Stanislas = Mr. Hergé

(edit – added two more book covers, thanks to Darko)

When there’s a subject that still grips a rather large market, but a certain party blocks any use of visual material of that subject, it pays off to have already made your mark. If that’s a little obtuse, and you’ll need to forgive me for mincing my words, consider the French cartoonist Stanislas.

Since he provided the art for José-Louis Bocquet and Jean-Luc Fromental’s visual biography of Tintin creator Hergé, published as Les Aventures d’Hergé (in a number of editions, with equally many cover illustrations), his extra naive take on the ligne claire has provided cover art for many a book on Tintin and his creator.

In 2014, Dominique Cerbelaud and Olivier Roche collected all publications on Hergé (more than 600) in Bibliographie d’un Mythe (Les Impressions Nouvelles). Renaud Nattiez wrote Le Mystère Tintin and Les Femmes dans le Monde de Tintin (both Sépia), while Patrick Mérand lists all details that the average reader will probably miss in Les Coulisses d’Hergé. Philippe Lombard tackles Hergé’s adventures on the silver screen in Tintin, Hergé et le Cinéma, and Bob Garcia looks into Hergé’s morals and belief systems in Tintin, le Diable et le Bon Dieu. Similarly, Marcel Wilmet studies the influence of Abbé Wallez on both Hergé and Belgian far right politician Léon Degrelle in L’Abbé Wallez, L’Eminence Noire de Degrelle et Hergé. The role of Jacques Van Melkebeke in the relationship between Hergé and E.P. Jacobs is the subject of Benoit Mouchart’s A l’Ombre de la Ligne Claire.

Most recently, Geoffrey Kursner presents an overview of all international newspaper runs Hergé’s comics have known in Hergé et la Presse.

And since Moulinsart guards all visual representation of the quiffed one like a set of hawks, all these authors called on Stanislas for a cover. Which, somehow, makes for some continuity.