title: Paolo Di Canio

text: In January 1999, Di Canio signed for West Ham United for £1.5 million. He had not played football since his ban following his push on Paul Alcock. West Ham manager Harry Redknapp, on signing Di Canio, admitted he was taking a chance but said of the player "He can do things with the ball that people can only dream of". Di Canio said of his ban, "I made a mistake and I'm sorry. West Ham have given me a big chance and I'm very happy." He scored his first goal for West Ham on 27 February 1999 in his fourth game. Playing against Blackburn Rovers, Di Canio made the first goal in a 2–0 win, for Ian Pearce in the 27th minute and scored the second in the 31st minute. He helped them to achieve a high league position (5th) and qualify for the UEFA Cup through the Intertoto Cup. He was also the OPTA player of the season 1998–99. He scored the BBC Goal of the Season in March 2000 with a flying volley against Wimbledon, which is still considered among the best goals in Premiership history and was named as the Premiership's goal of the decade in a December 2009 Sky Sports News viewers' poll, scoring 30% of votes. In this season he was also voted Hammer of the Year by the club's fans.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: In December 2000, late in a game against Everton and with both sides vying for the winning goal, Di Canio shunned a goal-scoring opportunity and stopped play, grabbing the ball from a cross inside the box, as the Everton goalkeeper Paul Gerrard was lying injured on the ground after he twisted his knee attempting a clearance on the edge of the box. The Goodison Park crowd reacted with a standing ovation. FIFA officially lauded Di Canio's gesture, describing it as "a special act of good sportsmanship," and awarded him next year the FIFA Fair Play Award.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: Sir Alex Ferguson tried to sign him for Manchester United halfway through the 2001–02 season, but his attempts were unsuccessful and Di Canio remained in East London for another season and a half. Di Canio insisted that he wouldn't be able to leave West Ham, who had handed him a lifeline in the worst moment in his life.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: In 2003, with the Hammers struggling at the bottom of the league, Di Canio had a very public row with manager Glenn Roeder and was dropped from the first team. However, he returned at the end of the season (after Roeder, stricken by a brain tumour, was replaced by Trevor Brooking) and scored a winner against Chelsea in the penultimate game of the season, a game that boosted West Ham's chances of staying in the Premiership. However, they were relegated on the final day of the season after a 2–2 draw away to Birmingham City, where Di Canio scored an 89th-minute equaliser. He was released on a free transfer and signed with Charlton Athletic for the start of the 2003–04 season.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: In his one season at The Valley, Di Canio helped Charlton Athletic finish the season in 7th position, the club's highest league finish since the 1950s. However, he only scored four league goals for the Addicks, all of which came from the penalty spot (one from a rebound). One of the penalty kicks was an audacious 'Panenka' style penalty kick against Arsenal. Di Canio however continued to be a provider of goals as well, notably in October 2003 when he came on as second-half substitute with Charlton trailing 0–1 away at Portsmouth. He provided most of the spark for Charlton's much-improved second-half display, and after Jonathan Fortune had equalised for Charlton, it was from Di Canio's corner kick in the last minute that Shaun Bartlett headed home the winning goal.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: Even though he had already signed an extension to his Charlton contract, in August 2004 he returned to his home team of Lazio taking a massive pay cut in order to return to the economically stretched Roman team. Lazio fans were happy to have a Rome-bred Lazio supporter in the team again, something missing since the departure of Alessandro Nesta in 2002. He scored in the Rome derby, just as he had in 1989, leading the team to a 3–1 victory over A.S. Roma on 6 January 2005. However the negative publicity that Di Canio generated for Lazio, including his intimate relationship with club's ultras and their increased influence thanks to his presence in the team, coupled with problems with some teammates and coaches, exasperated club president and majority shareholder, Claudio Lotito, with whom he already had a difficult relationship. As a result, Di Canio's contract was not renewed in the summer of 2006. During several of his games for Lazio – including during goal celebrations – Di Canio made a fascist salute to their right-wing fans. He subsequently signed with Cisco Roma of Serie C2 on a free transfer. In his first season with Cisco Roma, his team failed promotion to playoffs, despite a runners-up position in the regular season. He subsequently agreed to stay with Cisco for another season, in a second attempt to win promotion to Serie C1 with the Roman side.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: On 10 March 2008, Di Canio announced his retirement from football, ending his 23-year playing career before the end of the season due to physical issues. It was his intention to begin coaching lessons at Coverciano to gain a coaching position. In an interview he revealed that his dream would be to manage former club West Ham, and applied for the position after the resignation of Alan Curbishley in September 2008. Di Canio played in Tony Carr's testimonial game at Upton Park on 5 May 2010, which featured a West Ham team against West Ham Academy old boys. He played for both sides during the match. The West Ham team won 5–1. In July 2010, in honour of Di Canio, West Ham announced the opening of the Paolo Di Canio Lounge, within the West Stand, at their Upton Park ground, which was formally launched by the unveiling of a plaque by Di Canio himself, on 11 September 2010.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: Di Canio was never capped for Italy at senior level, although at U21 level he earned 11 call-ups and nine caps between 1988 and 1990, scoring twice.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: A versatile attacker, Di Canio primarily played as a deep-lying forward, but he could also play as an attacking midfielder, or as a winger. A talented yet controversial player, Di Canio was predominantly known for his creativity, eye for goal, technical ability, and dribbling skills, as well as his quick feet and intelligent play on the pitch, and was described as having "an eye for the spectacular" by "The Irish Times" in 2001, and as a "mercurial" player by Chris Howie of beIN Sports in 2020; however, he was equally known for being inconsistent and for his temperamental character, as well as his tenacity and aggression on the pitch.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: On 20 May 2011, Di Canio was appointed manager of Swindon Town on a two-year contract, following the club's relegation to League Two. Di Canio began his career as a manager with a 3–0 win over Crewe Alexandra on 6 August 2011. On 30 August 2011, Di Canio was involved in a pitch-side altercation with Swindon striker Leon Clarke after their defeat in the League Cup to Southampton. In January 2012, Swindon caused a FA Cup shock by defeating Premier League club Wigan Athletic 2–1. Di Canio stated that he believed his players deserved to have their names put on the stadium and dedicated the victory to his father, who died late in 2011. He was sent to the stands later in the month in a league game against Macclesfield Town for vociferously venting his frustration at his side not being awarded a free-kick. Swindon won the match 1–0 and with over half the season gone, his team were fighting for promotion to League One.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: Under Di Canio, Swindon reached the 2012 Football League Trophy Final, where they were defeated 2–0 by Chesterfield.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: On 21 April 2012, Swindon were promoted to the League One after Crawley Town's 1–1 draw with Dagenham & Redbridge and Torquay United's 2–0 loss to AFC Wimbledon, despite Di Canio's side having lost 3–1 to Gillingham on the same day. He dedicated the promotion to his parents, his mother having died shortly after his father in April of that year. One week later, Swindon won the Football League Two thanks to an emphatic 5–0 victory over Port Vale. Swindon finished the season on 93 points.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: Although in the 2012–13 season, Swindon were knocked out of the FA Cup and the Football League Trophy in their first game against opposition from lower leagues, they did have a solid run in the League Cup in which they won against three teams from higher leagues. They beat Brighton & Hove Albion 3–0, won against Stoke City 3–4 after extra time, and beat Burnley 3–1 before narrowly missing out against Aston Villa 3–2 at home.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: In January 2013, with Swindon under a transfer embargo and in financial difficulty, Di Canio offered to pay £30,000 of his own money to keep loan players John Bostock, Chris Martin and Danny Hollands at the club.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: On 18 January 2013, ahead of Swindon's Saturday clash with Shrewsbury Town, Di Canio worked into the night alongside approximately 200 volunteers to clear a snow-covered pitch at the County Ground, thus allowing the game to go ahead. He showed his appreciation by ordering everyone pizza. Swindon won the match 2–0, which Di Canio publicly deemed a present to the volunteers.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: In January 2013, the Swindon Town chairman announced that due to financial difficulties, no money would be made available for future signings. Di Canio offered to pay £30,000 of his own money to keep loan players at the club. With the possibility of the club entering administration, a new buyer was found, subject to Football League approval, and without the knowledge of Di Canio, player Matt Ritchie was sold to AFC Bournemouth. Further attempts to sign players by Di Canio were rejected by the Football League due to the club's financial situation with Di Canio "considering his future" at Swindon due to off-field financial problems. In February, Di Canio offered his resignation but said he would withdraw this if approval for the new owners, by the Football League, was received by 18 February. This did not happen and he resigned as manager of Swindon Town.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: On 31 March 2013, Sunderland appointed Di Canio as manager on a two-and-a-half-year contract, following the dismissal of Martin O'Neill the previous day. The appointment prompted the immediate resignation of club vice-chairman David Miliband due to Di Canio's "past political statements". The appointment of Di Canio also sparked opposition from the Durham Miners' Association, which decided to remove one of its mining banners from Sunderland's Stadium of Light, which is built on the former site of the Monkwearmouth Colliery, as a symbol of its anger over the appointment. The background to the opposition was past statements made by Di Canio supporting fascism.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: Di Canio was tasked with keeping Sunderland in the Premier League, following a run of only three points from a possible 24. His first game as manager of Sunderland resulted in a 2–1 away defeat to Chelsea. Di Canio's second game in charge was the Tyne–Wear derby against Newcastle United at St James' Park on 14 April. Sunderland defeated their fierce rivals 3–0, their first away victory in the fixture in over a decade. Each goal sparked wild celebrations from Di Canio and the Sunderland bench. Di Canio then got his first win at the Stadium of Light against Everton.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: Although the team did not win the next three matches, including drawing the final two home games and a heavy 6–1 defeat to Aston Villa, Sunderland secured their Premier League survival when Wigan Athletic were defeated at Arsenal and relegated, trailing then-17th placed Sunderland by four points with only one game to play.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: For the 2013–14 season, Di Canio was asked to integrate 13 players signed by Roberto De Fanti and cope with the loss of experienced players such as Simon Mignolet, James McClean and Stéphane Sessègnon. After five league games, Sunderland had gained only a single point, from an away draw with Southampton. Di Canio was dismissed on 22 September 2013, the day after the fifth match of the season, a 3–0 defeat to West Bromwich Albion, and only his 13th match in charge. Sunderland chief executive officer Margaret Byrne stated that Di Canio had been sacked after senior players had approached her and that his situation became untenable due to his "brutal and vitriolic" criticism of the squad. Di Canio denies this.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: Di Canio was linked with the Celtic job in May 2014, and applied for vacant managerial positions at Bolton Wanderers in October 2014, and Rotherham United in September 2015 and again in February 2016.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: His use of the Roman salute toward Lazio supporters, a gesture adopted by Italian fascists in the 20th century, has created controversy. Documented uses of the salute include in matches against arch-rivals Roma and Livorno, a club inclined to left-wing politics. Di Canio received a one-match ban after the second event and was fined €7,000. He was later quoted as saying, "I will always salute as I did because it gives me a sense of belonging to my people ... I saluted my people with what for me is a sign of belonging to a group that holds true values, values of civility against the standardisation that this society imposes upon us." His salute has been featured on unofficial merchandise sold outside Stadio Olimpico after the ban.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: He has also expressed admiration for the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. In his 2001 autobiography "Paolo Di Canio: l'Autobiografia" (Paolo Di Canio: The Autobiography), published by "Libreria dello Sport", he praised Mussolini as "basically a very principled, ethical individual" who was "deeply misunderstood".


