Posted on 12/09/2004 3:23:17 AM PST by Eepsy
Concussions kept Tintin forever young
Wed Dec 8,12:40 PM ET
By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Comic book hero Tintin never aged during his 50-year career because the repeated blows he took to the head triggered a growth hormone deficiency, according to an analysis in the Christmas edition of a Canadian medical journal.
AFP/HO-MOULINSART Photo
Claude Cyr, a professor of medicine at Quebec's Sherbrooke University, said a study of the 23 hugely popular Tintin books showed the intrepid Belgian reporter suffered 50 significant losses of consciousness during his many adventures.
"We hypothesize that Tintin has growth hormone deficiency and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (a disorder of the pituitary gland) from repeated trauma. This could explain his delayed statural growth, delayed onset of puberty and lack of libido," Cyr wrote.
His article was in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, which has a tradition of publishing studies into the ailments of fictional characters in its Christmas edition.
Tintin was created by Belgium's Georges Remi under the pen name Herge. The teenage character first appeared in 1929 and despite the passing of almost five decades was as fresh-faced as ever in the pages of the last book to feature him, which appeared in 1976.
Cyr, who wrote the study with the help of his two young sons, noted that Tintin had been knocked out 43 times by serious blows to the head.
"We identified the cause of the trauma, the length of loss of consciousness (calculated by the number of cartoon frames before Tintin returns to normal activity) and the apparent severity of the trauma (indicated by the number of objects e.g., stars, candles revolving above Tintin's head)," he said.
Among the main reasons for Tintin's injuries were blows from a club, bullet wounds, explosions, car accidents, chloroform poisoning and falls.
"Unfortunately, no brain imaging was performed," Cyr lamented.
Tintin travelled all over the world with his white terrier Snowy as he battled foes as varied as drug dealers, Incan priests, slave traders and the Abominable Snowman. The books have been translated into 60 languages and have sold 200 million copies.
In 2000 the Canadian Medical Association Journal caused something of an uproar by revealing that Winnie the Pooh's continuous search for honey was caused by obsessive compulsive disorder, Piglet needed anti-panic medication, while Eeyore was massively depressed.
Another study surmised that Beatrix Potter's ever energetic Squirrel Nutkin character was in fact autistic.
Never heard of Tintin. Now, Rintintin-I know about him.
yohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Rinny!
Tintin is a fun comic book series from Belgium. They're long, and very wordy, and thus good ways to get the reluctant to read. They're also good to read aloud, because of the variety of characters.
There's nothing funnier than seeing a three year old growling "Blistering Barnacles!" at the top of his voice :D
I remember liking him as a kid, well not liking, but finding the drawings and stories kind of odd. I got some kind of reader's digest thing for kids one summer and he was a regular feature. There were these twin guys who seem gay now when I remember back. It was all very Euroweenie.
You should reread them. Tintin is superb.
I think Snowy has been knocked out more often than Tintin.
You might be surprised. It got more PC as it went on to massive success worldwide, but stories such as Tintin in the Congo or Tintin in the Land f the Soviets are wonderfully entertaining.
They're hard to come by now though...The Congo was a cheerfully rascist book which featured the hero blowing up a white rhino, bamboozling the natives and cheerfully explaining to them why they should be proud to be Belgian (They were a colony). The Soviets one would be greatly to the taste of the average freeper...very cynical view of the early USSR leaders before it was fashionable.
Hey - you're right. That description rustles some cobwebs in the back of my memory. I wish I could also remember the name of the publication. It was so much better than other kiddie writing of the time and I was an odd kid so I really appreciated it. Many of the stories were kind of dark. It was about the size of Reader's Digest and also had puzzles.
Tintin in America was a little dark. We've slowly been accumulating the books for our three year old, and we got about half-way through that one when we decided to put it away til he was older. The concept of a lynching is just a little beyond a toddler :-P
The rest have been wonderful for him though. Also, if you happen to have a tv that displays PAL/SECAM it's well worth it to seek out the DVDs of the cartoon series. They include the english language tracks and are very faithful to Herge's books.
If you don't mind watching them on your computer, you can reset the region of your DVD-ROM reader to region 2 and just buy your DVDs from Amazon.com in the UK.
If you get into watching films on PAL DVDs, you'll find that you get more resolution and non-interlaced frames...
Plus, oddly enough, I have found that the movies that I like are actually cheaper in the UK, even when you include shipping.
Poor Snowy...
The sea captain was my favorite character. What was his name? I'm drawing a blank!
That's funny. My software warns about setting the region X times before it's "permanently" set.
So it you don't know much about codecs, alternative software, etc., that may not be an option for many people.
I heard a piece on Radio Canada (Quirks and Quarks) that getting knocked out multiple times is NOT a good thing.
My laptop has 2 optical drives in it so I have one of them set to region 1, and the other to region 2...
Since Tintin was written in quite large time span, we can see the changes of Western society in mid 20th century. In the early versions, Tintin & Co. were very not PC. Later, however, we started to see the seeds of PC and multiculturalism...
That was it!
Tintin
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.