Review by Win Wiacek

Georges Prosper Remi, known all over the world as Hergé after his initials spoken in reverse in a French accent, created a genuine masterpiece of graphic literature with his tales of a plucky boy reporter and his entourage of iconic associates, but Tintin was by no means his only creation. Among the best of the rest are Jo, Zette and Jocko and these episodic all-ages comedy gems. For a while the adventures of two young scallywags rivalled the utterly irresistible Tintin in popularity, and they certainly acted as a test lab for the humorous graphic elements so much a part of the future world classic.

On leaving school in 1925 Hergé worked for the Catholic newspaper Le Xxe Siécle where by 1928 he was in charge of producing the contents of Le Xxe Siécle’s weekly supplement for children Le Petit Vingtiéme.

He was unhappily illustrating strips written by the staff sports reporter, when given the opportunity to create a new adventure series. Perhaps a young reporter who would travel the world, doing good whilst displaying solid Catholic values and virtues?

Having recently discovered the word balloon in imported newspaper strips, Remi decided to incorporate the innovation into his own work. Alongside Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Hergé also began crafting the weekly two-page exploits of a pair of working class rapscallions in Brussels, with whom the audience could identify. They played pranks, got into mischief and even ventured into the heady realms of slapstick and surrealism in the kind of yarns that any reader of Dennis the Menace (British, not the American one) would find fascinatingly familiar.

Originally running in black and white from January 1930 they larked about for over a decade until World War II and the pressure of producing Tintin meant they had to go. They were rediscovered in 1985 and their collected adventures ran for a dozen volumes in Europe.

Now these nautically themed strips are available for folk too lazy to learn French (or Dutch or German or…) in a glorious full-colour make-over and are the perfect light read for kids of all ages.