D'Arcosta is an allegedly Swedish comic artist who illustrated the subversive 'Tintin' parody 'Kuifje in Holland' (1982), scripted by the Suriname scriptwriter Pieter-Jans. The comic was published as part of a Hergé-themed issue in the underground magazine Spetters, edited by Jan Bucquoy.
Kuifje in Holland
The cover of 'Kuifje in Holland' depicts Tintin about to enter a sex shop when he sees Hergé leave the store with a bunch of nudie pictures and a huge erection hidden inside his pants. Bucquoy wrote the provocative introduction to this issue, in which he described Hergé as a "grand inquisitioner, old friend of Léon Degrelle and contributor to the fascist magazine Le Petit Vingtième and the Nazi paper Le Soir during the war." As usual for the notorious provocateur, Bucquoy's accusation was rather blunt. Hergé indeed came from Catholic and extreme-right circles, such as the children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, which was ran by the ultraconservative priest Norbert Wallez. Wallez was a raving antisemite who admired both Hitler as well as Mussolini and had a signed picture of "Il Duce" on his desk. Léon Degrelle - the later leader of the Belgian Nazi party REX - worked as a journalist for Le Petit Vingtième in the 1920s and early 1930s. During World War II, when Le Petit Vingtième was forced to close down, Hergé joined Le Soir, a newspaper under Nazi control. Yet whether the comic artist was morally wrong in those years is still up for debate today. Hergé was never a party member of REX, never misused his comics for propaganda purposes and Degrelle was just a colleague.
Nevertheless, 'Kuifje in Holland' didn't follow any grey moral zones. The storyline follows Tintin in typical vulgar sexual situations as one would expect from a pornographic parody. Yet the tone is far more political-satirical. Tintin meets chief editor V.J. (which stands for "Vuile Jood" ("Filthy Jew"), according to a caption) and gets recruited as a Nazi. Together with Captain Haddock he blows up a bunch of Jews and travels to concentration camp Auschwitz to exterminate even more victims. Bucquoy explained that he deliberately wanted to piss off Hergé. The direct occasion was the ban against the porn parody 'Tintin en Suisse' ('Tintin in Switzerland', 1976) by Filip Denis, who had been sentenced to pay 50.000 Belgian francs (about 1239.47 euro) for copyright infringement. In the same Spetters issue, Bucquoy defended Denis' right of freedom of speech. Oddly enough 'Kuifje in Holland' had no legal consequences. Only in 1992, when Bucquoy made another pornographic parody, 'La Vie Sexuelle de Tintin' ('Het Seksuele Leven van Kuifje', 1992), Hergé's estate sued him after all. Bucquoy won the case by proving that his claims about Hergé's war past were based on facts, if somewhat exaggerated for satirical purposes. Jean Weil, who defended Hergé's estate, had parents who survived the concentration camps and pulled back from the case after being informed of this. In the end Hergé's estate had to pay the legal expenses to Bucquoy.