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: In 2010, Di Canio attended the funeral of senior fascist Paolo Signorelli, where mourners were photographed making mass fascist salutes towards Signorelli's coffin. Signorelli had been convicted of involvement in the 1980 Bologna massacre, a neo-fascist terrorist attack which killed 85 people and wounded more than 200.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: Di Canio's political ideology has been a source of controversy in the course of his managerial career. When Di Canio was appointed as the manager of Swindon Town in 2011, the trade union GMB terminated its sponsorship agreement with the club, worth around £4,000 per season, due to Di Canio's fascist views.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: He was appointed as manager of Sunderland on 31 March 2013. The club's vice-chairman David Miliband, a Labour politician and former foreign secretary, subsequently stepped down. Miliband stated that he had taken the decision to resign "in the light of the new manager's past political statements". It also met opposition from the Durham Miners' Association, which threatened to remove one of its mining banners from Sunderland's Stadium of Light, which is built on the former site of the Wearmouth Colliery, as a symbol of its anger over the appointment.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: In a profile piece in 2011, an unnamed source asserted that Di Canio was not "an ideological fascist", attributing his behaviour to "his psychological history, particularly his former compulsive tendencies and pronounced mood swings". In the same article, Di Canio said that he was not politically active: "I don't vote, I haven't voted for 14 years. Italian politicians—all of them—think only about themselves, and making money."


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: Di Canio has several tattoos, including on his right biceps the Latin word ""DUX"", meaning ""leader"" or, in Italian, Il Duce—a nickname for Benito Mussolini. Sky Sport Italia was forced to apologize after Di Canio appeared as a pundit in September 2016 in a short-sleeved shirt, thus revealing the tattoo to television viewers; he was later suspended by the station. His back is covered with a tattoo of fascist imagery, including an eagle, fasces, and a portrait of Mussolini. He also has a West Ham United tattoo on his left upper arm and a tattoo of his father on his chest.


title: Paolo Di Canio

text: Di Canio has spoken also of the growing influence in his life of Samurai culture, and of the Japanese spiritual mentality from reading Mishima, and the teachings in the traditions of Hagakure and Bushido.


title: Hergé

text: Georges Prosper Remi (; 22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983), known by the pen name Hergé (; ), from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials "RG", was a Belgian cartoonist. He is best known for creating "The Adventures of Tintin", the series of comic albums which are considered one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. He was also responsible for two other well-known series, "Quick & Flupke" (1930–1940) and "The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko" (1936–1957). His works were executed in his distinct "ligne claire" drawing style.


title: Hergé

text: Born to a lower-middle-class family in Etterbeek, Brussels, Hergé began his career by contributing illustrations to Scouting magazines, developing his first comic series, "The Adventures of Totor", for "Le Boy-Scout Belge" in 1926. Working for the conservative Catholic newspaper "Le Vingtième Siècle", he created "The Adventures of Tintin" in 1929 on the advice of its editor Norbert Wallez. Revolving around the actions of boy reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, the series' early instalments — "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets", "Tintin in the Congo", and "Tintin in America" — were designed as conservative propaganda for children. Domestically successful, after serialisation the stories were published in book form, with Hergé continuing the series and also developing both the "Quick & Flupke" and "Jo, Zette and Jocko" series for "Le Vingtième Siècle". Influenced by his friend Zhang Chongren, from 1934 Hergé placed far greater emphasis on conducting background research for his stories, resulting in increased realism from "The Blue Lotus" onward. Following the German occupation of Belgium in 1940, "Le Vingtième Siècle" was closed, but Hergé continued his series in "Le Soir", a popular newspaper controlled by the Nazi administration.


title: Hergé

text: After the Allied liberation of Belgium in 1944, "Le Soir" was shut down and its staff — including Hergé — accused of having been collaborators. An official investigation was launched, and although no charges were brought against Hergé, in subsequent years he repeatedly faced accusations of having been a traitor and collaborator. With Raymond Leblanc he established "Tintin" magazine in 1946, through which he serialised new "Adventures of Tintin" stories. As the magazine's artistic director, he also oversaw the publication of other successful comics series, such as Edgar P. Jacobs' "Blake and Mortimer". In 1950 he established Studios Hergé as a team to aid him in his ongoing projects; prominent staff members Jacques Martin and Bob de Moor greatly contributed to subsequent volumes of "The Adventures of Tintin". Amid personal turmoil following the collapse of his first marriage, he produced "Tintin in Tibet", his personal favourite of his works. In later years he became less prolific, and unsuccessfully attempted to establish himself as an abstract artist.


title: Hergé

text: Hergé's works have been widely acclaimed for their clarity of draughtsmanship and meticulous, well-researched plots. They have been the source of a wide range of adaptations, in theatre, radio, television, cinema, and computer gaming. He remains a strong influence on the comic book medium, particularly in Europe. He is widely celebrated in Belgium: a Hergé Museum was established in Louvain-la-Neuve in 2009.


title: Hergé

text: Georges Prosper Remi was born on 22 May 1907 in his parental home in Etterbeek, Brussels, a central suburb in the capital city of Belgium. His was a lower-middle-class family. His Walloon father, Alexis Remi, worked in a confectionery factory, whilst his Flemish mother, Elisabeth Dufour, was a housewife. Married on 18 January 1905, they moved into a house at 25 rue Cranz (now 33 rue Philippe Baucq), where Georges was born, although a year later they moved to a house at 34 rue de Theux. His primary language was his father's French, but growing up in the bilingual Brussels, he also learned Dutch, developing a Marollien accent from his maternal grandmother. A younger brother, Paul, was born five years after Georges. Like most Belgians, his family belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, though they were not particularly devout. He later characterised his life in Etterbeek as dominated by a monochrome grey, considering it extremely boring. Biographer Benoît Peeters suggested that this childhood melancholy might have been exacerbated through being sexually abused by a maternal uncle, Charles Arthur Dufour.


title: Hergé

text: Remi developed a love of cinema, favouring Winsor McCay's "Gertie the Dinosaur" and the films of Charlie Chaplin, Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton; his later work in the comic strip medium displayed an obvious influence from them in style and content. Although not a keen reader, he enjoyed the novels of British and US authors, such as "Huckleberry Finn", "Treasure Island", "Robinson Crusoe" and "The Pickwick Papers", as well as the novels of Frenchman Alexandre Dumas. Drawing as a hobby, he sketched out scenes from daily life along the edges of his school books. Some of these illustrations were of German soldiers, because his four years of primary schooling at the Ixelles Municipal School No. 3 coincided with World War I, during which Brussels was occupied by the German army. In 1919, his secondary education began at the secular Place de Londres in Ixelles, but in 1920 he was moved to Saint-Boniface School, an institution controlled by the archbishop where the teachers were Roman Catholic priests. Remi proved a successful student, being awarded prizes for excellence. He completed his secondary education in July 1925 at the top of his class.


title: Hergé

text: Aged 12, Remi joined the Boy Scout brigade attached to Saint-Boniface School, becoming troop leader of the Squirrel Patrol and earning the name "Curious Fox" ("Renard curieux"). With the Scouts, he travelled to summer camps in Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Spain, and in the summer of 1923 his troop hiked 200 miles across the Pyrenees. His experiences with Scouting would have a significant influence on the rest of his life, sparking his love of camping and the natural world, and providing him with a moral compass that stressed personal loyalty and keeping one's promises.


title: Hergé

text: His Scoutmaster, Rene Weverbergh, encouraged his artistic ability, and published one of Remi's drawings in the newsletter of the Saint-Boniface Scouts, "Jamais Assez" ("Never Enough"): his first published work. When Weverbergh became involved in the publication of "Boy-Scout", the newsletter of the Federation of Scouts, he published more of Remi's illustrations, the first of which appeared in the fifth issue, from 1922. Remi continued publishing cartoons, drawings and woodcuts in subsequent issues of the newsletter, which was soon renamed "Le Boy-Scout Belge" ("The Belgian Boy Scout"). During this time, he experimented with different pseudonyms, using "Jérémie" and "Jérémiades" before settling on "Hergé", the French pronunciation of his reversed initials (R.G.) His work was first published under this name in December 1924.


