Comment by Svip
4 days ago
Can't believe it took me this long to notice, the meme itself is an altered image of the original comic. Obviously, the speech bobbles are too clean compared to the rest of the comic, but I also notice now that they are a poor imitation of Hergé's distinct speech bobbles.[0]
[0] https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/125/139/0ff...
I am debating making a better version where the bubbles are appropriately sized and look nicer and the background is smoother, but I thought it might take away the ‘memeyness’ of it.
I just went with the original background made by the person who seemingly invented the meme format on Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/incorrecttintin/162088281738
Hergé took a lot of effort to get details right. Not just the drawings¹, but also the layout and lettering of the speech bubbles.
I own all TinTin comics in Dutch (some old collectors items) and a very few in French. Dutch is often a lot longer than French, and sometimes shorter - it doesn't use the same amount of letters, let alone the same width of them. The French is ever slightly more pleasing, but noticable so.
The English translation you linked to, is even ugly in some places, it lacks the balance and spacing that Hergé often meticulously and deliberately used to convey extra meaning or balance.
¹ From The Blue Lotus on, Hergé devoted far more attention to accuracy. Which is all the more impressive because he then distills all that accuracy to the most simple lines. I am a fan. And yes, there is certainly controversy, his early work is clearly very racist and colonial - which shows the ideas of the times they were drawn in clearly.