The Seven Crystal Balls

The Seven Crystal Balls began serialization amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. Hergé had accepted a position working for Le Soir, Belgium's largest Francophone daily newspaper. Confiscated from its original owners, Le Soir was permitted by the German authorities to reopen under the directorship of Belgian editor Raymond de Becker, although it remained firmly under Nazi control, supporting the German war effort and espousing anti-Semitism.[3] Joining Le Soir on 15 October 1940, Hergé was aided by old friend Paul Jamin and the cartoonist Jacques Van Melkebeke.[4] Some Belgians were upset that Hergé was willing to work for a newspaper controlled by the occupying Nazi administration,[5] although he was heavily enticed by the size of Le Soir's readership, which reached 600,000.[6] Faced with the reality of Nazi oversight, Hergé abandoned the overt political themes that had pervaded much of his earlier work, instead adopting a policy of neutrality.[7] Without the need to satirise political types, entertainment producer and author Harry Thompson observed that "Hergé was now concentrating more on plot and on developing a new style of character comedy. The public reacted positively".[8]

Following the culmination of his previous Tintin adventure, Red Rackham's Treasure, Hergé had agreed to a proposal that would allow the newspaper to include a detective story revolving around his characters, Thomson and Thompson. Titled Dupont et Dupond, détectives ("Thomson and Thompson, Detectives"), Hergé provided the illustrations, and the story was authored by Le Soir crime writer Paul Kinnet.[9] While this was being serialised, Hergé began contemplating ideas for his new Tintin adventure, toying with the idea of a story surrounding a dangerous invention that Calculus had developed. The story was probably inspired by an article authored by Le Soir's science correspondent, Bernard Heuvelmans, and while Hergé did not use this idea at the time, he revived it a decade later as the basis for The Calculus Affair.[10]

Inca mummy in the Brussels Cinquantenaire Museum: the inspiration for Rascar Capac

As with Hergé's two previous stories, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure, The Seven Crystal Balls was designed as part of a twofold story arc, to be concluded with the then yet unnamed Prisoners of the Sun.[11] Hergé planned for the former story to outline a mystery, while the latter would see his characters undertake an expedition to solve it.[11] His use of an ancient mummy's curse around which the narrative revolved was inspired by tales of a curse of the pharaohs which had been unearthed during the archaeologist Howard Carter's 1922 discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb. This was not the first time that Hergé had been inspired by this tabloid story, having previously drawn from it when authoring Cigars of the Pharaoh.[12]

In autumn 1943, Hergé decided that he wanted Edgar P. Jacobs, a fellow cartoonist, to collaborate with him on The Adventures of Tintin. Although initially hesitant, Jacobs eventually agreed, adopting the paid position in January 1944.[13] The two became close friends and artistic collaborators, as Jacobs aided Hergé in developing various aspects of the plot, such as the idea of the crystal balls and the story's title.[14] Although stylistically the two men were different both in forms of illustration and narrative, they influenced each other greatly.[14] Hergé used Jacobs as a life model from whom he drew various poses that characters adopt in the story.[15] He also used Jacobs as a researcher, sending him to the Cinquantenaire Museum to study its collections of Incan material,[16] and it was the mummified Incan corpse in their collection that was used as the basis for the mummy of Rascar Capac.[17]

The museum's director, Professor Capart, exhibited similarities with Professor Tarragon, a new character that Hergé had developed for the story.[18] Hergé also included a number of characters who had previously appeared in earlier adventures, among them Professor Cantonneau from The Shooting Star,[19] General Alcazar from The Broken Ear,[20] and Bianca Castafiore from King Ottokar's Sceptre.[20]

The scenery and background of the story was meticulously copied from existing sources; car model types like the Opel Olympia 38 in which Calculus' abductors escaped the police were drawn from real examples,[21] while Hergé closely adhered to the reality of the port and docks at Saint-Nazaire.[22] Professor Tarragon's house was drawn from a real house in Avenue Delleur, Boitsfort, which Jacobs had identified for Hergé's purposes. Hergé and Jacobs stationed themselves outside the house and completed a sketch of the building. Immediately after, two grey cars containing German soldiers pulled up; the house had been requisitioned by the Schutzstaffel (SS). Hergé realised that, had he and Jacobs been discovered sketching, they would have been interrogated.[23]