title: Hergé

text: Alongside his stand-alone illustrations, in July 1926 Hergé began production of a comic strip for "Le Boy-Scout Belge", "Les Aventures de Totor" ("The Adventures of Totor"), which continued intermittent publication until 1929. Revolving around the adventures of a Boy Scout patrol leader, the comic initially featured written captions underneath the scenes, but Hergé began to experiment with other forms of conveying information, including speech balloons. Illustrations were also published in "Le Blé qui lève" ("The Wheat That Grows") and other publications of the ("Action catholique de la jeunesse belge"), and Hergé produced a book jacket for Weverbergh's novel, "The Soul of the Sea". Being young and inexperienced, still learning his craft, Hergé sought guidance from an older cartoonist, Pierre Ickx, and together they founded the short-lived "Atelier de la Fleur de Lys" (AFL), an organisation for Christian cartoonists.


title: Hergé

text: After graduating from secondary school in 1925, Hergé enrolled in the École Saint-Luc art school, but finding the teaching boring, he left after one lesson. He hoped for a job as an illustrator alongside Ickx at "Le Vingtième Siècle" ("The Twentieth Century") — a conservative "Catholic Newspaper of Doctrine and Information" — but no positions were available. Instead he got a job in the paper's subscriptions department, starting in September 1925. Despising the boredom of this position, he enlisted for military service before he was called up, and in August 1926 was assigned to the Dailly barracks at Schaerbeek. Joining the first infantry regiment, he was also bored by his military training, but continued sketching and producing episodes of "Totor".


title: Hergé

text: Toward the end of his military service, in August 1927, Hergé met the editor of "Le Vingtième Siècle", the Abbé Norbert Wallez, a vocal fascist who kept a signed photograph of the Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini on his desk. Impressed by Hergé's repertoire, Wallez agreed to give him a job as a photographic reporter and cartoonist for the paper, something for which Hergé always remained grateful, coming to view the Abbé as a father figure. Supplemented by commissions for other publications, Hergé illustrated a number of texts for "The Children's Corner" and the literary pages; the illustrations of this period show his interest in woodcuts and the early prototype of his "ligne claire" style.


title: Hergé

text: Beginning a series of newspaper supplements in late 1928, Wallez founded a supplement for children, "Le Petit Vingtième" ("The Little Twentieth"), which subsequently appeared in "Le Vingtième Siècle" every Thursday. Carrying strong Catholic and fascist messages, many of its passages were explicitly anti-semitic. For this new venture, Hergé illustrated "L'Extraordinaire Aventure de Flup, Nénesse, Poussette et Cochonnet" ("The Extraordinary Adventure of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonnet"), a comic strip authored by one of the paper's sport columnists, which told the story of two boys, one of their little sisters, and her inflatable rubber pig. Hergé was unsatisfied, and eager to write and draw a comic strip of his own. He was fascinated by new techniques in the medium — such as the systematic use of speech bubbles — found in such US comics as George McManus' "Bringing Up Father", George Herriman's "Krazy Kat" and Rudolph Dirks's "The Katzenjammer Kids", copies of which had been sent to him from Mexico by the paper's reporter Léon Degrelle, stationed there to report on the Cristero War.


title: Hergé

text: Hergé developed a character named Tintin as a Belgian boy reporter who could travel the world with his fox terrier, Snowy — "Milou" in the original French — basing him in large part on his earlier character of Totor and also on his own brother, Paul. Degrelle later falsely claimed that Tintin had been based on him, while he and Hergé fell out when Degrelle used one of his designs without permission; they settled out-of-court. Although Hergé wanted to send his character to the United States, Wallez instead ordered him to set his adventure in the Soviet Union, acting as a work of anti-socialist propaganda for children. The result, "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets", began serialisation in "Le Petit Vingtième" on 10 January 1929, and ran until 8 May 1930. Popular in Francophone Belgium, Wallez organized a publicity stunt at the Gare de Nord station, following which he organized the publication of the story in book form. The popularity of the story led to an increase in sales, and so Wallez granted Hergé two assistants, Eugène Van Nyverseel and Paul "Jam" Jamin.


title: Hergé

text: In January 1930, Hergé introduced "Quick & Flupke" ("Quick et Flupke"), a new comic strip about two street kids from Brussels, in the pages of "Le Petit Vingtième". At Wallez's direction, in June he began serialisation of the second Tintin adventure, "Tintin in the Congo", designed to encourage colonial sentiment towards the Belgian Congo. Authored in a paternalistic style that depicted the Congolese as childlike idiots, in later decades it would be accused of racism; however, at the time it was un-controversial and popular, with further publicity stunts held to increase sales. For the third adventure, "Tintin in America", serialised from September 1931 to October 1932, Hergé finally got to deal with a scenario of his own choice, although he used the work to push an anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist agenda in keeping with the paper's ultra-conservative ideology. Although the "Adventures of Tintin" had been serialised in the French Catholic "Cœurs Vaillants" ("Brave Hearts") since 1930, he was soon receiving syndication requests from Swiss and Portuguese newspapers too. Though wealthier than most Belgians at his age, and despite increasing success, he remained an unfazed "conservative young man" dedicated to his work.


title: Hergé

text: Hergé sought work elsewhere too, creating "The Lovable Mr. Mops" cartoon for the Bon Marché department store, and "The Adventures of Tim the Squirrel Out West" for the rival L'Innovation department store.


title: Hergé

text: At the offices of in 1928, Hergé met the woman who would become his first wife, Germaine Kieckens (1906 – 26 October 1995). A redhead described by Pierre Assouline as "elegant and popular", she had obtained work as the secretary for Norbert Wallez. At the time of her birth, her parents were relatively elderly, and having lost an earlier child they were particularly overprotective of her. Greatly admiring Wallez, whom she looked up to as a father figure, she adopted his fascist political beliefs. She was appointed editor of , a supplement for women for which Hergé sometimes drew the cover. She also began writing articles for using the pseudonym Tantine. The first 500 copies of "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" were numbered and signed by Hergé using Tintin's signature, with Snowy's paw print being drawn next to it by Kieckens.


title: Hergé

text: In 1930, Hergé escorted her home from work almost every night, though she expressed little romantic interest in him at the time. Instead she desired an older, or more mature man, such as the Abbé himself. Wallez however encouraged the two to enter into a relationship, and one evening at the Taverne du Palace she indicated to Hergé that she would be interested in a relationship.


title: Hergé

text: On 20 July 1932 Hergé and Kieckens were married; although neither of them was entirely happy with the union, they had been encouraged to do so by Wallez, who insisted that all his single staff married and who personally carried out the wedding ceremony at the Saint-Roch Church in Laeken. Spending their honeymoon in Vianden, Luxembourg, the couple moved into an apartment in the rue Knapen, Schaerbeek.


title: Hergé

text: In November 1932 Hergé announced that the following month he would send Tintin on an adventure to Asia. Although initially titled "The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter, in the Orient", it would later be renamed "Cigars of the Pharaoh". A mystery story, the plot began in Egypt before proceeding to Arabia and India, during which the recurring characters of Thomson and Thompson and Rastapopoulos were introduced. Through his friend Charles Lesne, Hergé was hired to produce illustrations for the company Casterman, and in late 1933 they proposed taking over the publication of both "The Adventures of Tintin" and "Quick and Flupke" in book form, to which Hergé agreed; the first Casterman book was the collected volume of "Cigars". Continuing to subsidise his comic work with commercial advertising, in January 1934 he also founded the "Atelier Hergé" advertising company with two partners, but it was liquidated after six months.


title: Hergé

text: After Wallez was removed from the paper's editorship in August 1933 following a scandal, Hergé became despondent; in March 1934 he tried to resign, but was encouraged to stay after his monthly salary was increased from 2000 to 3000 francs and his workload was reduced, with Jamin taking responsibility for the day-to-day running of "Le Petit Vingtième".


title: Hergé

text: From February to August 1934 Hergé serialised "Popol Out West" in "Le Petit Vingtième", a story using animal characters that was a development of the earlier "Tim the Squirrel" comic.


title: Hergé

text: From August 1934 to October 1935, "Le Petit Vingtième" serialised Tintin's next adventure, "The Blue Lotus", which was set in China and dealt with the recent Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Hergé had been greatly influenced in the production of the work by his friend Zhang Chongren, a Catholic Chinese student studying at Brussels' Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, to whom he had been introduced in May 1934. Zhang gave him lessons in Taoist philosophy, Chinese art and Chinese calligraphy, influencing not only his artistic style, but also his general outlook on life. As a token of appreciation Hergé added a fictional "Chang Chong-Chen" to "The Blue Lotus", a young Chinese boy who meets and befriends Tintin. For "The Blue Lotus", Hergé devoted far more attention to accuracy, resulting in a largely realistic portrayal of China. As a result, "The Blue Lotus" has been widely hailed as "Hergé's first masterpiece" and a benchmark in the series' development. Casterman published it in book form, also insisting that Hergé include colour plates in both the volume and in reprints of "America" and "Cigars". In 1936, they also began production of Tintin merchandise, something Hergé supported, having ideas of an entire shop devoted to "The Adventures of Tintin", something that would come to fruition 50 years later. Nevertheless, while his serialised comics proved lucrative, the collected volumes sold less well, something Hergé blamed on Casterman, urging them to do more to market his books.


title: Hergé

text: Hergé's next Tintin story, "The Broken Ear" (1935–1937), was the first for which the plot synopsis had been outlined from the start, being a detective story that took Tintin to South America. It introduced the character of General Alcazar, and also saw Hergé introduce the first fictional countries into the series, San Theodoros and Nuevo Rico, two republics based largely on Bolivia and Paraguay. The violent elements within "The Broken Ear" upset the publishers of "Cœurs Vaillants", who asked Hergé to create a more child-appropriate story for them. The result was "The Adventures of Jo, Zette, and Jocko", a series about a young brother and sister and their pet monkey. The series began with "The Secret Ray", which was serialised in "Cœurs Vaillants" and then "Le Petit Vingtième", and continued with "The Stratoship H-22". Hergé nevertheless disliked the series, commenting that the characters "bored me terribly." Now writing three series simultaneously, Hergé was working every day of the year, and felt stressed.


