Background Hergé first devised the idea of sending
Tintin on a mission to the
Moon while he was working on
Prisoners of the Sun (1949). His decision to move into the field of
science fiction might have been influenced by his friendly rivalry with his colleague
Edgar P. Jacobs, who had recently had success with his own science fiction comic
The Secret of the Swordfish (1950–53). He decided that it would be a two-volume
story arc, as had proved successful with his earlier arcs,
Cigars of the Pharaoh (1934) and
The Blue Lotus (1936),
The Secret of the Unicorn (1943) and ''
Red Rackham's Treasure (1944), and The Seven Crystal Balls (1948) and Prisoners of the Sun
. He had initially intended on beginning this story after the culmination of Prisoners of the Sun
, but both his wife Germaine Remi and his close friend Marcel Dehaye convinced him to proceed with Land of Black Gold'' (1950), a story that he had previously left unfinished, instead. Seeking advice on the story, Hergé consulted his friend
Bernard Heuvelmans, who had authored the non-fiction book ''L'Homme parmi les étoiles'' ("Man Among the Stars") (1944). In autumn 1947, Heuvelmans and
Jacques Van Melkebeke developed a script for the story, which they gave to Hergé. This version based Calculus' lunar expedition in a fictional location, Radio City, in the United States. It featured a return of Professor Decimus Phostle, a character who had previously appeared in
The Shooting Star (1942), but this time as an antagonist; Phostle had sold the secrets of the mission in order to attain funds to buy a diamond for the actress
Rita Hayworth. In early 1948, Hergé produced two black-and-white pages of this version of the story before abandoning it. Hergé retained some elements of this original script in his finished version, namely the scenes in which
Captain Haddock drinks whiskey in a gravity-free environment and that in which he goes for a space walk and nearly becomes a satellite of Adonis, which appear on pages 5 and 8 of
Explorers on the Moon. Nevertheless, Heuvelmans thought his influence on the story to be more significant, stating that "in going through the two books we [he and Van Melkebeke] really had the impression that it was what we had originally done at the beginning. In broad outline, that was it". Hergé hoped for the story to be as realistic as possible, and sought to eschew fantastical elements. In his own words, it contained "no moonmen, no monsters, no incredible surprises". To ensure this realism, he collected a wide range of documents about
rockets and space travel with which to conduct research. In this he was aided by Heuvelmans, who collected pictures of rockets and atomic research facilities for him. Hergé's research archive included
an article from the American magazine ''
Collier's which discussed how humanity could reach the Moon, as well as books by Pierre Rousseau and Auguste Piccard. A further work that he used was L'Astronautique'' (1950), a book on putative space travel by the physicist
Alexander Ananoff, with whom Hergé began a correspondence in April 1950. He also visited the
Ateliers de Constructions Electriques de Charleroi's Center for Atomic Research, striking up a subsequent correspondence with its director,
Max Hoyaux. Hergé incorporated much of this technical information into the story, but juxtaposed it with moments of humour to make it more accessible to his young readership. According to literary critics
Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier, possible fictional influences on Hergé's story include
Jules Verne's 1870 novel
Around the Moon and the 1950 American film
Destination Moon. Hergé was certainly inspired by a number of photographic stills from the
Destination Moon film which had been published. The computer system at the Sprodj space centre was visually based upon the
UNIVAC I, the first computer to be created for non-military purposes. Hergé based his Moon rocket on the designs of the
V-2 rocket which had been developed by Nazi scientists during
World War II. The red-and-white checker pattern on Hergé's rocket was based upon an illustration of a V-2 which Hergé had come upon in
Leslie Simon's 1947 book
German Research in World War II. He commissioned the construction of a model rocket with detachable parts from his assistant Arthur Van Noeyen. He took the model to
Paris where he showed it to Ananoff, asking him if it was a realistic representation of what a Moon rocket might look like. He and his assistants then used the model from which to accurately sketch when producing the comic. Hergé introduced into the story the character of Boris Jorgen, who had previously appeared as an antagonist in ''
King Ottokar's Sceptre'' (1939). He added evidence for
water on the Moon on the advice of Heuvelmans.
Publication On 7 September 1950, Hergé broke off the story with the statement "end of part one". He felt the need for a break from work, having fallen back into clinical depression. He and his wife Germaine went on holiday to
Gland in Switzerland, before returning to Brussels in late September. Many readers sent letters to
Tintin magazine asking why
Explorers on the Moon was no longer being serialised, with a rumour emerging that Hergé had died. On 18 April 1951, he published an open letter in the magazine explaining his absence as a result of illness caused by exhaustion and included an illustration of himself sprawled out on an armchair. As Hergé planned his return to work, covers of
Tintin magazine announced the imminent return of the story.
Explorers on the Moon would resume after an eighteen-month hiatus, returning in the 9 April 1952 issue, accompanied with a summary of the story so far. Its final installment appeared on 31 December 1953.
Republication Upon the serial's publication, Hergé faced criticism for including Wolff's
suicide in the story; suicide was widely viewed as a sin in Catholic-dominated Belgium. In deference to these critics, for the published book version he added Wolff's line of "perhaps by some miracle I shall escape too", to make the scene seem a less obvious suicide. Years later, Hergé expressed regret that he had capitulated on this issue, as he felt that the change was "stupid" as Wolff knew that he was "condemned" the moment he jumped into space and no miracle was possible. The story was collected together and published by Editions Casterman as
On a Marché Sur La Lune in 1954. Casterman were unhappy with this title, which translates as "We Walked on the Moon", but Hergé resolutely refused to make a change. ==Critical analysis==