The Tintin stories enter the public domain in 2025

18 December 2024

As a kid I loved the Tintin books. Although they might today be called a product of their time, I aspired to be like the intrepid boy-reporter, who seemed to do very little reporting. I have the red hair, and I write a blog so… Plus, I did write a few articles for a newspaper once. Sometimes people refer to me as a journalist (not always for flattering reasons however…).

So maybe I kind of, sort of, ended up like Tintin.

Anyway, the Tintin stories are among a batch of well-known cultural artefacts (could I refer to the Tintin comic books that way?) entering the public domain in 2025. The final, completed, story in the series, Tintin and the Picaros, was published in 1976, and creator Hergé died in 1983, meaning only some earlier Tintin works will enter the public realm for now.

But it makes me wonder. If the boy-reporter were still with us, would he still be writing for a newspaper? Or might he have capitalised on his considerable profile, and launched his own online publication. A super-famous blog. Such are the things I stay up late at night thinking about.