Confused by the cult of Tintin? You're not alone

Tintin and Snowy: the intrepid duo

Tintin turns 80 at the weekend as Steven Spielberg begins work on a Hollywood film of the comic book hero. He has long been a star on the Continent, but the cub reporter is almost unheard of in the United States and little more than a cult in the UK, writes Laurence Grove.

When, on 10 January 1929, Tintin first appeared in the children's supplement of Brussels' right-wing newspaper Vingtieme Siecle, the serialised adventure that was to follow could, at the time, have had all the makings of a transatlantic hit.

Tintin au Pays des Soviets was to portray a cruel and corrupt communist regime, where factories were cardboard cut-outs and those who spoke out against the Party were dispensed with immediately.

Unfortunately the boy scout may have ruined his chances of becoming an all-American role model in his subsequent adventures by belittling the natives in Tintin au Congo (1930) and then unveiling Mafia strangleholds and cruelty to native Americans in Tintin en Am