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Bawdy Tintin update pulled after pressure from estate

Barcelona: His sexuality was always a closely guarded secret that his creator Herge sought to preserve. But a Spanish version of one of Tintin’s most famous tales, The Blue Lotus, has dared to suggest the intrepid Belgian reporter was a voracious lover.

Entitled The Pink Lotus, there are graphic sex scenes that would raise the eyebrows of parents with young children.

But its Spanish author, Antonio Altarriba, has paid the price: the book has been withdrawn from bookshops after pressure from Herge’s estate, which controls the rights to the work of the Belgian writer Georges Remi. Herge was the pen-name of Remi, who died in 1983.

The estate claimed the Altarriba version of this particular tale, which was published to cash in on last year’s 100th anniversary of Remi’s birth, “perverted the essence of the personality” of Tintin. It put pressure on the publishers of The Pink Lotus, Edicions de Ponent, and its distributors to ensure it would never appear in bookshops again.

In the banned version, Tintin is depicted in his 30s instead of the ageless character beloved of generations of children. Many of his contemporaries have disappeared and the famous journalist is undergoing something of a midlife crisis.

Portrayed as a dissolute tabloid journalist, Tintin has affairs with various women; his past glories left long behind him. Altarriba, a comic-book writer, said: “I am an author and am totally against plagiarism, but the use of personalities which are already in existence is common. I have used many characters from the past in my books and I have never had a problem. But after this I will never write again about Tintin.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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