Boris Johnson’s Tintin connection helps him ward off coronavirus

Kevin Rudd wasn’t the only world leader to be likened to Tintin – and the latest not only resembles the comic character, but is a fan.

AS BORIS Johnson hovered between life and death, his family sent him some old friends – a set of Tintin books.

The Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was comforted in hospital by the stories of young Belgian reporter Tintin (aged somewhere between 12 and 18) and his dog Snowy.

Coronavirus: How close British Prime Minister Boris Johnson came to dying

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson released from hospital after being treated for coronavirus

Comic book hero Tintin originally sent into battle against the communists

Boris and Tintin are both journalists and both blond. They have something else in common. They refuse to throw in the towel. Britain – and Australia – is better for that.

In London recently, Boris was seen jogging in a sweatshirt adorned with words in French used by Tintin’s Captain Haddock. They translated as “blistering barnacles” and “thundering typhoons”.

Tintin was the creation of Belgian cartoonist Herge, real name Georges Remi, whose comic was serialised in Le Vingtieme Siecle in 1930-31.

My favourite Tintin was Tintin in the Jungle, which wouldn’t be accepted in today’s world. In it, Tintin and Snowy arrive in the Belgian Congo to find the Congolese childlike and lazy.

Belgian comic hero Tintin

Boris Johnson when editor of The Spectator

Before exposing a diamond smuggling gang, Tintin goes on a hunt, killing an ape to take the skin for a new jacket, and shooting down several antelope for sport.

He wrestles a lion and stops a snapping crocodile by bravely jamming his rifle vertically into a croc’s open jaws.

There is more drama when Snowy is kidnapped by a monkey and Tintin is briefly jailed.

He is released a hero after uncovering another nasty plot.

A local woman bows down to him and says, “White man very great! Has good spirits … White mister is big juju man!”

Thankfully they don’t write stuff like that any more.