The Truth About Tintin...

The truth about Tintin's mysterious journey to Canberra

Ok comrades so I've not posted for some time - my apologies for the 3 people in the universe who still occasionally wander over to this site! Still with work turning me into some kind of feverish madman these last several weeks I have really had my share of "challenges moving forward in the current fiscal environment" as they say in the classics (or at least the boardroom up on the 12th floor at 601 Broadway but that's another far less engaging tale to tell).

Far more interesting to share my new found love of all things Bill Leak - the man now truly stands alongside Michel Foucault, John Lennon, Miles Davis and Gough Whitlam in Cameron's all time hall of fame. His story below recounting why it is that he draws Kevin Rudd as Tintin is a work of no little mischief and more than enough raised eyebrow allure. Entertaining stuff.

On another note Andrea and I finally kicked off the rainy day blues and headed out this past Friday night for some rock and roll lovin'. I'll post the pix in a minute. I also had my first flight on a genuine sea plane the other day and that was a REAL blast. Landing on water is a gas, gas, gas!

More,

Cameron

PS Now I want to go drinking with this guy in a steamy bar in Thailand - look how much trouble he get's himself into.

Oh yes and by the way I have now officially realised that being on holidays is infinitely preferrable to being at work - thought I'd share that glorious example of my own genius with you...

THE WRY SIDE

March 26, 2007

YOU never know quite what to expect when you're invited to dinner at Jack the Insider's place. Jack, or JTI as we call him, has such a wide circle of friends you're just as likely to find yourself in the company of international celebrities, statesmen or rubbing shoulders with the sort of low life other prisoners steer clear of when they're doing their time.

Last Friday night the guest list was made up of representatives from the last category. With my negligible history of criminality, I felt out of depth and vaguely uneasy, wondering why I'd been asked along. For obvious reasons I can't name names. Let's just say Brian Burke would draw the line at breaking bread with these blokes.

When we'd finished our dinner of blood sausage, fried onions and schooners of over-proof rum and the scraps were being fought over by his pit bulls, JTI produced two schooner glasses and a bottle of Bruichladdich X4 Perilous whisky. A sniff of the cork has been known to kill Scottish highlanders who pride themselves on their ability to drink. He poured one for himself, another for me and then placed a pair of bolt cutters on the table.

"Right, now I want you to tell us all the truth," he said. "I'll use one of these two methods to extract it. Take your pick."

I opted for the whisky.

"The truth about what, JTI?" I stammered.

"Why do you draw Kevin Rudd as Tintin?"

Normally I answer this question by simply saying the two look the same. But JTI knew there was more to it. The game was up. I had to come clean and so I told him the truth.

The first time I laid eyes on Tintin he was hunched over an ancient Chinese manuscript and a pint of Hibernus Tripel in a sleazy bar on Patpong Road, Bangkok.

The straggly beard and the dreadlocks might have provided a convincing disguise but any hard-bitten cartoonist can see through whiskers and tresses. I knew it was him. Besides, only a Belgian would order an Urquell Hibernus in Bangkok.

I ordered a pint for myself, headed for a table near his and sketched him on a coaster. I slid the drawing across his table and came straight out with it. "You need a haircut, Tintin."

"How did you know who I was?" he murmured, not looking up.

"I'm a cartoonist. You can't fool me."

This time he looked up. "So what are you doing here?" he asked.

I told him I was on an assignment for Major Mitchell and left it at that.

"So you know the major, eh? I met him myself down in Yeppoon."

"Yeppoon, eh? What were you doing there?"

"I was living on wombats and gum leaves out of town in a humpy, a tattered pair of knickerbockers and no shoes. Yeah, man, I was doing it hard."

"Let me get you another Tripel," I said, and Tintin didn't say no.

As the evening wore on, he told his story. How Herge had sent him and Haddock on a mission to find the legendary series of bark paintings known as Harto's Selection, a treasure trove as elusive as Lasseter's Reef and every bit as valuable, protected for all eternity by Munjalikturunji, or the Night Serpent, who kills his victims by staring at them while they sleep. How Haddock, the first white man to see the paintings, went to bed wild-eyed and gibbering afterwards and never woke up. And how he, Tintin, saw them and lived to never tell the tale. Until now.

We'd moved on to schooners of Mandarine Napoleon by the time the sun rose. Sitting there in the smoky mist, Tintin looked every bit as pale and washed out as the feeble slithers of early morning light creeping through the bamboo curtains, a comic book has-been with fading colours and a blurry outline.

"You know," he said wistfully, "sometimes I believe I've still got one big adventure left in me. Australia, I've thought, was the one place that defeated me. But maybe I could go back there some day, change my name to Kevin and go looking for a job. Goss, I hear, has a posting for a man who speaks Chinese."

With that, he shouldered his swag and called for Snowy. The old mutt came out from under his chair where he must have been all night, filthy and mangy looking. It was him all right but only a cartoonist could have recognised old Snowy.

We shook hands and Tintin headed for the door. "See you in Canberra," he said mysteriously, and was gone.

Bastard's taken my drawing, I thought. Ah, what the hell. I'll see him again one day and draw another one. Turns out I was right.