Tintin (character) making it in his role of explorer. Clearly unencumbered with financial preoccupations, after "Red Rackham's Treasure" he is ensconced as a permanent house guest in the stately Marlinspike Hall with retired mariner Captain Haddock and the scientist Professor Calculus. Tintin occupies all of his time with his friends, exploring the bottom of the sea, the tops of the mountains, and the surface of the Moon (sixteen years before astronaut Neil Armstrong). Through it all, Tintin finds himself cast in the role of international social crusader, sticking up for the underdog and looking after those less fortunate than himself. From the
Tintin (character) admitted that he did not take Tintin seriously in the early "Adventures", explaining simply that he "put the character to the test" and that Tintin was simply created "as a joke between friends, forgotten the next day." Hergé biographer Benoît Peeters noted that throughout the early "Adventures", Tintin was "supremely Belgian" in his characteristics, a view echoed by biographer Pierre Assouline, who deemed all of the protagonists of the early "Adventures" "very Belgian". Hergé himself commented: "my early works are books by a young Belgian filled with the prejudices and ideas of a Catholic, they are books that could have