Tintin is a reporter, adventurer, traveler, and the titular protagonist of the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, which was written by the Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, better known as Hergé (1907–1983). The Adventures of Tintin is a series of 24 comic albums created by Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, who wrote under the pen name Hergé. The series was one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. By 2007, a century after Hergé's birth in 1907, Tintin had been published in more than 70 languages with sales of more than 200 million copies, and had been adapted for radio, television, theatre, and film. The series first appeared in French on 10 January 1929 in Le Petit Vingtième (The Little Twentieth), a youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle (The Twentieth Century). The success of the series saw the serialised strips published in Belgium's leading newspaper Le Soir (The Evening) and spun into a successful Tintin magazine. In 1950, Hergé created Studios Hergé, which produced the canonical versions of ten Tintin albums. The series is set during a largely realistic 20th century. Its hero is Tintin, a courageous young Belgian reporter and adventurer. He is aided by his faithful dog Snowy (Milou in the original French edition). Other protagonists include the brash and cynical Captain Haddock and the intelligent but hearing-impaired Professor Calculus (French: Professeur Tournesol), as well as the incompetent detectives Thomson and Thompson (French: Dupont et Dupond) and the opera diva Bianca Castafiore. The series has been admired for its clean, expressive drawings in Hergé's signature ligne claire ("clear line") style. Its well-researched plots straddle a variety of genres: swashbuckling adventures with elements of fantasy, action, mysteries, political thrillers, and science fiction. The stories feature slapstick humour, offset by dashes of sophisticated satire and political or cultural commentary.