The Adventures of Tintin (Les Aventures de Tintin) is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist Georges Remi (1907 1983), who wrote under the pen name of Herge. The series is one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, with translations published in more than 50 languages and more than 200 million copies of the books sold to date.] The series first appeared in French in Le Petit Vingtieme, a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le XXe Siecle on 10 January 1929. The success of the series saw the serialized strips published in Belgium's leading newspaper Le Soir, collected into a series of 24 albums, spun into a successful Tintin magazine, and adapted for film, radio, television and theater. Set during a largely realistic 20th century, the hero of the series is Tintin, a young Belgian reporter. He is aided in his adventures by his faithful fox terrier dog, Snowy(Milou in French). Later, popular additions to the cast included the brash and cynical Captain Haddock, the highly intelligent but hearing-impaired Professor Calculus (Professeur Tournesol) and other supporting characters such as the incompetent detectives Thomson and Thompson (Dupont et Dupond). Herge himself features in several of the comics as a background character, as do his assistants in some instances. The comic strip series has long been admired for its clean, expressive drawings in Herge's signature ligne claire style. It s engaging, well-researched plots straddle a variety of genres: swashbuckling adventures with elements of fantasy, mysteries, political thrillers, and science fiction. The stories within the Tintin series always feature slapstick humor, offset in later albums by dashes of sophisticated satire and political/cultural commentary.