The titles in the Tintin series always feature slapstick humour, offset in later albums by sophisticated satire and political/cultural commentary. Engaging, well-researched plots, straddle a variety of genres: swashbuckling adventures with elements of fantasy mysteries political thrillers and science fiction. The comic strip series has long been admired for its clean, expressive drawings in Hergé's signature ligne claire style. The series is one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, with translations published in over 50 languages and more than 200 million copies of the books sold to date. The success of the series saw the serialised strips collected into a series of albums, spun into a successful magazine and adapted for both film and theatre. Later, popular additions to the cast included Captain Haddock and other colourful supporting characters. He is aided in his adventures from the beginning by his faithful dog Snowy (Milou in French). The hero of the series is the eponymous character, Tintin, a young reporter and traveller. The series has continued as a favourite of readers and critics alike for over 70 years. Set in a painstakingly researched world closely mirroring our own, The Adventures of Tintin present a number of well realised characters in distinctive settings. They first appeared in French in a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle in 1929. The Adventures of Tintin ( Les Aventures de Tintin) is a series of comic strip narratives created by Georges Remi under the pseudonym Hergé (a reversal of his initials, R G, as pronounced in French).