Jacques Van Melkebeke

Jacques Van Melkebeke (12 December 1904 – 8 June 1983) was a Belgian painter, journalist, writer, and comic strip writer. He was the first chief editor of Tintin magazine and wrote scripts and articles anonymously for many of their publications.

A friend of Hergé, Van Melkebeke took part in a semi-official way in the development of some of the storylines of The Adventures of Tintin, adding a number of cultural references. He is also supposed to have contributed to certain elements of the Blake and Mortimer series, although Edgar P. Jacobs disputed this fact. Van Melkebeke's strip Les Nouvelles Aventures du Baron de Crac ran in Le Soir as well. Van Melkebeke painted a portrait of Hergé which hung in the cartoonist's home for many decades.

As a prank, Van Melkebeke once wrote a fake letter to Tintin magazine demanding that an insult Captain Haddock used – "Pneumothorax" – be removed. (A pneumothorax is a medical emergency caused by the collapse of the lung within the chest). The letter was allegedly from a father whose boy was a great fan of Tintin and also a heavy tuberculosis sufferer who had experienced a collapsed lung. According to the letter, the boy was devastated that his favourite comic made fun of his own condition. Hergé wrote an apology and removed the word from the comic.

Van Melkebeke spent his later years returning to the field of fine art painting. He identified himself as an atheist.

Appearances in Tintin When Hergé started working with collaborators such as Jacobs, he would herald their contribution by having them make cameo appearances in his albums. The ever-smiling Van Melkebeke thus appears in Tintin stories such as: The Secret of the Unicorn (1943) – page 2, panel 14, where he is examining a book as a man calls out that his suitcase is being stolen Tintin in the Congo (1946, color version) – page 1, panel 1, as one of the reporters seeing Tintin off on his adventure King Ottokar's Sceptre (1947) – page 59, panel 6, when Tintin is about to be knighted The Seven Crystal Balls (1948) – page 57, panel 2, in the background when General Alcazar is boarding the steamer at Saint-Nazaire harbour