This text is drawn from Entretiens avec Hergé, by Numa Sadoul, published by Casterman.

Pictures are from Hergé, by Pierre Assouline, published by Plon.

May 22, 1907 - Born in Etterbeek (district of urban Brussels) as REMI Georges. This name
yields, later, the pseudonym R.G.: HERGÉ.

Astrological sign: Gemini, which deeply marks the psychology and the character of the
personality. This type is understanding and indulgent, generous but reserved, curious,
level-headed, enthusiastic but careful, far-sighted, meticulous in the extreme, open to
discussion but not a debater, careful to weight the pros and cons of events...
From his earliest years, his parents have only one way to make him keep quiet: give him a
crayon and some paper.

1914 to 1918 - District School No. 3 in Ixelles (another district of Brussels). Georges
sketches at the bottom of his notebooks the adventures of a little man grappling with the
Germans (who were occupying Belgium). A hero without a name, stories without text. The
young Remi was haunted by the idea of the "boy hero"; he read and re-read, sometimes in
a loud voice, like an incantation, the short article on Joseph Bara from the Petit Larousse,
where an engraving shows the young boy, ordered by the Chouans to shout "Long live the
King!," responding with the cry "Long live the Republic!" and falling down, shot dead.

Georges in the scouts, head of the Squirrels patrol.

1918-1919 - School No. 11, preparatory for the Athénée (secondary school). Mediocre
pupil during this year.

1920 à 1925 - Georges Remi completes his "modern humanities," i.e., his secondary studies
at Saint Boniface school, an archiepiscopal school (the teachers are its priests) in Brussels.
An excellent pupil, almost the first in his class. Except in drawing: never just a passing
grade!

1925- After graduation, Georges joins the daily newspaper Le XXe Siècle (The Twentieth
Century) as employee in the subscriptions department.
He continues to supply The Belgian Boy Scout with plates of Totor.

1926 - His parents decide to let him pursue drawing. He begins at Saint-Luc school where,
without any indication, he is set in front of a plaster Corinthian marquee... One no longer
sees Remi the student at Saint-Luc, the pupil whose obsession was always to draw "the
little fellows"!...

1926-1927 - Military service, in the first infantry regiment.

Soldier, then lance corporal, then sergeant Remi still draws Totor; besides, he gives to
abbé Desmedt some illustrations for the publications of the Action Catholique (A.C.J.B.).

1927 - Back to the XXe Siècle, where the director, the abbé Norbert Wallez, urges him to
read, to educate himself, to cultivate himself. Especially, he trusts him with
responsibilities: photography, assistant photoengraver, but also cartoonist. For the
supplements of the paper - artistic and literary, feminine, . . - the young Hergé does some
lettering, decoration, layout, charts, portraits, illustrations, etc..

In the office of the Petit Vingtième With the abbé Wallez

1928 - Thursday, November 1st, publication of the first issue of Le Petit Vingtième, which
the newspaper will offer to its young readers every week from now on; Hergé is trusted
with the entire responsibility by abbé Wallez. In a storyline of a joking editor of the house,
named Desmedt like the priest mentioned above, Hergé draws The Adventures of Flup,
Nenesse, Pousette and Cochonnet, which does not delight him beyond measure...

At the same time, stumbling upon some newspapers brought from Mexico, he discovers
the American comics. Another important discovery: Alain Saint-Ogan and his "Zig et
Puce". That year also, marriage engagement to Germaine Kieckens, the secretary of abbé
Wallez.

January 10th, 1929 - The debut, in the 11th issue of the Petit Vingtième, of Tintin in the
Land of the Soviets: Hergé creates his fictional character in order to escape as script writer
of Flup, Nénesse..., and no one complains!

1930 - Thursday, January 23rd: first appearance of "Quick and Flupke."

Thursday, May 8th: triumphant return of Tintin, "coming from Russia," at the North
Brussels train station. The reporting of the Petit Vingtième says notably "Tintin and
Snowy, celebrated like princes (...) The enormous crowd warmly applauds the speech
which Tintin gives from the height of the balcony"... Beneath the photo, one reads "Here
we see Mr. Georges Remi (Hergé ), editor-in-chief of the Petit Vingtième...
Also in 1930, the French weekly Coeurs vaillants undertakes the publication of Tintin in
the Land of the Soviets, but begins it accompanying each frame with a caption. Hergé
protests.

1931 - May: Visits Alain Saint-Ogan.