title: Hergé

text: The next Tintin adventure was "The Black Island" (1937–1938), which saw the character travel to Britain to battle counterfeiters and introduced a new antagonist, the German Dr. Müller. Hergé followed this with "King Ottokar's Sceptre" (1938–1939), in which Tintin saves the fictional Eastern European country of Syldavia from being invaded by its expansionist neighbour, Borduria; the event was an anti-fascist satire of Nazi Germany's expansion into Austria and Czechoslovakia. In May 1939, Hergé moved to a new house in Watermael-Boitsfort, although following the German invasion of Poland, he was conscripted into the Belgian army and temporarily stationed in Herenthout. Demobbed within the month, he returned to Brussels and adopted a more explicit anti-German stance when beginning his next Tintin adventure, "Land of Black Gold", which was set in the Middle East and featured Dr. Müller sabotaging oil lines.


title: Hergé

text: During this period, Hergé also contributed to "L'Ouest" ("The West"), a newspaper run by his friend Raymond De Becker. "L'Ouest" urged Belgium to remain neutral in World War II, a stance Hergé supported, creating the "Mr Bellum" strip to argue this position. Hergé was invited to visit China by Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, who had enjoyed "The Blue Lotus", although due to the political situation in Europe, this was not possible. He was re-mobilized in December, and stationed in Antwerp, from where he continued to send the Tintin strip to "Le Petit Vingtième". However, he fell ill with sinusitis and boils and was declared unfit for military service in May 1940. That same day, Germany invaded Belgium. "Le Vingtième Siècle" was shut down, part way through the serialisation of "Land of Black Gold".


title: Hergé

text: As the Belgian Army clashed with the invading Germans, Hergé and his wife fled by car to France along with tens of thousands of other Belgians, first staying in Paris and then heading south to Puy-de-Dôme, where they remained for six weeks. On 28 May, King Leopold III of the Belgians surrendered the country to the German army to prevent further killing; a move that Hergé supported. He followed the king's request that all of those Belgians who had fled the country return, arriving back in Brussels on 30 June. There, he found that his house had been occupied as an office for the German army's "Propagandastaffel", and also faced financial trouble, as he owed back taxes yet was unable to access his financial reserves. All Belgian publications were now under the control of the German occupying force, who refused permission to continue publication. Instead, Hergé was offered employment as a cartoonist for by its editor, the Rexist Victor Matthys, but Hergé perceived as an explicitly political publication, and thus declined the position.


title: Hergé

text: Instead, he took up a position with , Belgium's largest Francophone daily newspaper. Confiscated from its original owners, the German authorities had permitted "Le Soir" to be re-opened under the directorship of De Doncker, although it remained firmly under Nazi control, supporting the German war effort and espousing anti-Semitism. After joining the "Le Soir" team on 15 October, Hergé was involved in the creation of a children's supplement, "Soir-Jeunesse", aided by Jamin and Jacques Van Melkebeke. He relaunched "The Adventures of Tintin" with a new story, "The Crab with the Golden Claws", in which Tintin pursued drug smugglers in North Africa; the story was a turning point in the series for its introduction of Captain Haddock, who would become a major character in the rest of the "Adventures". This story, like the subsequent "Adventures of Tintin" published in "Le Soir", would reject the political themes present in earlier stories, instead remaining firmly neutral. Hergé also included new "Quick & Flupke" gags in the supplement, as well as illustrations for serialised stories by Edgar Allan Poe and the Brothers Grimm.


title: Hergé

text: In May 1941, a paper shortage led to the "Soir-Jeunesse" being reduced to four pages, with the length of the Tintin strip being cut by two thirds. Several weeks later the supplement disappeared altogether, with "The Crab with the Golden Claws" being moved into "Le Soir" itself, where it became a daily strip. While some Belgians were upset that Hergé was willing to work for a newspaper controlled by the occupying Nazi administration, he was heavily enticed by the size of 's readership, which reached 600,000. With Van Melkebeke, Hergé put together two Tintin plays. The first, "Tintin in the Indies", appeared at Brussels' Theatre des Galeries in April 1941, while the second, "Mr Boullock's Disappearance", was performed there in December. From October 1941 to May 1942, "Le Soir" serialised Hergé's next Tintin adventure, "The Shooting Star", followed by publication as a single volume by Casterman. In keeping with "Le Soir"s editorial standpoint, "The Shooting Star" espoused an anti-Semitic and anti-American attitude, with the antagonist being a wealthy Jewish American businessman; it would thus prove particularly controversial in the post-war period, although Hergé denied any malicious anti-Semitic intention.


title: Hergé

text: Casterman felt that the black-and-white volumes of "The Adventures of Tintin" were not selling as well as colour comic books, and thus that the series should be produced in colour. At the same time, Belgium was facing a paper-shortage, with Casterman wishing to cut down the volumes from 120-pages in length to 62. Hergé was initially sceptical, but ultimately agreed to their demands in February 1942. For these new editions, Casterman introduced a four-colour system, although Hergé insisted that colour should remain secondary to line, and that it would not be used for shading. To cope with this additional workload, Hergé approached a friend whom he had met through Van Melkebeke, Edgar P. Jacobs, to aid him as a cartoonist and colourist. Jacobs could only work on the project part-time, and so in March 1942, Hergé also employed a woman named Alice Devos to aid him. In July 1942, Hergé then procured an agent, Bernard Thièry, who took 40% of his commissions; their working relationship would be strained. With their assistance, from 1942 to 1947, Hergé adapted most of his previous "Adventures of Tintin" into 62-page colour versions.


title: Hergé

text: Hergé's next "Adventure of Tintin" would be "The Secret of the Unicorn", serialised in "Le Soir" from June 1942. He had collaborated closely with Van Melkebeke on this project, who had introduced many elements from the work of Jules Verne into the detective story, in which Tintin and Haddock searched for parchments revealing the location of hidden pirate treasure. "The Secret of the Unicorn" marked the first half of a story arc that was completed in "Red Rackham's Treasure", serialised in "Le Soir" from February 1943; in this story, Tintin and Haddock search for the pirate's treasure in the Caribbean, with the character of Professor Calculus being introduced to the series. Following "Red Rackham's Treasure", Hergé drew illustrations for a serialised story titled "Dupont et Dupond, détectives" ("Thomson and Thompson, Detectives"), authored by the newspaper's crime editor, Paul Kinnet.


title: Hergé

text: In September 1943, De Becker was removed as editor of "Le Soir" for stating that although the Nazis were motivated "by undoubted good will, [they were also] extremely out of touch with reality". Although Hergé was close to De Becker, he decided to remain at the newspaper, which came under the editorship of Max Hodeige. In autumn 1943, Hergé had decided that he wanted Jacobs to collaborate with him on "The Adventures of Tintin". Although initially hesitant, Jacobs eventually agreed, adopting the paid position in January 1944. Jacobs and Hergé became close collaborators and greatly influenced each other, while together they developed the plot for the next "Adventure of Tintin", "The Seven Crystal Balls", which began serialisation in "Le Soir" in December 1943.


title: Hergé

text: As the Allied troops liberated Brussels from German occupation, "Le Soir" ceased publication on 2 September 1944, partway through its serialisation of "The Seven Crystal Balls". Hergé was arrested on 3 September, having been named as a collaborator in a Resistance document known as the "Gallery of Traitors". This would be the first of four incidents in which Hergé was arrested — by the State Security, the Judiciary Police, the Belgian National Movement, and the Front for Independence respectively — during the course of which he spent one night in jail. On 5 September the entire staff of "Le Soir" were fired and a new editorial team introduced, while on 8 September the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) issued a proclamation announcing that "any journalist who had helped produce a newspaper during the occupation was for the time being barred from practising his profession." Blacklisted, Hergé was now unemployed. Further, he was publicly lampooned as a collaborator by a newspaper closely associated with the Belgian Resistance, "La Patrie", which issued a satirical strip titled "The Adventures of Tintin in the Land of the Nazis".


title: Hergé

text: The period witnessed widespread recriminations against accused collaborators, with military courts condemning 30,000 on minor charges and 25,000 on more serious charges; of those, 5,500 were sentenced to life imprisonment or capital punishment. A judiciary inquiry into Hergé's case was launched by the deputy public prosecutor, Mr Vinçotte, although in his report he urged lenience, stating that "I am inclined to close the case. I believe it would bring ridicule on the judicial system to go after an inoffensive children's book author and illustrator. On the other hand, Hergé worked for "Le Soir" during the war, and his illustrations are what made people buy the newspaper." Although unable to work for the press, Hergé continued to re-draw and colour the older "Adventures of Tintin" for publication in book form by Casterman, completing the second version of "Tintin in the Congo" and starting on "King Ottokar's Sceptre". Casterman supported Hergé throughout his ordeal, for which he always remained grateful. Attempting to circumvent his blacklisting, with Jacobs he began producing comics under the anonymous pseudonym of "Olav", but upon sending them to publishers found none who would accept them. Although this period allowed him an escape from the pressure of daily production which had affected most of his working life, he also had to deal with family problems: His brother Paul returned to Brussels from a German prisoner-of-war camp, although their mother had become highly delusional and was moved to a psychiatric hospital.


title: Hergé

text: In October 1945, Hergé was approached by Raymond Leblanc, a former member of a conservative Resistance group, the National Royalist Movement, and his associates André Sinave and Albert Debaty. The trio were planning on launching a weekly magazine for children, and Leblanc — who had fond childhood memories of "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" — thought Hergé would be ideal for it. Hergé agreed, and Leblanc obtained clearance papers for him, allowing him to work. Concerned about the judicial investigation into Hergé's wartime affiliations, Leblanc convinced William Ugeux, a leader of the Belgian Resistance who was now in charge of censorship and certificates of good citizenship, to look into the comic creator's file. Ugeux concluded that Hergé had been "a blunderer rather than a traitor" for his work at "Le Soir". The decision as to whether Hergé would stand trial belonged to the general auditor of the Military Tribunal, Walter Jean Ganshof van der Meersch. He closed the case on 22 December 1945, declaring that "in regard to the particularly inoffensive character of the drawings published by Remi, bringing him before a war tribunal would be inappropriate and risky".


