The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free
The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free is an anarchist parody of the popular The Adventures of Tintin series of comics. An exercise in détournement, the book was written under the pseudonym "J. Daniels" and published by Attack International in April of 1988 and then republished in 1999. It has recently been re-printed by anarchist publishers Freedom Press which includes for the first time Tintin’s earlier adventures during the Wapping dispute as told in The Scum, a 1986 pamphlet which was produced in solidarity with the printworkers.
Cover of the January 1, 1999 Attack International paperback edition.
A portion of the final page of Breaking Free, featuring a mass demonstration escalating towards revolution. Each panel of the novel was copied from works of Tintin creator, Hergé, with edited dialogue.
Anarchism has long had an association with the arts, particularly with visual art, music and literature. This can be dated back to the start of anarchism as a named political concept, and the writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon on the French realist painter Gustave Courbet. In an essay on Courbet of 1857 Proudhon had set out a principle for art, which he saw in the work of Courbet, that it should show the real lives of the working classes and the injustices working people face at the hands of the bourgeoisie.
Les chataigniers a Osny (1888) by anarchist painter Camille Pissarro, an example of blending anarchism and art
Cubist anarchist art, depicting the Tottenham protests
The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli by Carlo Carrà, 1911
Anarchist statue and mural