Thursday, July 9th: Tintin returns, not less triumphantly, from the Congo. Enormous
crowd in front of the North Brussels train station. Caption of a photo published in Le Petit
Vingtième: "Tintin and Snowy welcomed by Quick and Flupke. Ten Congolese accompany
them." In other photos, Hergé displays - and he is not the only one - a felt hat with a large
ribbon.
Thursday, September 3rd: Filled with African enthusiasms Tintin has already left again,
and these are The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter in America. A concern for serious
research begins to develop in Hergé, who reads The History of the Red Indians, by Paul
Coze.

Tintin and Snowy back from the Congo

1932 - marriage of George and Germaine. Until that year, the three first albums of Hergé
have been published in the editions of the Petit Vingtième. Since now, it is only Casterman
who edits them.
Between Cigars of the Pharaoh (which will be recast in 1954) and The Blue Lotus, a
decisive meeting: that of the Chang Chong-Jen from China. In encouraging Hergé to
seriously research the countries where he sends his hero, this student at the Academy of
Fine Arts in Brussels opens a new world to the artist of Tintin, who begins to practice his
profession with a new seriousness.

Hergé with Chang

1935 to 1940 - There follows, in quick and even succession, The Broken Ear, The Black
Island, (following a trip to England, the first time that Hergé had preceded Tintin), King
Ottokar's Sceptre, Land of the Black Gold. This last episode was interrupted by Hergé's
mobilization as a reserve lieutenant; Land of the Black Gold is bluntly postponed a little
later by the war.

1940 to 1946 - At the beginning of this time, there is another important meeting: that of
Edgar Pierre Jacobs, who will become Hergé's first collaborator and who, notably, will
redraw the scenery and the uniforms of King Ottokar's Sceptre.
By the side of his first collaborator, there comes a second, female collaborator: Alice
Devos, who will work for Hergé for several years, recasting the page layout, set in a new
format but in the colors of the old issues.
The war and its paper restrictions had initiated a revolution in the plan of an issue:
Casterman must reduce the Hergé's albums to sixty-two pages, which entails the reduction
of the size of the drawings. As just compensation, the albums go from black and white to
color. The first album in this style: The Shooting Star (1942).

Edgar P. Jacobs, Jacques van Melkebeke and Hergé in 1944

October 1940 - Hergé is chief editor of the Soir Jeunesse, a supplement to the daily Le Soir,
with Jacques Van Melkebebe as principal assistant, a painter, cartoonist, and writer who
will later be the first chief editor of the weekly Tintin.
Writing of The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Shooting Star, The Secret of the Unicorn,
Red Rackham's Treasure, and The Seven Crystal Balls. In the middle of this last episode
the Liberation arrives.
A consequence of the paper shortage, this time from the creative side: being forced to
drawing daily "strips," sequences of three or four drawings in Le Soir, proved to be, says
Hergé, an excellent lesson in narration. Another important experience, following the
Liberation: being put on the index. Accused of having collaborated, Georges Remi is held
back from any publishing.

September 26th, 1946 - Birth of the Belgian weekly Tintin and reappearance of Hergé. The
first publishing success for Raymond Leblanc. A confirmation or revelation of talents:
Jacobs, Laudy, Cuvelier...
Beginning of a triumphal march for another publisher, the publisher of the albums: the
editions (in color) of Casterman begin to climb regularly toward a million per year, which
they will reach in 1956.

1947 to 1966 - Ten new stories, going from The Seven Crystal Balls (continued in Tintin) to
Flight 714, as well as the recasting of Cigars of the Pharaoh and The Black Island.

October 28th, 1948 - Appearance of the French edition of Tintin, published by Georges
Dargaud.

1950 - Creation of the Studio Hergé, where little by little as many as a dozen collaborators
will gather.

1956 - Beginning of the relationship of Georges and Fanny Vlamynch, colorist at the
Studios since 1952.

1959- Appearance of the first book devoted to Hergé: Le Monde d'Hergé, by Pol
Vandromme (Gallimard).

1960 - Georges discovers abstract art and painting at length, which became his central
passion.
Intense period of travel: Italy, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, England, Sweden, Switzerland,
Denmark, Greece, etc.
The separation is effective between Georges and Germaine.

Work at Studio Hergé, 1964

1971 - First trip to the U.S.A.,where he strikes up friendly relations with the Sioux Indians
of Pine Ridge, south Dakota: fifty years later, Hergé gets back in touch with the Indians of
his beginnings.

1972 - April: First Congress of the B.D. in New York. The great American cartoonists
open their arms to the father of Tintin and give him official homage.
November: Hergé the guest of honor at the eighth Lucques Exhibition of Comics (Italy).

