecute others such as literary and sports reviewers, whose articles were not inflammatory in themselves, and he was aware that Hergé could be said to have done as much and maybe even more than they did to boost the sales of the newspaper.
He clearly did not find the material in The Shooting Star, which appeared during the Occupation in the ‘pirate’ Le Soir, to be examples of Hergé’s collaboration and was keen to let him off any charges. Despite this, the auditor-general asked for an expert’s report from the Central Documentation Bureau. In November 1945, Vincotte wrote to the auditor-general to say that the investigation opened on Hergé had not revealed any new evidence since 11 September 1944. He added that there was no evidence of propaganda-related comic strips, no memberships of pro-German groups, not even the hint of any feelings favourable to the former Occupying force.
Vincotte went even further with his proclamations on Hergé to say that at that time, the number of newspapers published was limited by the Germans and that every newspaper was sold due to the limited numbers and information available.
The profit made by the newspaper was not determined by the content or its success, it was determined by the allowance of paper it had been given by Germany. He went so far as to suggest a defence for Hergé and others in a similar position by saying that by working for Le Soir and taking up space in the newspaper with children’s drawings or by talking about art, fashion or sports, they actually reduced the room available in the paper for German propaganda, and thereby acted patriotically.
Clearly, Vincotte and Ugeux’s campaign to help Hergé was working, as at the end of December 1945, Hergé received the news that his criminal case had been dismissed. He still wasn’t eligible for the ‘certificate of civisme’, but it was a step in the right direction and a huge relief for the Remis.
Hergé felt he could progress with the idea of the magazine dedicated to Tintin and would often meet with Leblanc to discuss the details. In March 1946 they signed a five-year contract, and so the Tintin magazine was born. Soon after, Hergé received his ‘certificate de civisme’, and it seemed as though the end of this ordeal was in sight and they were finally in a position to move forward.
However, the storm was not yet over. Hergé’s mother was still very unwell. He would visit as often as he could, but she no longer recognised him. His mother died on 23 April 1946, aged sixty. Hergé was distraught, as was his father who doted on his beloved wife. It had been a terrible year for the Remis, and his father would not recover from this awful blow for a long time.
Hergé was always tight-lipped and stoical when it came to family, but the death of his mother was particularly painful to him. He felt he had never really known her or had real contact since he had been a young child, and he lamented their distant relationship. The grief and stress for him was overwhelming, but he could not take time to rest and recuperate as soon the trial would begin for the pirate version of Le Soir and those charged with collaborating.
Chapter 9
Although he wasn’t directly involved in the trial, Hergé nevertheless felt very invested in the events and attended the court to support his friends who stood accused.
The trial began on Monday, 3 June 1946, for the ‘pirate’ version of Le Soir, and in a strange twist of fate, the magistrate happened to be Vallee Poussin, who had acted as editor-in-chief of Le Vingtième Siècle after Wallez had left, and someone that Hergé knew well.
Although Hergé was there as support only, his name was mentioned in the proceedings from day one, when the attorney of Julien De Proft, one of Hergé’s friends, said he was surprised that the author of Tintin was not being prosecuted, even though he had contributed to the success of the ‘pirate’ Le Soir.
Just three days later, one of the writers of the real Le Soir newspaper also complained that Hergé was not being prosecuted, adding that he thought the people who collaborated by contributing ‘space-filling’ material should be brought to trial as they had been complicit.
Hergé had indeed had a lucky escape. While he had emerged relatively unscathed from the war, Marcel Dehaye, a good friend of his and the artistic editor on the ‘pirate’ Le Soir, was castigated for his involvement.
Dehaye had written the ‘Jean de la Lune’ letters, and when it was mentioned that these were entirely benign in nature during the court proceedings, the prosecutor said, ‘They are entertaining, certainly, but they are like the silver wrapper on a poisoned bonbon.’
Hergé wondered why he wasn’t held to the same standard, and while he felt guilty that he had escaped, he was also indignant that his friends were being punished so harshly. Indeed, some of Hergé’s other close friends were in even more dire situations.
Paul Jamin, who Hergé had worked closely with on Le Petit Vingtième, was initially condemned to death for his drawings in Le Pays Reel and the Brusseler Zeitung during the Occupation. This was later reduced to life in prison. Jamin wrote to Hergé, who replied a month later.
In July 1946, Hergé wrote to tell his friend that he was convinced that it would all work out okay in the end. He reassured him that people were relaxing slowly but surely and he was sure they would eventually realise the punishment they had given to Jamin was not at all appropriate for the crime he had committed. He hoped that his friend would be released from prison one day soon and would emerge having matured and been shaped by the terrible trial.