title: Hergé

text: Now free from threat of prosecution, Hergé continued to support his colleagues at "Le Soir" who were being charged as collaborators; six of them were sentenced to death, and others to lengthy prison sentences. Among those sentenced to death was Hergé's friend, Jamin, although his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In May 1946, Hergé was issued a certificate of good citizenship, which became largely necessary to obtain employment in post-war Belgium. Celebrations were marred by his mother's death in April 1946; she was aged 60. Harry Thompson has described this post-war period as the "greatest upheaval" of Hergé's life. Hergé later described it as "an experience of absolute intolerance. It was horrible, horrible!" He considered the post-war trials of alleged collaborators a great injustice inflicted upon many innocent people, and never forgave Belgian society for the way that he had been treated, although he hid this from his public persona.


title: Hergé

text: Sinave devised the idea of naming their new magazine "Tintin", believing that this would attract a wide audience. The Dutch-language edition produced for release in Belgium's Flemish north was titled "Kuifje" after the character's Dutch-language name. Adopting the slogan of "The Newspaper for the Young Aged 7 to 77", the magazine also used a logo featuring the Tintin character himself. The capital for the project had been put up by those involved: as executive director, Leblanc provided 50%, while its managing director Georges Lallemand provided 40% and Hergé, its artistic director, provided 10%. Hergé assembled a group of associates to aid him, including Van Melkebeke, Jacobs, Paul Cuvelier, and Jacques Laudy. Van Melkebeke was initially appointed editor-in-chief, although he was arrested for having worked for the collaborationist "Le Nouveau journal" shortly after, with his involvement in the project thus being kept secret so as to avoid further controversy. Van Melkebeke continued to provide work for the magazine under pseudonyms, although this ceased during his imprisonment from December 1947 to October 1949.


title: Hergé

text: The first issue of "Tintin" magazine was published on 26 September 1946. Hergé was assigned to produce a two-page spread each week, and began by concluding "The Seven Crystal Balls" before embarking on its successor story, "Prisoners of the Sun". Alongside Hergé's "Adventures of Tintin", the magazine also included Laudy's "The Legend of the Four Aymon Brothers" and Jacobs' "The Secret of the Swordfish", the first in his new "Blake and Mortimer" series. While the magazine was in competition with a number of rivals, most notably "Spirou", famous for serialising the "Lucky Luke" and "Buck Danny" comics, it proved an immediate success, with 60,000 copies being sold in three days of its release. Its publication resulted in a massive boost to Hergé's book sales too.


title: Hergé

text: In 1947 a Belgian film adaptation of "The Crab with the Golden Claws" was produced, and believing that cinematic adaptations were a good way to proceed, Hergé contacted Disney Studios in the United States; they declined his offer to adapt "The Adventures of Tintin" for the silver screen. In May 1947 the artistic collaboration between Hergé and Jacobs ended after an argument. Hergé had been jealous of the immediate success of Jacobs' "Blake and Mortimer" series, and had turned down Jacobs' request that he be credited as co-creator of the new "Adventures of Tintin". That same month, Hergé broke from his manager, Thiery, after discovering that the latter had been siphoning off money for himself.


title: Hergé

text: Many Belgians were highly critical of the magazine due to its connections with Hergé, who was still deemed a collaborator and traitor by many; "La Soir" and "La Cité" publicly criticised the decision without referring to him by name while "Le Quotidien" and "Le Drapeau Rouge" specifically singled him out for denunciation. Hergé believed that the children's author Jeanne Cappe was behind many of these accusations, and threatened her with a lawsuit. Unhappy with life in Belgium, Hergé made plans to emigrate to Argentina, a nation that was welcoming many Europeans who had supported the defeated Axis powers and which had a thriving comic book scene. Ultimately, he changed his mind, for reasons that have remained unknown; it is possible that he was unable to secure any promise of work in the South American country.


title: Hergé

text: In May, Hergé and Germaine holidayed near to Gland on Lake Geneva, Switzerland, where they were accompanied by a friend of theirs, a young woman named Rosane. During the holiday, Hergé and Rosane embarked on an extra-marital affair. He felt guilty, and returned to Brussels in June. Privately, he expressed the view that he had been led to commit such an act, which he viewed as immoral, through the influence of "amoral friends" with whom he was associating. Hoping to reignite the passion and stability of his marriage, he arranged for him and Germaine to return to Switzerland soon after; here they argued, and embarked on a temporary separation. Remaining in Switzerland, he visited King Leopold III, who was then holidaying in Prégny, before briefly returning to Brussels in July. Back in Switzerland, he embarked on an affair with a married woman, although again informed Germaine before setting off to spend time in the Ardennes. In August, the couple sought to reunite by holidaying together in Brittany, but there they broke up again and Hergé returned to his lover in Switzerland. In September he finally returned to Brussels, but with his close friend Marcel Dehaye then spent time in a retreat at the Abbey of Notre-Dame-de-Scourmont. That month, he revived "Land of Black Gold" — the "Adventure of Tintin" that had been interrupted by the German invasion of 1940 — and began serialising it in "Tintin" magazine. However, the story was again interrupted, this time for twelve weeks as Hergé took a further unannounced holiday to Gland, greatly annoying many of his colleagues.


title: Hergé

text: Although they retained respect for each other, Hergé's repeated absences had created a tense situation between himself and Leblanc. After a lengthy search, Leblanc had found a publisher willing to produce an edition of "Tintin" magazine in France: Georges Dargaud's Le Lombard, which began production of a French edition in October 1948. However, Hergé was unhappy that Leblanc had appointed André Frenez as Van Melkebeke's replacement as editor-in-chief, describing Frenez as "a cold functionary". Hergé was stubborn and uncompromising as the magazine's artistic director, known for strongly criticising the work of old friends like Pierre Ickx if he felt that they did not meet his exacting standards. He was particularly critical of the work of two of the newly hired staff at "Tintin" and "Kuifje", Jacques Martin and Willy Vandersteen, encouraging them to change their artistic style to better reflect his own preferences. To Leblanc, he expressed the concern that most of those working at "Tintin" were better illustrators than storytellers. He also opined that "Tintin" was not keeping up with the times and what he perceived as the increased maturity of children, encouraging the magazine to better reflect current events and scientific developments.


title: Hergé

text: On 6 April 1950 Hergé established Studios Hergé as a public company. The Studios were based in his Avenue Delleur house in Brussels, with Hergé making a newly purchased country house in Céroux-Mousty his and Germaine's main residence. The Studios would provide both personal support to Hergé and technical support for his ongoing work. Initially with only three employees, this would rise to fifteen, with all working on Hergé's projects. He hired Bob de Moor as his primary apprentice at the Studios in March 1951. Impressed by Jacques Martin's work on "The Golden Sphinx", Hergé persuaded Martin to join the Studios in January 1954; Martin insisted on bringing with him his own two assistants, Roger Leloup and Michel Demarets. During the early 1950s, a number of those convicted for collaborating with the Nazi occupiers were freed from prison. Sympathetic to their plight, Hergé lent money to some and aided others in getting jobs at "Tintin" magazine, much to Leblanc's annoyance. For instance, as well as lending him money, Hergé used his connections to secure Raymond de Becker a job in Switzerland as a book shop sales inspector. He also hired those associated with collaboration for his Studios; his new colourist, Josette Baujot, was the wife of a recently assassinated member of the Walloon Legion, and his new secretary, Baudouin van der Branden de Reeth, had served a prison sentence for working at "Le Nouveau Journal" during the occupation.


title: Hergé

text: Hergé had developed the idea of setting an "Adventure of Tintin" on the moon while producing "Prisoners of the Sun". He began serialisation of "Destination Moon", the first of a two part arc followed by "Explorers on the Moon", in "Tintin" magazine in March 1950. In September 1950, Hergé broke off the story, feeling the need for a break from work, having fallen back into clinical depression. He and Germaine went on holiday to Gland before returning to Brussels in late September. Many readers sent letters to "Tintin" asking why "Explorers on the Moon" was no longer being serialised, with a rumour emerging that Hergé had died. "Explorers of the Moon" would resume after an eighteen-month hiatus, returning in April 1952. Alongside his work on the new stories, Hergé also made use of the Studios in revising more of his early works.


title: Hergé

text: In February 1952, Hergé was involved in a car crash in which Germaine's leg was shattered; she had to have a steel rod implanted in it, and was confined to a wheelchair for several months. Their relationship was further strained when they received news of Wallez' death in September 1952. His friendship with Van Melkebeke also broke apart in this period, in part due to advice gained from an alleged clairvoyant, Bertje Janueneau, upon whom both Hergé and Germaine were increasingly relying for guidance. In January 1955 a young woman named Fanny Vlamynck was hired as a colourist at the Studios. Hergé embarked on an extramarital affair with her in November 1956, with the rest of the studio staff soon finding out. Germaine grew suspicious of her husband's affections for Fanny, but was also experiencing a strong romantic attraction to her ballroom dance partner. Hergé and Germaine went on a cruise for the former's fiftieth birthday in May 1957, in which they visited Casablanca, Rabat, Palermo, and Rome, and in October went on a second holiday, this time to Ostend. Following this, he revealed his affair with Fanny to Germaine. He began experiencing traumatic dreams dominated by the colour white, and seeking to explain them he visited Franz Ricklin, a psychoanalyst who was a student of Carl Jung in Zürich in May 1959. In February 1960 he returned to Switzerland, and upon his arrival back in Brussels he began renting an apartment in Uccle, away from Germaine. His relationship with Germaine had ended, although due to restrictions under Belgian law he was unable to obtain a divorce until seventeen years later.


title: Hergé

text: In September 1958, "Tintin" magazine moved its headquarters to a newly constructed building near the Gare du Midi. Hergé continued to feud with Leblanc over the direction of the magazine; his constant absences had led to him being replaced as artistic director, and he demanded that he be reinstated. Leblanc relented in early 1965, although Hergé soon departed to Sardinia for six weeks. In October 1965 Leblanc appointed the cartoonist Greg to be editor-in-chief of the magazine, believing him capable of reforming the paper to remain relevant to the youth of the day. By this point, "Tintin" magazine was at its commercial peak, with sales of 600,000 a week, although Hergé had lost much of his interest in it.


