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Tintin author's nephew to auction sketches, letters
2008-11-19
BRUSSELS (AFP) - The nephew of Herge, author of the comic-book boy reporter Tintin, will auction off some of his uncle's sketches, photos and letters in Paris on Friday, a Belgian newspaper reported. Georges Remi said he had "some misgivings" about the sale of the items, which belonged to his Belgian uncle of the same name -- Herge was his famous pen name. "I am 60 and I want to turn the page," said Remi, who lives in Normandy, northern France. Among the 300 letters, photographs and sketches that will go under the hammer at the Champs d'Elysees in Paris on Friday, are correspondence between Herge and his first wife Germaine. There are also letters to and from the two other co-founders of the Tintin magazine: Edgar P. Jacobs, who later created the Blake and Mortimer detective cartoon strip; and Evany, real name Edouard Van Nijverseel, the magazine's first artistic director when it launched in September 1946. Herge biographer Philippe Goddin told Le Soir daily that "in the letters Herge describes what is going on in his life with total sincerity." "He tells of his moments of confusion, of marriage crisis, of artistic crisis... The tone is therefore radically different from the public interviews at the time." Herge Studios, which Herge's widow Fanny Rodwell heads up, will not be bidding for the lots, spokesman Marcel Wilmet told the paper. It considers that the correspondence has "great interest for historians" but not for the Herge Museum currently under construction at Louvain-la-Neuve in central Belgium. The auction will also include original editions of the Tintin albums, and is organised by Artcurial. In March this year Artcurial sold original artwork for a Tintin comic book for a record 764,200 euros (1.2 million dollars) at a Paris auction. Herge, who dreamed up the immortal boy reporter Tintin, along with his faithful companions Captain Haddock and trusty little dog Snowy, was born in Brussels in 1907 He died of leukemia in March 1983.
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