Meanwhile, Germaine had left the city to take her mother on a visit to the coast, visiting the popular Rooster beach to escape the stress of the trial. Hergé stayed behind to work on the launch of Tintin magazine. While Germaine was away the verdicts from the trial were announced. Hergé wrote to tell her of the news, and was more direct than he had been with Jamin. He said that there had been leniency on one side with Meulepas, for whom they’d asked for seven years, and would serve just four. For De Proft they had asked for five years, but he was given just two; Brohee was also given two years and Colmant, for whom the prosecutors had asked for three years was given just one year to serve.
But he lamented the treatment of his other friends. De Becker was threatened with life in prison, but instead he had been condemned to death. Schaenen was given life in prison, despite the fact that the auditor had recommended a twenty-year sentence. Hergé called the judgments grotesque and ignoble, and found the whole situation torturous, especially as De Becker’s mother had been in the courtroom as the judgments were given out. She had misunderstood what was said and thought that her son had received life in prison as predicted. She had congratulated Meulepas, who couldn’t bear to tell her the truth.
Hergé struggled with the pressure of the trial and missed his wife dearly. The previous few months of turmoil had brought them even closer together. He wrote that he felt it was just recently he had been writing to her at the same place she was staying in, the Joli-Bois hotel, but then he had written to her as Miss Germaine Kieckens, and now she was his beloved wife. He cherished her greatly, and told her that she was still the same young girl he loved and that he cared for her even more than he had done in the early days.
Germaine was feeling the same. She wrote back to him the next day, saying how strange it was that they had been having the same memories. She couldn’t believe that they had been together for fifteen years already.
The recent events had greatly affected Germaine. She was shaken up and felt so sensitive at that time that the smallest thing would make her cry. Although she and Hergé had a strong relationship and were getting on well, Germaine felt nervous. She said that their happiness seemed almost too perfect and it made her afraid, but she could not pinpoint exactly what she was fearful of. She even recently said to Hergé while his friend and collaborator Jacobs was present that she was sending him an SOS. She was weary and afraid, and these feelings would turn out to be incredibly prophetic, as their happiness would soon be tested.
Germaine had lost her father two years earlier and still grieved for him, and was incredibly upset at the events that had unfolded in Brussels. She put her feelings of worry down to this, and vowed to change her schedule when she returned to Brussels, deciding to work even more closely with Hergé.
While the trial was going on and Hergé’s personal life was slowly crumbling, he still continued to work. He was in the middle of preparing Tintin magazine with Raymond Leblanc and Georges Lallemand and set about assembling a crack team of cartoonists.
First, Hergé recruited friend and artist-extraordinaire Edgar Jacobs. Next was Jacques Van Melkebeke, who became the editor-in-chief. The pair brought along a friend, Jacques Laudy, the son of a painter.
The final member of the team was Paul Cuvelier who, at just 22 years of age, was the youngest in the group and was introduced to Hergé by Paul Hennebert, the nephew of Abbot Wallez. He had had his first drawing published in Le Petit Vingtième when he was just 7 years old. When he came to the interview, Hergé was impressed with the young man and wrote a gushing letter to him a few weeks after the meeting, inviting him to come and work with them and to bring his drawings.
Hergé was ecstatic to meet him and felt he had found a new artist with an extraordinary talent. He urged Cuvelier to work hard and told him he had such true talent, that if he did work well, he would become a great artist. He encouraged Cuvelier to produce his own comic strip which would result in Corentin, inspired by the many stories he used to tell his younger brothers.
While Hergé was the artistic director of the new magazine, and all pages had to meet with his approval, Van Melkebeke was responsible for running the rest of the publication.
Leblanc had helped Hergé out enormously, but Hergé was still cautious of him, as it seemed that Leblanc was very much the businessman and concerned about sales above all else. Hergé felt that he was a very upright and honest fellow, but dangerously naive, and for that reason would remain slightly distant from him.
The group worked well as a team, but Hergé’s reputation as a collaborator was still having an effect on business. It was hard to find a printer willing to work on the project as most did not want to be affiliated with him. However, they eventually found someone willing to work with them despite the negative connotations of Hergé’s name, and the results were excellent.
Leblanc organised an aggressive launch for the magazine, with publicity films being shown in the cinemas of Brussels and flyers plastered on every shop and newspaper stand.
The first issue was released on 26 September 1946 all across Belgium, with an ambitious initial print run of 60,000 copies. It was an enormous success and they sold out within a few days. After just three days it was impossible to find a single copy of the first issue anywhere. They decided to increase the print run of subsequent issues to 80,000.