title: Hergé

text: Hergé's book sales were higher than ever, and translations were being produced for the British, Spanish, and Scandinavian markets. He was receiving international press attention, with articles on his work appearing in "France-Observateur", "The Listener", and "The Times Literary Supplement". Paul Vandromme authored an uncritical book on Hergé, "Le Monde de Tintin" ("The World of Tintin"), published by Éditions Gallimard; Hergé vetoed the inclusion of a proposed preface by Roger Nimier after finding its praise for his own work too embarrassing. Radio adaptations of "The Adventures of Tintin" were produced, as was an animated cartoon series produced by Belvision Studios, "Hergé's Adventures of Tintin". Two live-action films were also produced, "Tintin and the Golden Fleece" (1961) and "Tintin and the Blue Oranges" (1964), the former of which Hergé had been closely involved with.


title: Hergé

text: Developing an interest in modern art, in the early 1960s Hergé befriended the art dealer Marcel Stal, owner of the Carrefour gallery in Brussels. He was a particular fan of the work of Constant Permeke, Jakob Smits, Lucio Fontana, and Jean-Pierre Raynaurd, as well as the pop art movement, in particular the work of Roy Lichtenstein. He built up his own personal collection, which consisted of both modern paintings as well as African art and Chinese ceramics. In 1962, Hergé decided he wanted to paint. He chose Louis Van Lint, one of the most respected Belgian abstract painters at the time, whose work he liked a lot, to be his private teacher. Hergé took up painting as a hobby, producing abstract art works which were influenced by the styles of Joan Miró and Serge Poliakoff. He showed his work to the art historian Léo Van Puyvelde, who was the chief conservator of the Musées des Beaux-Arts, who believed that they showed promise, but that Hergé's real talent lay with cartooning. Hergé abandoned painting shortly after, having produced 37 paintings in all. Spending less time on new "Adventures of Tintin", from June to December 1965 "Tintin" magazine serialised a redrawn and newly coloured version of "The Black Island" prepared by staff at Studios Hergé. Supported by his studio, Hergé produced "The Calculus Affair" between 1954 until 1956 which was followed by "The Red Sea Sharks" in 1956 to 1957.


title: Hergé

text: In the 1960s, Hergé became increasingly annoyed at the success of René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's "Asterix" comic book series, which various commentators had described as eclipsing "The Adventures of Tintin" as the foremost comic in the Franco-Belgian tradition. Hoping to imitate the success of the recent animated films "Asterix the Gaul" (1967) and "Asterix and Cleopatra" (1968), Hergé agreed to the production of two animated Belvision films based on the "Adventures of Tintin". The first, "Tintin and the Temple of the Sun" (1969), was based on pre-existing comics, whereas the second, "Tintin and the Lake of Sharks" (1972) was an original story written by Greg. In 1982, the US filmmaker Steven Spielberg requested the film rights for a live-action adaptation of one of "The Adventures of Tintin", a prospect that excited Hergé, but the project never came to fruition at the time.


title: Hergé

text: In October 1971, the journalist Numa Sadoul conducted a wide-ranging interview with Hergé, in which the latter opened up about many of the problems he had experienced in his personal life. Sadoul planned to publish the interview as a book, but Hergé made many alterations to the transcript, both to improve its prose and to remove sections which cast him in a negative light. Editors at Casterman then removed even further sections, particularly those in which Hergé expressed a negative view of Catholicism. The interview was published as "Tintin et moi" ("Tintin and Me") in 1975. Hergé followed this by agreeing to be the subject of a documentary film produced by Henri Roane, "Moi, Tintin" ("I, Tintin"), which premiered in 1975. In January 1977 he attended an early comic book convention at Angoulême, where he was widely heralded as one of the masters of the discipline. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of "The Adventures of Tintin" in 1979, a celebratory event was held at Brussels' Hilton hotel, while an exhibit on "Le Musée imaginaire de Tintin" ("The Imaginary Museum of Tintin") was held at the Palais de Beaux-Arts.


title: Hergé

text: In April 1971 Hergé visited the U.S. for the first time, primarily to visit a liver specialist in Rochester, Minnesota; however, on the trip he also visited a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, but was shocked at the conditions in which their inhabitants lived. On this visit he also spent time in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Kansas City. In April 1972 he travelled to New York City for an international conference on the strip cartoon, and there presented Mayor John Lindsay with a cartoon of Tintin visiting the city and also met with the pop artist Andy Warhol. Several years later, in 1977, Warhol visited Europe, where he produced a pop art portrait of Hergé. In April 1973, Hergé took up an invite to visit Taiwan by the nation's government, in recognition of his promotion of Chinese culture in "The Blue Lotus". During the visit he also spent time in Thailand and Bali.


title: Hergé

text: Hergé had long sought to regain contact with his old friend Zhang Chongren, with whom he had lost contact. He regularly asked any Chinese people that he met if they knew of Zhang, and in 1979 had some success when a staff member in a Brussels Chinese restaurant revealed that he was Zhang's godson. Hergé was thus able to re-establish contact with his old friend. The journalist Gérard Valet organised for Zhang to visit Brussels so that he and Hergé could be re-united. The event took place in March 1981, and was heavily publicised; Hergé however found the situation difficult, disliking the press attention and finding that he and Zhang had grown distant during the intervening years.


title: Hergé

text: In June 1970, Hergé's father died, and after the funeral he holidayed near Lake Geneva. In 1974, his assistant Branden suffered a stroke and was left unable to write, with Hergé replacing him with a young man, Alain Baran, who Hergé biographer Pierre Assouline later termed Hergé's "surrogate son". In March 1977, Hergé's divorce with Germaine was finalised; although Hergé continued to visit her and financially support her, Germaine took the divorce badly, viewing it as a further betrayal. Hergé was then able to marry Fanny several weeks later, in a low-key ceremony on 20 May; he was 70 years old and she was 42.


title: Hergé

text: In 1979, Hergé was diagnosed with osteomyelofibrosis, necessitating a complete blood transfusion. His need for blood transfusions had increased, as he came to require them every two weeks, and then every week.


title: Hergé

text: On 25 February 1983, Hergé suffered cardiac arrest and was hospitalised in intensive care at Brussels' Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc. He had been scheduled to meet with Steven Spielberg, who later made "The Adventures of Tintin" (2011). He died at Saint-Luc on 3 March. His death received front page coverage in numerous francophone newspapers, including "Libération" and "Le Monde". In his will, he had left Fanny as his sole heir.


title: Hergé

text: Hergé was a highly private person, being described by biographer Harry Thompson as "reserved [and] unostentatious". According to his biographer Pierre Sterckx, Hergé appeared "very conventional" in public, but in reality was "extremely erudite, with an insatiable curiosity, constantly on the watch". He greatly enjoyed walking in the countryside, gardening, and art collecting, and he was a fan of jazz music. Although he disliked making public or press appearances, Hergé insisted on personally responding to all fan mail received, which took up a considerable part of his time. He stated that "not replying to children's letters would be to betray their dreams." Friends described him as a humorous man, known particularly for his self-deprecating jokes. Colleagues described Hergé as egocentric, an assessment he agreed with. He was known to be authoritarian in dealing with his assistants and refused to share credit with them for their part in his work. Sterckx noted that "on the one hand he could be distant, even frosty, but on the other he was affectionate".


title: Hergé

text: Throughout his first marriage he had a number of affairs with other women. He had no children, having been rendered sterile by radiation treatment, but in the 1950s offered to adopt his brother Paul's two children, Denise and George, when their parents were experiencing trouble in their relationship. Paul declined the offer, with Denise and George later noting that they had no great affection for Hergé, deeming him awkward around children. Hergé was raised as a Catholic, although was never a devout practitioner of the religion. His adherence to Catholicism declined in later life as he developed a keen interest in Taoism, and became an agnostic. He was a fan of the "Tao Te Ching" and Arnaud Desjardins' "The Path to Wisdom", as well as Fritjof Capra's "The Tao of Physics" and the work of Jean-Émile Charon.


title: Hergé

text: Politically, Hergé was a fervent royalist, and remained so throughout his life, also believing in the unity of Belgium. In his early life, Hergé was "close to the traditional right-wing" of Belgian society, with Sterckx noting that through his work he was "plunged into rightist, even extreme right-wing circles". According to Harry Thompson, such political ideas were not unusual in middle-class circles in Belgium of the 1920s and early 1930s, where "patriotism, Catholicism, strict morality, discipline and naivety were so inextricably bound together in everyone's lives that right-wing politics were an almost inevitable by-product. It was a world view shared by everyone, distinguished principally by its complete ignorance of the world." When Hergé took responsibility for , he followed Wallez's instruction and allowed the newspaper to contain explicitly pro-fascist and anti-semitic sentiment. Literary critic Jean-Marie Apostolidès noted that the character of Tintin was a personification of the "New Youth" concept which was promoted by the European far-right. Under Wallez's guidance, the early "Adventures of Tintin" contained explicit political messages for its young readership. "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" was a work of anti-socialist propaganda, while "Tintin in the Congo" was designed to encourage colonialist sentiment toward the Belgian Congo, and "Tintin in America" was designed as a work of anti-Americanism heavily critical of capitalism, commercialism, and industrialisation.


