Tintin, the intrepid Belgian boy reporter who never grows old and has no surname, turned 90 on Thursday.
On January 10, 1929, Tintin's first escapade was published in Le Petit Vingtieme, the newspaper comic supplement in Brussels. Created by Belgian artist Hergé, the pen name of Georges Prosper Remi, Tintin and his faithful companion Snowy - who speaks in some books but not others - spent the next five decades travelling around the world, righting wrongs and exposing criminal syndicates wherever they went.
Always neatly dressed in blue jersey and brown plus-fours and with his fringe impeccably curled, Tintin's integrity, sober habits and tireless commitment to social justice gave the press a good name and inspired many youngsters to enter the journalism profession, even though there is only one instance in all the comic books where Tintin actually files a story.
Tintin serves as reminder of an era when reporters were portrayed as seekers of the truth, holding those in power to account, instead of being depicted as the "enemy of the people," as Donald Trump has called them, accusing them of spreading fake news.
With more than 250-million copies of Tintin comic books sold worldwide in multiple languages, Moulinsart, the exclusive manager of Hergé's estate, has decided to mark the 90th birthday of the character with a year-long celebration, starting with the young journalist's expedition in the former Belgian colony of Congo. Moulinsart announced on Thursday that a digital edition of Tintin in the Congo, remastered in colour, will be released via the app Les Aventures de Tintin.
It is one of the most controversial of Hergé's 24 book-length works, frequently attacked for racism - including in court - and banned in the libraries of several countries for its depiction of the Congolese.
The 1930 adventure, in which the boy wonder investigates diamond smugglers and trophy hunters, was among the first Tintin stories to be serialised by Hergé. The first version included a sequence in which Tintin blows a rhino to smithereens with a stick of dynamite, but Hergé altered this in the next printing to show the rhino running away unharmed.
As for the portrayal of the Congolese characters in the book, Congo-born, Brussels-based comic-book artist Barly Baruti said bringing out a new edition of the work at a time when nationalist and racist groups are on the rise in Europe was questionable. "We really ask ourselves if it is the right moment."
The publishers, however, dismissed these reservations. Ten years ago, a Belgian court rejected an attempt by Congolese campaigners to have the book banned. The judges said it reflected the colonial attitudes of its time and there was no evidence that Hergé - who died in 1983 aged 75 - held racist views.
The republication happens to coincide with a landmark election in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where this week political outsider Felix Tshisekedi was announced the country's new president.
Yves Fevrier, head of digital at Moulinsart, told reporters in Brussels that this was just one coincidence in the republication of Tintin's adventures.
"We started in 2017 with Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Strangely, it was the 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution. Today is the election in Congo and in two years by chance we'll have Tintin in America when Trump is up for re-election."
The Hergé Foundation has many events planned for this year, including the opening of the first official Tintin store in Shanghai.
- additional reporting from Reuters and Bloomberg..