Jacques Van Melkebeke

Jacques Van Melkebeke (December 12, 1904 – June 8, 1983) was a Belgian painter, journalist, writer, and comic strips writer, born in Brussels.

Friend of Hergé, he 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 numbers of Blake and Mortimer, although Edgar P. Jacobs disputes this fact.

He also wrote a fake letter to Hergé demanding that an insult Haddock uses "Pneumothorax" be removed. It 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.

He wrote two Tintin plays which were staged from 1941 to 1942: Tintin in India - the Mystery of the Blue Diamond and Mr Boullock's Disappearance.

During the occupation of Belgium by Nazi Germany, Van Melkebeke was responsible for main articles in Le Soir Jeunesse, a supplement of the daily newspaper Le Soir. This resulted in a judgment of collaboration and of incitement of racial hatred in 1945 (although he primarily published cultural articles). For this same reason, Van Melkebeke could not continue in his functions as editor of the Tintin magazine, that Hergé had wanted to entrust to him: this suspicion of "incivism" prevented him from continuing a regular career in journalism.

His personality was one of the main sources of inspiration for the Blake and Mortimer character Philip Angus Mortimer.

Jacques Van Melkebeke is regarded by many as the "Third man" of the Franco-Belgian comic strip, as ignored as his influence was great at a certain time.