title: Hergé

text: In contrast to Hergé's involvement in Belgium's right-wing, Sterckx thought the cartoonist to have been "a liberal and independent spirit", someone who was "the very opposite of a conservative [or] a reactionary of the right". Michael Farr asserted that Hergé had "an acute political conscience" during his earlier days, as exemplified by his condemnation of racism in the United States evident in "Tintin in America". Literary critic Tom McCarthy went further, remarking that "Tintin in America" represented the emergence of a "left-wing counter tendency" in Hergé's work that rebelled against his right-wing milieu and which was particularly critical of wealthy capitalists and industrialists. This was furthered in "The Blue Lotus", in which Hergé rejected his "classically right-wing" ideas to embrace an anti-imperialist stance, and in a contemporary "Quick & Flupke" strip in which he lampooned the far-right leaders of Germany and Italy, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Although many of his friends and colleagues did so in the mid-1930s, Hergé did not join the far-right Rexist Party, later asserting that he "had always had an aversion to it" and commenting that "to throw my heart and soul into an ideology is the opposite of who I am."


title: Hergé

text: Hergé faced repeated accusations of racism due to his portrayal of diverse ethnic groups throughout "The Adventures of Tintin". According to McCarthy, in "Tintin in the Congo" Hergé represented the Congolese as "good at heart, but backwards and lazy, in need of European mastery". Thompson argued that Hergé had not written the book to be "deliberately racist" and that it reflected the average early 20th-century Belgian view of the Congolese, which was more patronising than malevolent. The book provoked no controversy at the time, coming to be perceived as racist only in the latter half of the 20th century.


title: Hergé

text: In the following adventure, "Tintin in America", Hergé depicted members of the Blackfoot tribe of Native Americans as "gullible, even naive", though it was nevertheless "broadly sympathetic" to their culture and plight, depicting their oppression at the hands of the United States Army. "The Blue Lotus" received both criticism for depicting the Japanese as militaristic and buck-toothed and praise for representing a less stereotypical vision of China than was the norm in Europe at the time.


title: Hergé

text: Hergé has also been accused of utilising anti-semitic stereotypes, despite Hergé's protestations that the character of Rastapopoulos was Greek, and not Jewish.


title: Hergé

text: From his early years, Hergé was openly critical of racism. He lambasted the pervasive racism of U.S. society in a prelude comment to "Tintin in America" published in "Le Petit Vingtième" on 20 August 1931, and ridiculed racist attitudes toward the Chinese in "The Blue Lotus". Peeters asserted that "Hergé was no more racist than the next man", an assessment shared by Farr, who after meeting Hergé in the 1980s commented that "you couldn't have met someone who was more open and less racist". In contrast, President of the International "Bande Dessinée" Society Laurence Grove opined that Hergé adhered to prevailing societal trends in his work, and that "When it was fashionable to be a Nazi, he was a Nazi. When it was fashionable to be a colonial racist, that's what he was." Vietnamese-American novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote in 2022, after discussing Tintin's racist elements, that "Hergé’s work is deeply flawed, and yet riveting narratively and aesthetically. I have forgotten all the well-intentioned, moralistic children’s literature that I have read, but I haven’t forgotten Hergé."


title: Hergé

text: According to the UNESCO's Index Translationum, Hergé is the ninth-most-often-translated French-language author, the second-most-often-translated Belgian author after Georges Simenon, and the second-most-often-translated French-language comics author behind René Goscinny. He also had an asteroid, 1652 Hergé, within the main belt, named after him in 1953.


title: Hergé

text: A cartoon version of Hergé makes a number of cameo appearances in the 1990s animated television series "The Adventures of Tintin". An animated version of Hergé also makes a cameo appearance at the start of the 2011 motion capture film, "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn", directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson, where he is depicted as a street cartoonist drawing a portrait of Tintin in the style of the comic at the start of the film.


title: Hergé

text: The Musée Hergé is located in the centre of Louvain-la-Neuve, a city to the south of Brussels. This location was originally chosen for the Museum in 2001. The futuristic building was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning French architect Christian de Portzamparc and cost €15 million to build. On the centenary of the birth of Hergé, 22 May 2007, the museum's first stone was laid. The museum opened its doors in June 2009.


title: Hergé

text: The idea of a museum dedicated to the work of Hergé can be traced back to the end of the 1970s, when Hergé was still alive. After his death in 1983, Hergé's widow, Fanny, led the efforts, undertaken at first by the Hergé Foundation and then by the new Studios Hergé, to catalogue and choose the artwork and elements that would become part of the Museum's exhibitions.


title: Hergé

text: The Hergé Museum contains eight permanent galleries displaying original artwork by Hergé, and telling the story of his life and career which had not previously been visible to the public. The Museum also houses a temporary exhibition gallery. Although Tintin features prominently in the museum, Hergé's other comic strip characters, such as Jo, Zette and Jocko, and Quick and Flupke, as well as his work as a graphic designer, are also present.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: In electrical engineering, ground or earth is a reference point in an electrical circuit from which voltages are measured, a common return path for electric current, or a direct physical connection to the Earth.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Electrical circuits may be connected to ground for several reasons. Exposed conductive parts of electrical equipment are connected to ground, to protect users from electrical shock hazard. If internal insulation fails, dangerous voltages may appear on the exposed conductive parts. Connecting exposed parts to ground will allow circuit breakers (or RCDs) to interrupt power supply in the event of a fault. In electric power distribution systems, a protective earth (PE) conductor is an essential part of the safety provided by the earthing system.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Connection to ground also limits the build-up of static electricity when handling flammable products or electrostatic-sensitive devices. In some telegraph and power transmission circuits, the ground itself can be used as one conductor of the circuit, saving the cost of installing a separate return conductor (see single-wire earth return and earth-return telegraph).


title: Ground (electricity)

text: For measurement purposes, the Earth serves as a (reasonably) constant potential reference against which other potentials can be measured. An electrical ground system should have an appropriate current-carrying capability to serve as an adequate zero-voltage reference level. In electronic circuit theory, a "ground" is usually idealized as an infinite source or sink for charge, which can absorb an unlimited amount of current without changing its potential. Where a real ground connection has a significant resistance, the approximation of zero potential is no longer valid. Stray voltages or earth potential rise effects will occur, which may create noise in signals or produce an electric shock hazard if large enough.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: The use of the term ground (or earth) is so common in electrical and electronics applications that circuits in portable electronic devices, such as cell phones and media players, as well as circuits in vehicles, may be spoken of as having a "ground" or chassis ground connection without any actual connection to the Earth, despite "common" being a more appropriate term for such a connection. That is usually a large conductor attached to one side of the power supply (such as the "ground plane" on a printed circuit board), which serves as the common return path for current from many different components in the circuit.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Long-distance electromagnetic telegraph systems from 1820 onwards used two or more wires to carry the signal and return currents. It was discovered by German scientist Carl August Steinheil in 1836–1837, that the ground could be used as the return path to complete the circuit, making the return wire unnecessary. Steinheil was not the first to do this, but he was not aware of earlier experimental work, and he was the first to do it on an in-service telegraph, thus making the principle known to telegraph engineers generally. However, there were problems with this system, exemplified by the transcontinental telegraph line constructed in 1861 by the Western Union Company between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. During dry weather, the ground connection often developed a high resistance, requiring water to be poured on the ground rod to enable the telegraph to work or phones to ring.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: In the late nineteenth century, when telephony began to replace telegraphy, it was found that the currents in the earth induced by power systems, electric railways, other telephone and telegraph circuits, and natural sources including lightning caused unacceptable interference to the audio signals, and the two-wire or 'metallic circuit' system was reintroduced around 1883.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Electrical power distribution systems are often connected to earth ground to limit the voltage that can appear on distribution circuits. A distribution system insulated from earth ground may attain a high potential due to transient voltages caused by static electricity or accidental contact with higher potential circuits. An earth ground connection of the system dissipates such potentials and limits the rise in voltage of the grounded system.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: In a mains electricity (AC power) wiring installation, the term "ground conductor" typically refers to two different conductors or conductor systems as listed below:


title: Ground (electricity)

text: "Equipment bonding conductors" or "equipment ground conductors" (EGC) provide a low impedance path between normally non-current-carrying metallic parts of equipment and one of the conductors of that electrical system's source. If any exposed metal part should become energized (fault), such as by a frayed or damaged insulator, it creates a short circuit, causing the overcurrent device (circuit breaker or fuse) to open, clearing (disconnecting) the fault. It is important to note this action occurs regardless of whether there is a connection to the physical ground (earth); the earth itself has no role in this fault-clearing process since current must return to its source; however, the sources are very frequently connected to the physical ground (earth). (see Kirchhoff's circuit laws). By bonding (interconnecting) all exposed non-current carrying metal objects together, as well as to other metallic objects such as pipes or structural steel, they should remain near the same voltage potential, thus reducing the chance of a shock. This is especially important in bathrooms where one may be in contact with several different metallic systems such as supply and drain pipes and appliance frames. When a conductive system is to be electrically connected to the physical ground (earth), one puts the equipment bonding conductor and the grounding electrode conductor at the same potential (for example, see "§Metal water pipe as grounding electrode" below).


