TORN FROM THE HEADLINES: The 'Real' Tintin?

Palle Huld: The teenager who toured the world in 44 days, said to be an inspiration for Tintin
(photographed in 1928)

While this Danish Boy Scout would go on to become a successful actor, appearing in 40 films between 1933 and 2000, Palle Huld is featured here because of his youthful exploits that are said to have inspired Hergé in the creation of Tintin.

Born on August 2, 1912, Huld won a competition run by the national newspaper Politiken, that would see him honouring the work of Jules Verne (for the centenary of the writer's birth) by circumnavigating the globe, unaccompanied, in 46 days or less.

Chosen out of hundreds of teenaged applicants, the 15-year-old adventurer would be allowed to use any form of transportation except aviation.

According to Wikipedia, he left on this Phileas Fogg-inspired voyage on March 1, 1928, and his journey took him through England, Scotland, Canada, Japan, Korea, China (Manchuria), the Soviet Union, Poland, and Germany.

Huld made it back to Copenhagen in 44 days, where he was met by a 20,000-strong, cheering crowd.

This feat made headlines across Europe and almost certainly caught the eye of Hergé, as not only did his legendary literary creation physically resemble the red-haired world-traveller, but his return celebrations were echoed at the end of the first Tintin adventure, In The Land of The Soviets, in 1930.

Huld was also often photographed on this journey dressed in a cap and plus-fours, which would go on to become Tintin's iconic dress code.

After his initial globe-hopping, young Huld made a second, shorter, trip (mostly while dressed in his Boy Scout uniform) to Sweden, England (where he met Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scouting movement) and France (where he laid a bouquet of flowers at the grave of Jules Verne).

After a great career on the stage, in TV and films, Palle Huld died on November 26, 2010, in Copenhagen, adamant that he had never read a comic book in his life and knew very little about Tintin.