It was here, in 1929, that he began serialising the first of the Adventures of Tintin, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.

He left Land of the Black Gold unfinished, launching instead into The Crab with the Golden Claws, the first of six Tintin stories which he produced during the war.

* January 10 – First appearance of Hergé's Belgian comic book hero Tintin as Tintin in the Land of the Soviets ( Les Aventures de Tintin, reporter ..., au pays des Soviets ), begins serialization in children's newspaper supplement Le Petit Vingtième.

Additionally, Patrash Pasha ( Cigars of the Pharaoh ), Sheikh Bab El Ehr ( Land of Black Gold ) and General Tapioca ( referred to in The Broken Ear and appearing later in Tintin and the Picaros ) are all referred to but don't appear.

The officer, Mull Pasha, is in fact Doctor Müller, an enemy whom Tintin fought against in The Black Island and Land of Black Gold.

One of the earliest proper Belgian comics was Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin, with the story Tintin in the Land of the Soviets which was published in Le Petit Vingtième in 1929.

The first Tintin book, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, was crafted on the orders of Hergé's superiors, to be anti-Soviet propaganda of limited outlook.

* Land of Black Gold, the fifteenth of The Adventures of Tintin

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets ( in the original French, Les Aventures de Tintin, reporter du " Petit Vingtième ", au pays des Soviets ) is the first title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Hergé ( 1907 – 1983 ).

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was the only one of the 23 completed Tintin adventures that Hergé did not subsequently redraw in a colour edition.

Michael Farr also believed that the cinema of the time was an influence upon Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.

The first installment of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets appeared in the 10 January 1929 edition of Le Petit Vingtième, and would subsequently run in the paper in installments every week until 8 May 1930.

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets also began serialisation in a French Catholic magazine, Coeurs Vaillants ( Valiant Hearts ), from 26 October 1930 onward.

When, from 1942 onwards, Hergé began redrawing his earlier Tintin stories for the modernised colour versions at Casterman, he chose not to redraw Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, believing that the story was too crude.

As The Adventures of Tintin became more popular in Western Europe, and some of the rarer books became collectors items, the original printed edition of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets became highly valued.

After escaping again, Tintin finds " how the Soviets fool the poor idiots who still believe in a Red Paradise ", by burning bundles of straw and clanging metal in order to trick visiting English Marxists into believing that Soviet factories are productive, when in fact they are not even operational.

He is referenced in Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin, The Seven Crystal Balls published in 1944 by Le Soir.

The notable qualities of the Tintin stories include their vivid humanism, a realistic feel produced by meticulous and wide ranging research, and Hergé's ligne claire drawing style.

The character of Tintin was partly inspired by Georges's brother Paul Remi, an officer in the Belgian army.

In June he began the second Tintin adventure, Tintin in the Congo ( then the colony of Belgian Congo ), followed by Tintin in America and Cigars of the Pharaoh.

The early Tintin adventures each took about a year to complete, after which they were released in book form by Le Petit Vingtième and, from 1934, by the Casterman publishing house.

The crew Tintin joined was composed of Europeans from Axis or neutral countries (" Europe ") while their underhanded rivals were Americans ( although in later editions the US flag was removed from the rival ship ; see the image on the The Shooting Star page ), financed by a person with a Jewish name and what Nazi propagandists called " Jewish features.

Tintin had always been credited as simply " by Hergé ", without mention of Edgar Pierre Jacobs and Hergé's other assistants.

However, by this time Tintin had begun to move into other media.

Following his expressed desire not to have Tintin handled by another artist, it was published posthumously as a set of sketches and notes in 1986.

* The Blue Lotus, a Tintin book by Hergé

On 30 May 2010, a life-sized bronze statue of Tintin and Snowy, and more than 200 other Tintin items, including many original panels by Hergé, sold for 1. 08 million euros ($ 1. 3 million USD ) at a Paris auction.

In lighter media, a few stars of the comic industry made their debut, including Tintin, a comic book character created by Hergé, who would appear in over 200 million comic books in 60 languages.

; The Franco-Belgian comics: The Comic strip The Adventures of Tintin, one of the most popular 20th century European comics, was created in 1929 by Hergé.

Syldavia ( Cyrillic: Зилдaвиa ) is a fictional Balkan kingdom featured in The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé.

According to a brochure read by Tintin on his plane, Syldavia gained independence from Ottoman empire early, resembling Montenegro and Serbia.

Tintin had a hand in defusing the situation by returning the sceptre just before St Vladmir's day.

The Red Sea Sharks is the nineteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero.

Tintin decides to go to Khemed and rescue the emir, who has been overthrown by Sheikh Bab El Ehr.

At Wadesdah Airport in Khemed, Tintin and Haddock are turned back by customs, while someone ( presumably an agent of Dawson ) plants a bomb on the plane to " take care of them ".

Hergé has become one of the most famous Belgians worldwide and Tintin is still an international success.

For many years, Hergé continued to produce this less well-known series in parallel with his Tintin stories.

Hergé reached a watershed with The Blue Lotus, the fifth Tintin adventure.

As a result of this experience, Hergé strove in The Blue Lotus, and in subsequent Tintin adventures, to be meticulously accurate in depicting the places which Tintin visited.

However, Hergé accepted an offer to produce a new Tintin strip in Le Soir, Brussels ' leading French daily, which had been appropriated as the mouthpiece of the occupation forces.

In 1943 Hergé met Edgar P. Jacobs, another comics artist, whom he hired to help revise the early Tintin albums.

Jacob also began collaborating with Hergé on a new Tintin adventure, The Seven Crystal Balls ( see above ).

The publisher and wartime resistance fighter Raymond Leblanc provided the financial support and anti-Nazi credentials to launch the comics magazine titled Tintin with Hergé.

The increased demands which Tintin magazine placed on Hergé began to take their toll.

The studio employed several assistants to aid Hergé in the production of The Adventures of Tintin.

Foremost among these was artist Bob de Moor, who collaborated with Hergé on the remaining Tintin adventures, filling in details and backgrounds such as the spectacular lunar landscapes in Explorers on the Moon.

Hergé came to regard this highly personal and emotionally riveting Tintin adventure as his favourite.

The financial success of Tintin allowed Hergé to devote more of his time to travel.

In a remarkable instance of life mirroring art, Hergé managed to resume contact with his old friend Chang Chong-jen, years after Tintin rescued the fictional Chang Chong-Chen in the closing pages of Tintin in Tibet.

Tintin and his creator Hergé have inspired many artists within comics.

Hergé has been lauded as " creating in art a powerful graphic record of the 20th century's tortured history " through his work on Tintin.