title: Ground (electricity)

text: A (GEC) is used to connect the system grounded ("neutral") conductor, or the equipment to a grounding electrode, or a point on the grounding electrode system. This is called "system grounding" and most electrical systems are required to be grounded. The U.S. NEC and the UK's BS 7671 list systems that are required to be grounded. According to the NEC, the purpose of connecting an electrical system to the physical ground (earth) is to limit the voltage imposed by lightning events and contact with higher voltage lines. In the past, water supply pipes were used as grounding electrodes, but due to the increased use of plastic pipes, which are poor conductors, the use of a specific grounding electrode is often mandated by regulating authorities. The same type of ground applies to radio antennas and to lightning protection systems.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Permanently installed electrical equipment, unless not required to, has permanently connected grounding conductors. Portable electrical devices with metal cases may have them connected to earth ground by a pin on the attachment plug (see Domestic AC power plugs and sockets). The size of power grounding conductors is usually regulated by local or national wiring regulations.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Strictly speaking, the terms "grounding" or "earthing" are meant to refer to an electrical connection to ground/earth. Bonding is the practice of intentionally electrically connecting metallic items not designed to carry electricity. This brings all the bonded items to the same electrical potential as a protection from electrical shock. The bonded items can then be connected to ground to eliminate foreign voltages.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: In electricity supply systems, an earthing (grounding) system defines the electrical potential of the conductors relative to that of the Earth's conductive surface. The choice of earthing system has implications for the safety and electromagnetic compatibility of the power supply. Regulations for earthing systems vary considerably between different countries.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: A functional earth connection serves more than protecting against electrical shock, as such a connection may carry current during the normal operation of a device. Such devices include surge suppression, electromagnetic-compatibility filters, some types of antennas, and various measurement instruments. Generally the protective earth system is also used as a functional earth, though this requires care.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Distribution power systems may be solidly grounded, with one circuit conductor directly connected to an earth grounding electrode system. Alternatively, some amount of electrical impedance may be connected between the distribution system and ground, to limit the current that can flow to earth. The impedance may be a resistor, or an inductor (coil). In a high-impedance grounded system, the fault current is limited to a few amperes (exact values depend on the voltage class of the system); a low-impedance grounded system will permit several hundred amperes to flow on a fault. A large solidly grounded distribution system may have thousands of amperes of ground fault current.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: In a polyphase AC system, an artificial neutral grounding system may be used. Although no phase conductor is directly connected to ground, a specially constructed transformer (a "zig zag" transformer) blocks the power frequency current from flowing to earth, but allows any leakage or transient current to flow to ground.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Low-resistance grounding systems use a neutral grounding resistor (NGR) to limit the fault current to 25 A or greater. Low resistance grounding systems will have a time rating (say, 10 seconds) that indicates how long the resistor can carry the fault current before overheating. A ground fault protection relay must trip the breaker to protect the circuit before overheating of the resistor occurs.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: High-resistance grounding (HRG) systems use an NGR to limit the fault current to 25 A or less. They have a continuous rating, and are designed to operate with a single-ground fault. This means that the system will not immediately trip on the first ground fault. If a second ground fault occurs, a ground fault protection relay must trip the breaker to protect the circuit. On an HRG system, a sensing resistor is used to continuously monitor system continuity. If an open-circuit is detected (e.g., due to a broken weld on the NGR), the monitoring device will sense voltage through the sensing resistor and trip the breaker. Without a sensing resistor, the system could continue to operate without ground protection (since an open circuit condition would mask the ground fault) and transient overvoltages could occur.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Where the danger of electric shock is high, special ungrounded power systems may be used to minimize possible leakage current to ground. Examples of such installations include patient care areas in hospitals, where medical equipment is directly connected to a patient and must not permit any power-line current to pass into the patient's body. Medical systems include monitoring devices to warn of any increase of leakage current. On wet construction sites or in shipyards, isolation transformers may be provided so that a fault in a power tool or its cable does not expose users to shock hazard.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Circuits used to feed sensitive audio/video production equipment or measurement instruments may be fed from an isolated ungrounded technical power system to limit the injection of noise from the power system.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: In single-wire earth return (SWER) AC electrical distribution systems, costs are saved by using just a single high voltage conductor for the power grid, while routing the AC return current through the earth. This system is mostly used in rural areas where large earth currents will not otherwise cause hazards.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Some high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) power transmission systems use the ground as second conductor. This is especially common in schemes with submarine cables, as sea water is a good conductor. Buried grounding electrodes are used to make the connection to the earth. The site of these electrodes must be chosen carefully to prevent electrochemical corrosion on underground structures.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: A particular concern in design of electrical substations is earth potential rise. When very large fault currents are injected into the earth, the area around the point of injection may rise to a high potential with respect to points distant from it. This is due to the limited finite conductivity of the layers of soil in the earth of the substation. The gradient of the voltage (the change in voltage across the distance to the injection point) may be so high that two points on the ground may be at significantly different potentials. This gradient creates a hazard to anyone standing on the earth in an area of the electrical substation that is insufficiently insulated from ground. Pipes, rails, or communication wires entering a substation may see different ground potentials inside and outside the substation, creating a dangerous touch voltage for unsuspecting persons who might touch those pipes, rails, or wires. This problem is alleviated by creating a low-impedance equipotential bonding plane installed in accordance with IEEE 80, within the substation. This plane eliminates voltage gradients and ensures that any fault is cleared within three voltage cycles.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Signal grounds serve as return paths for signals and power (at extra-low voltages, less than about 50 V) within equipment, and on the signal interconnections between equipment. Many electronic designs feature a single return that acts as a reference for all signals. Power and signal grounds often get connected, usually through the metal case of the equipment. Designers of printed circuit boards must take care in the layout of electronic systems so that high-power or rapidly switching currents in one part of a system do not inject noise into low-level sensitive parts of a system due to some common impedance in the grounding traces of the layout.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Voltage is defined as the difference of electric potentials between points in an electric field. A voltmeter is used to measure the potential difference between some point and a reference point. This common reference point is denoted "ground" and considered to have zero potential. Signals are defined with respect to signal ground, which may be connected to a power ground. A system where the system ground is not connected to another circuit or to earth (in which there may still be AC coupling between those circuits) is often referred to as a floating ground or double-insulated.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Some devices require a connection to the mass of earth to function correctly, as distinct from any purely protective role. Such a connection is known as a functional earth- for example some long wavelength antenna structures require a functional earth connection, which generally should not be indiscriminately connected to the supply protective earth, as the introduction of transmitted radio frequencies into the electrical distribution network is both illegal and potentially dangerous. Because of this separation, a purely functional ground should not normally be relied upon to perform a protective function.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: To avoid accidents, such functional grounds are normally wired in white or cream cable, and not green or green/yellow.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: In television stations, recording studios, and other installations where signal quality is critical, a special signal ground known as a "technical ground" (or "technical earth", "special earth", and "audio earth") is often installed, to prevent ground loops. This is basically the same thing as an AC power ground, but no general appliance ground wires are allowed any connection to it, as they may carry electrical interference. For example, only audio equipment is connected to the technical ground in a recording studio. In most cases, the studio's metal equipment racks are all joined together with heavy copper cables (or flattened copper tubing or busbars) and similar connections are made to the technical ground. Great care is taken that no general chassis grounded appliances are placed on the racks, as a single AC ground connection to the technical ground will destroy its effectiveness. For particularly demanding applications, the main technical ground may consist of a heavy copper pipe, if necessary fitted by drilling through several concrete floors, such that all technical grounds may be connected by the shortest possible path to a grounding rod in the basement.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Certain types of radio antennas (or their feedlines) require a connection to ground. Since the radio frequencies of the current in radio antennas are far higher than the 50/60 Hz frequency of the power line, radio grounding systems use different principles from AC power grounding. The "third wire" safety grounds in AC utility building wiring were not designed for and cannot be used for this purpose. The long utility ground wires have high impedance at certain frequencies. In the case of a transmitter, the RF current flowing through the ground wires can radiate radio frequency interference and induce hazardous voltages on grounded metal parts of other appliances, so separate ground systems are used.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Monopole antennas operating at lower frequencies, below 20 MHz, use the Earth as part of the antenna, as a conductive plane to reflect the radio waves. These include the T and inverted L antenna, umbrella antenna and the mast radiator used by AM radio stations. The feedline from the transmitter is connected between the antenna and ground, so it requires a grounding (Earthing) system under the antenna to make contact with the soil to collect the return current. In lower power transmitters and radio receivers, the ground connection can be as simple as one or more metal rods or stakes driven into the earth, or an electrical connection to a building's metal water piping which extends into the earth. However, in transmitting antennas the ground system carries the full output current of the transmitter, so the resistance of an inadequate ground contact can be a major loss of transmitter power. The ground system functions as a capacitor plate, to receive the displacement current from the antenna and return it to the ground side of the transmitter's feedline, so it is preferably located directly under the antenna.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: Medium to high power transmitters usually have an extensive ground system consisting of bare copper cables buried in the earth under the antenna, to lower resistance. Since for the omnidirectional antennas used on these bands the Earth currents travel radially toward the ground point from all directions, the grounding system usually consists of a radial pattern of buried cables extending outward under the antenna in all directions, connected together to the ground side of the transmitter's feedline at a terminal next to the base of the antenna.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: The transmitter power lost in the ground resistance, and so the efficiency of the antenna, depends on the soil conductivity. This varies widely; marshy ground or ponds, particularly salt water, provide the lowest resistance ground, while dry rocky or sandy soil are the highest. The power loss per square meter in the ground is proportional to the square of the transmitter current density flowing in the earth. The current density, and power dissipated, increases the closer one gets to the ground terminal at the base of the antenna, so the radial ground system can be thought of as providing a higher conductivity medium, copper, for the ground current to flow through, in the parts of the ground carrying high current density, to reduce power losses.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: A standard ground system widely used for mast radiator broadcasting antennas operating in the MF and LF bands consists of 120 equally-spaced buried radial ground wires extending out one quarter of a wavelength (.25formula_1, 90 electrical degrees) from the antenna. No. 8 to 10 gauge soft-drawn copper wire is typically used, buried 4 to 10 inches deep. For AM broadcast band antennas this requires a circular land area extending from the mast . This is usually planted with grass, which is kept mowed short as tall grass can increase power loss in certain circumstances. If the land area available is too limited for such long radials, they can in many cases be replaced by a greater number of shorter radials, or a smaller number of longer radials.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: In transmitting antennas a second cause of power wastage is dielectric power losses of the electric field (displacement current) of the antenna passing through the earth to reach the ground wires. For antennas near a half-wavelength high (180 electrical degrees) the antenna has a voltage maximum (antinode) near its base, which results in strong electric fields in the earth above the ground wires near the mast where the displacement current enters the ground. To reduce this loss these antennas often use a conductive copper ground screen under the antenna connected to the buried ground wires, either lying on the ground or elevated a few feet, to shield the ground from the electric field.


title: Ground (electricity)

text: In a few cases where rocky or sandy soil has too high a resistance for a buried ground, a counterpoise is used. This is a radial network of wires similar to that in a buried ground system, but lying on the surface or suspended a few feet above the ground. It acts as a capacitor plate, capacitively coupling the feedline to conductive layers of the earth.