The story began serialisation in Le Soir under the title of Les Sept Boules de Cristal on 16 December 1943.[24] However, Hergé's health declined, as he was afflicted with flu, sinusitis, and ear ache. This was accompanied by general exhaustion, depression, and fear that upon the imminent collapse of German administration, he would face retribution as a collaborator; many accused of being collaborators had already been killed by the Belgian Resistance. Experiencing a breakdown, he took a hiatus from producing The Seven Crystal Balls between 6 May and 6 July 1944,[25] during which a message was posted in Le Soir stating:

The Allied liberation of Belgium in September 1944 halted the serialised adventure

They're coming! Who? Why, Tintin and Snowy, of course! Perhaps, since you have not heard anything about them lately, you have been afraid, dear readers, that something bad had happened to them? Nothing of the sort! Tintin and Snowy were simply waiting for our excellent associate and friend Hergé to return to better health, as he was sick for a few weeks.[25]

The story returned to its serialisation in Le Soir on 7 July, starting with a summary of the story so far.[26] However, it would be interrupted again on 2 September 1944.[27] Brussels was liberated from German occupation by the Allied forces on 3 September, upon which Le Soir immediately ceased publication.[21] Hergé had been forced to abandon the story after 152 strips, equivalent to fifty pages of the later published book volume.[28] The story had been left unfinished after the scene in which Tintin leaves the hospital where he sees the seven members of the expedition enduring a simultaneous fit.[28][lower-alpha 1] Three days later the entire staff were fired and a new editorial team introduced.[21]

Hergé was arrested on 3 September, having been named as a collaborator in a Resistance document known as the "Gallery of Traitors".[30] This would be the first of four incidents in which Hergé was arrested and freed: by the State Security, the Judiciary Police, the Belgian National Movement, and the Front for Independence, during which he spent one night in jail.[31] On 8 September the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force issued a proclamation announcing that "any journalist who had helped produce a newspaper during the occupation was for the time being barred from practising his profession".[32] Blacklisted, Hergé was now unemployed.[33] A newspaper closely associated with the Belgian Resistance, La Patrie, issued a strip titled The Adventures of Tintin in the Land of the Nazis, in which Hergé was lampooned as a collaborator.[34]

The period witnessed widespread allegations against accused collaborators, with military courts condemning 30,000 on minor charges and 25,000 on more serious charges; of those, 5,500 were sentenced to life imprisonment or capital punishment.[35] A judiciary inquiry into Hergé's case was launched by the deputy public prosecutor, Mr Vinçotte, although in his report he urged lenience, stating that "I am inclined to close the case. I believe it would bring ridicule on the judicial system to go after an inoffensive children's book author and illustrator. On the other hand, Hergé worked for Le Soir during the war, and his illustrations are what made people buy the newspaper".[36] Unable to work for the press, Hergé worked from home re-drawing, and Jacobs colouring, the older Adventures of Tintin for publication by his book publisher Casterman, completing the second version of Tintin in the Congo and starting on King Ottokar's Sceptre.[37] Casterman supported Hergé throughout his ordeal, for which he always remained grateful.[38] He and Jacobs produced a comic strip under the pseudonym of "Olav", although no publishers accepted it.[39] Although this period allowed him an escape from the pressure of daily production which had affected most of his working life,[28] he also had family problems to deal with; his brother Paul returned to Brussels from a German prisoner-of-war camp and their mother had become highly delusional and was moved to a psychiatric hospital.[40]

Booklet published by the Belgian Resistance group L'Insoumis, denouncing Georges Remy [sic] as a collaborator. Hergé later admitted that "I hated the Resistance thing ... I knew that for every one of the Resistance's actions, hostages would be arrested and shot".[41]