More than that, in the first issue they had asked for their readers’ opinions of the magazine, and they were overcome by the avalanche of mail they received as a result. The loyalty of the fans caught them completely by surprise and it was a welcome they hadn’t even dared to hope for.
For Hergé, this was a redeeming moment and a high point in an otherwise awful year. He had been reluctant to start the project, partly due to concerns over how he would be perceived, and partly due to all the hatred that had been directed at him and his former colleagues in the days after the war, during the Purge and also during the subsequent trial. He did not expect to be welcomed back so warmly and it was a muchneeded tonic after the turmoil of recent events.
The first issue of Tintin proudly continued the adventure that had stopped so abruptly in the ‘pirate’ edition of Le Soir, which had been Prisoners of the Sun. To make the move as seamless as possible, Hergé had summarised the story so far using the clever technique of a press clipping, and so the adventure could resume.
As well as the main comic strip featuring Tintin, there were also many other sections starring the protagonist as well as other major characters, such as ‘Tintin Speaks to You’, ‘Interviews with Captain Haddock’, ‘Tintin Tells a Story’ and ‘Comments by Major Wings’. The popularity grew and grew, and by December 1946, the paper added more pages with features such as ‘Tintin Scouting’, ‘Tintin Sports’ and a section that was purportedly written by Cuthbert Calculus.
The magazine proved to be a huge success, however, Hergé’s detractors soon began to vocalise their dissent. In 1946, the journalists’ union was an extremely powerful force to be reckoned with, and it sought to ostracise everyone who had published writing during the war.
Former Le Soir journalist Fernand Demany was fiercely opposed to the Tintin magazine, and he said it would bring back painful memories for those who remembered the ‘pirate’ edition of Le Soir to which Hergé had contributed.
Traditionally, Hergé had been given a great deal of support from the Catholic church, but in the days after the war, the tide had turned. In October 1946, the Catholic newspaper La Cite Nouvelle launched a scathing attack on the artist decrying his actions.
They were incensed that, as they saw it, the ‘German-sympathising cartoonist’ had not been prosecuted and he was now authorised to publish a Tintin magazine, and they were angry he had been given an official paper supply. They called him any number of names, such as a ‘bad citizen’, a ‘traitor’ and said he was someone who had served the enemy in return for a substantial salary. They were furious that he was now free to draw and contribute to a publication again and said he would be free to ‘put his little brigade of ‘Hitler Youth’ back in business’. They poured vitriol on his character and his work, asking if the children of the people who had been killed by the Germans should accept someone who had worked to amuse kids for the benefit of the enemy, adding that there was a cell waiting for Hergé in Saint-Gilles prison.
Although the general population were more than happy to welcome Tintin back, some were still unable to forgive Hergé for his actions during the war. The furore around the magazine continued until Vincotte, the military auditor, felt obliged to step in again. Although the auditorgeneral felt there was no case for the prosecution of Hergé, the matter was still taken up in Parliament and a committee was formed to discuss the issue.
However, Hergé avoided any real repercussions, but his colleague, Van Melkebeke, on the other hand, was not so lucky. He had already served months of detention in 1945 and was banned from exhibiting any of his work for ten years, but worse was to come. In October 1946, when the attacks on Tintin magazine grew ever fiercer, he stood trial for his articles in Le Nouveau journal during the Occupation, in particular, one article on the trial of members of the Resistance.
He was sentenced to ten years in prison, but as he was not arrested straight away, he continued to work on Tintin magazine. Leblanc was unhappy with the situation and reluctant to allow Van Melkebeke to continue to work for him. When he heard the police were about to arrive at the Tintin offices from his friends on the National Security Bureau, he ordered that all traces of Van Melkebeke be stripped from the area. He named one of his friends, Andre Fernez, as editor-in-chief.
Van Melkebeke slipped away into the shadows. He continued to work and contributed to Tintin magazine while he remained in hiding from the police, with Hergé acting as a go-between. He worked on each of the comic strip adventures within the publication, although Leblanc had no idea this was going on.
Meanwhile, other issues were quietly fermenting under the surface. Jacobs was working part-time on the magazine, contributing the comic strip The Secret of the Swordfish, which was extremely popular, and Hergé loved his work. The pair made an excellent team and they both realised how well they worked together on the whole, although Jacobs was becoming unhappy with some aspects of their work.
In the contract they had together, Jacobs was promised 10 per cent of the author’s fees for every project on which he worked – apart from The Adventures of Tintin, which he didn’t feel was fair. He was also unhappy with the split of fees for other work. For the Voir et Savoir comic series, Hergé drew the characters and received 55 per cent of the royalties, while Jacobs, who drew all the backgrounds and accessories, which was a larger and more complex job, received just 45 per cent.
