While some comic companies may be shutting down websites that post their comics illegally, Moulinsart, the company which owns the rights to Hergé’s work, is busy suing people that use excerpts from Tintin adventures in scholarly work, launching personal attacks on journalists, and losing millions of euros a year.

The Financial Times article has more, though the website lacks the empty white boxes (with sound effects) used to illustrate the print version.

14 COMMENTS

  1. I was talking to some fans at SPX10 in Stockholm about this. Possibly the worst PR campaign of all time. How to completely alienate your fan base in one foul swoop. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  2. I’ve always found the Breaking Free situation to be quite bizarre. It would be such an easy thing to shut it down, and Moulinsart must be aware of it. I can’t imagine any other comic or company that would let it’s characters be used in such a way, particularly one as litigious as Moulinsart.
    Then again, although it’s freely available from it’s distributor, you don’t tend to see it in shops very often.

  3. I can’t think of any other company who maintains such a tyranical hold over their character than Moulinsart. It’s one thing to pursue illegal use of a character, but fan sites and publications which seek to promote your character? That attitude mystifies me.

  4. The whole Breaking Free scenario maybe protected under satire/parody laws. Not sure that’d stand up, but there’s plenty of French publications that use Tintin under that ruling.

  5. This is as good a place as any to recommend Frederic Tuten’s amazing novel, “Tintin In The New World: A Romance.” The young journalist’s ultimate adventure.

  6. In the New World is one of the only a handful of authorized pastiches! The only others I can only think of are the Blue Oranges, Lake of Sharks and Objective World.

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