1973 - Hergé winner of the St-Michel Grand Prize at Brussels, for the lifetime
achievement.
May: first trip to China, which is the realization of one of Hergé's oldest dreams. Officially
invited by the government of Chang Kai-chek since 1939, in thanks for services rendered
to the Chinese cause by The Blue Lotus, Hergé can reply to this invitation with only 34
years of delay...

1975 - Ardenne Prize awarded to Hergé in April, on the occasion of the "thirty-six hours of
the B.D." of Neufchâteau, Belgian. Appearance of the first version of Entretiens avec
Hergé, by Numa Sadoul (Casterman). A second edition appears in 1983.
Divorce of Georges and Germaine.

1976 - Arrival of Tintin and the Picaros: public success, with a welcome mitigated by
criticism. Once again, the critics are wrong...
On September 29th, the inauguration of the statue of Tintin and Snowy, produced by Nat
neujean and located in Wolwendael Park in Uccle, Brussels.
The same year, Hergé picks up the tracks of Chang Chong-Jen, lost since 1937 since he
had returned to China and the war had separated them. Now the Director of the Academy
of Fine Arts in Shanghai, he had a friend whose brother was travelling in Brussels.
Questioning without cease the Chinese of Belgian, Hergé was bound to discover him... He
renewed relations, only by letter, while awaiting a true reunion.

1977 - Hergé receives the ruby red medal of the city of Angoulême, on the occasion of the
4th Exhibition of the B.D. (January). We note in passing that he is president of this
Exhibition since its foundation in 1974.
On May 20th, the marriage of Georges and Fanny.

1978- Promotion to officer grade of the Order of the Crown, in Brussels. Hergé begins to
work on a new episode, provisionally titled Tintin and the Counterfeiters..

1979- The fiftieth anniversary of the creation of Tintin is marked around the world by
many celebrations and events. Among others:

 traveling exhibition "The Imaginary Museum of Tintin";

 various works, plaques, calendars, etc.;
 a medal bearing the images of Tintin and of Hergé, engraved by Gondard and
struck by the Hôtel de Monnaies, Paris;
 a Tintin stamp, published by the Belgian post office, on October 1st (as well as
various commemorative vignettes published by Tintin).

On January 17th of this same year, Hergé receives a Mickey from Walt Disney Co.. This
statuette had never been offered after the death of Disney.

Summer 1980 - First symptoms of Hergé's illness: anemia, great weakness. The leukemia
was diagnosed quite late. There begins a long and trying series of regular transfusions for
three years.

1981- Emotional reunion of Georges and Chang, on March 18th, in Brussels. This event
encourages a variety of celebrations and publications, and its repercussion is very great.
 With Chang, 50 years later

1982 - To properly celebrate the 75th anniversary of Georges Remi, the Belgian Society of
Astronomy names "Hergé" a small planetoid located by Mars and Jupiter and discovered
by the astronomer Sylvain Arend in 1953... the same year when Tintin published Explorers
on the Moon!

1983- March 3rd, Georges Remi dies in the Saint-Luc clinic in Brussels, after a week in a
coma.
Appearance of The World of Hergé, by Benoît Peeters (Casterman).

1984 - Steven Spielberg buys an options on the cinematic rights of Tintin.

Debut of the collection L'Oeuvre intégrale d'Hergé (Rombaldi), whose thirteen volumes
will appear until 1988.

1986 - Posthumous publication of the complete sketches known from now on as Tintin and
the Alph-Art.
Constitution of the Hergé Foundation, run by Fanny Remi.

1988 - August 31st: inauguration of the Stockel station of the Brussels metro, decorated
with a double fresco mural in which Hergé had collaborated since the project began in
1982.

Excerpts of an interview of Hergé by Jacques Chancel, for

Radio France's program Radioscopie, January 9th, 1979 (in French).
MP3 files

Pourquoi Tintin?...
Tintin n'a pas de famille...

Si j'ai pris ce pseudonyme...

Vous vous racontiez des histoires?...

Je pense que je ne me singularisais pas...

(concerning the accusations of racism etc.)

Vous êtes content des films qui ont été réalisés?...

Pour quelle cause pourriez-vous l'utiliser?...

On a pu penser un certain moment que nos amis Goscinny et

Uderzo...
(concerning Asterix)

Tintin pourrait vous échapper un jour...

Vous écrivez pour qui?...

Hergé c'est Tintin?...

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A Short Biography of Hergé*