Tintin would indeed look like a certain Palle Huld. It was by seeing a photograph of this young Dane, born in 1912, and died in 2010, almost a hundred years old, that Hergé would have had the idea of the character who would make him famous. Looking at this photograph, taken on Moscow's Red Square in 1928, you can immediately see similarities between this 15-year-old teenager and the future Tintin. He wears golf pants, a buttoned jacket, covered with a loose coat. And he wears a wide cap. In short, the very outfit of Tintin, which one would think came out of his albums to come and pose in front of the photographer's lens. Little time passed between this photo, whether or not it inspired the creation of Tintin, and the first appearance of the famous reporter, on January 10, 1929, in the pages of a Belgian newspaper.


This photo of Palle Huld was taken during a world tour that the young man was then making. The trip was organized by a Danish newspaper, on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Jules Verne. Palle Huld was chosen from among many candidates. Questioned at the end of his life, he thought that his youthful appearance and red hair, uncommon in Denmark, had earned him a nomination.

Apprenticed at that time, the teenager then embarked, to the great horror of his mother, on an odyssey of more than 32,000 kilometers, accomplished in a month and a half. He could travel in any way that suited him best, without being allowed to fly.

This journey, which was not without danger, took him to the four corners of the world, from North America to Russia to Japan. On his return, the young man is greeted as a hero. Later, he became an actor, both in theater and cinema. He also wrote a book about his trip.

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