In October 1945, Hergé was approached by Raymond Leblanc, a former member of a conservative Resistance group, the National Royalist Movement (MNR), and his associates André Sinave and Albert Debaty. The trio were planning on launching a weekly magazine for children. Leblanc, who had fond childhood memories of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, thought Hergé would be ideal for it.[42] Hergé agreed, and Leblanc obtained clearance papers for him, allowing him to work.[43] Concerned about the judicial investigation into Hergé's wartime affiliations, Leblanc convinced William Ugeux, a leader of the Belgian Resistance who was now in charge of censorship and certificates of good citizenship, to look into the comic creator's file. Ugeux concluded that Hergé had been "a blunderer rather than a traitor" for his work at Le Soir.[44] The decision whether Hergé would stand trial belonged to the general auditor of the Military Tribunal, Walter Ganshof van der Meersch. He closed the case on 22 December, declaring that "in regard to the particularly inoffensive character of the drawings published by Remi, bringing him before a war tribunal would be inappropriate and risky".[45]

Now free from threat of prosecution, he continued to support his colleagues at Le Soir who were being charged as collaborators; six of them were sentenced to death, and others to lengthy prison sentences.[46] Among those sentenced to death was Hergé's friend, Paul Jamin, although his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.[47][lower-alpha 2] In May 1946, Hergé was issued a certificate of good citizenship, which became largely necessary to obtain employment in post-war Belgium.[49] Celebrations were marred by his mother's death at age 60 in April 1946.[50] Harry Thompson has described this post-war period as the "greatest upheaval" of Hergé's life.[11] Hergé later described it as "an experience of absolute intolerance. It was horrible, horrible!"[51] He considered the post-war trials of collaborators a great injustice inflicted upon many innocent people,[52] and never forgave Belgian society for the way that he had been treated, although he hid this from his public persona.[53]

Leblanc's new magazine was titled Tintin at the advice of Sinave, who believed that this would help attract a wide audience.[54] Adopting the slogan of "The Newspaper for the Young Aged 7 to 77",[55] the magazine's logo featured the Tintin character himself.[56] Inspired by the example set by Le Petit Vingtième, Tintin magazine was to be a weekly, centred on the eponymous hero. The Adventures of Tintin would be serialised two pages per week, accompanied by other Franco-Belgian comics. For the first time, the Adventures would be in colour from the outset.[29] Hergé assembled a team of artists for the purpose, including Edgar P. Jacobs and Jacques Van Melkebeke, who became the magazine's first editor.[57] Hergé continued at the point where he had left The Seven Crystal Balls, prior to embarking on Prisoners of the Sun,[58] although both were published under the title of Le Temple du Soleil (The Temple of the Sun).[59] Rather than re-serialising the story from its beginning, he began the new magazine with a summary of the story so far, presented as a press clipping.[60][lower-alpha 3] The magazine was an instant success, soon gaining a weekly circulation of 100,000 in Belgium and the Netherlands.[61] The Seven Crystal Balls serialisation finally concluded on 22 April 1948, four and a half years after it had begun.[62]

As with previous adventures, it then began serialisation in the French Catholic newspaper Cœurs Vaillants, from 19 May 1946.[27] After the story had finished serialisation, the publishing company Casterman divided it into two volumes, Les Sept Boules de Cristal and Le Temple du Soleil, which they released in 1948 and 1949 respectively.[27] One of the scenes that had been found in Le Soir, in which Haddock is humiliated by the clairvoyant at the theatre, was removed from the story when it was being reformatted in book form.[63] The book contained additional backgrounds not found in the original serialised story which had been drawn by Jacobs.[27]

When translated into English for a publication by Methuen in 1963, a number of Francophone place-names were changed; for instance, the port of Saint-Nazaire was renamed Westermouth, which, according to author Michael Farr, was probably inspired by the real English coastal town of Weymouth.[21] As the English-language translation was published after the English translation of other Tintin adventures, which had actually been authored later than The Seven Crystal Balls, in the English version, references are made to events that would occur in The Calculus Affair and The Red Sea Sharks.[64]