Best Tintin book

'Le Sceptre d'Ottokar'

The Calculus Affair, just edging out The Castafiore Emerald, which just edges out the 3 omnibuses.

one of those arbitrary choices, since so many of them are so good. but i'll take crystal balls/prisoner of the sun for the combination of mysticism, spookiness and plain old adventuring.

I nearly went with the Unicorn/Rackham saga, but ended up with Crystal/Prisoners.

ugh, hardest poll ever

ugh, hardest poll ever

-- max, Monday, 1 October 2007 17:25 (Monday, 1 October 2007 17:25)

OTM :(

Which Tintin should be made into a live action feature film first?

land of black gold is my favorite of the 6 or 7 ones i own

the ones i don't own i haven't read since i was a kid, sadly, so i can't remember them well enough

I would so vote Cigars of the Pharaoh/Blue Lotus if I didn't feel guilty for voting a non-Haddock book.

Argh, so hard.

Tintin In Tibet is probably the best all in all in it's stark emotionality and focus on camaraderie, but I had to let the kid in me choose Seven Crystal Balls / Prisoners of the Sun for sheer thrills and chills.

JW is wrong as balls, the answer to that question is easily "none of them"

I was always more of an Asterix man, but if I had to choose -- I'd say either "Flight l714" (easily the best cover art) or "Tintin in Tibet". "Land of Black Gold" is pretty great as well.

whoops, "Flight 714"

i almost went with flight 714 because it was my first tintin book, and still one of my favorites.

http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/2540/20070717135830/www.publishersweekly.com/articles/images/PWK/library/tintin.jpg

Little, Brown Cancels Tintin in the Congo
By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 10/1/2007 8:50:00 AM

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, which had been planning to publish Tintin in the Congo, a book criticized for its racist, Colonial-era depictions of Africans, has quietly pulled the title from its fall list, PW has learned. The publisher also said it will not include the book in a forthcoming box set of all 24 books in the Tintin series.

Publicist Melanie Chang did not give a reason for the standalone book's cancellation, but of its omission from the box set she said, "Given the controversy surrounding the Congo title, we felt including it in the box set would eclipse the true intention of the collection, which is to showcase Hergé’s extraordinary art and his remarkable contribution to the graphic arts."

Tintin in the Congo, written in 1931 by Belgian artist Hergé, was slated for publication this fall. Part of a series of books centered on the adventurer Tintin, Tintin in the Congo depicts black Africans who strongly resemble monkeys and dialogue widely considered racist. After an uproar over the book's publication in the UK (prompted by a complaint from a British lawyer that the “highly offensive” book contained racist images), Borders reacted by announcing its U.S. stores would stock the popular but controversial children's book in an adult-oriented section of the store because of material the retailer said "could be considered offensive by some of our customers." Little, Brown had planned to wrap a belly band around U.S. editions of the book acknowledging that the book "may be considered somewhat controversial as it reflects the colonial attitudes of the time it was created."

Little, Brown is going ahead with its November publications of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin and Alph-Art. The house was also planning to publish a boxed set containing all 24 Tintin books in November, but that project has now been postponed because Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s forthcoming Tintin movie has also been pushed to next year. "We felt it best to time the publication of the box set closer to the release of what is sure to be a spectacular film," said Chang.

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CHANG!!!!

They'd better be banning The Red Sea Sharks too for its depiction of dumbass African slaves. I really should read the first 2 books one of these days.

Tintin in America is quite fun, basically it's just a serious of cliffhangers Tintin escapes in all sorts of ridiculous ways. Herge's depiction of Indians is more dignified than that of Congonese, though thery're still rather stereotypical (there's a funny scene where the Indians want to start a war, but can't do so because no one remembers where they buried the hatchet after the last conflict). One particular scene is quite poignant, however: oil is accidentally found on the Indians' land, and within hours the government troops force them to move out of there. Also, there's lots of dumbass Americans. And Al Capone!

It seems rather lame not to include the book in the box set.

nonsense, it's not like they were going to include Soviets either.

or wait, apparently they were: wtf? in non-edited B&W form alongside all the "canonical" versions? when did Alph'Art become a proper book, too?

I still can't decide!

(i.e. no cash-in film companions / ironic re-imaginings etc).

amazingly, the only one I have ever read is Breaking Free (the one about Tintin taking part in a workers' revolution).

There was also a naughty (with sex and all) parody version called "Tintin in Paris", or something like that, published in the nineties. Dunno who made it, but apparently it was popular enough to warrant a Finnish translation.

There was also Tintin in Thailand. There's a link on an ILC thread iirc.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Oh no! I'm running out of time. I still can't decide!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

4 votes for Tintin in the Congo?! Explain yourselves, please.

I mean, not just because of the racism, but it isn't even that good story-wise.

Plus there's cruelty towards animals too - Tintin shoots a chimpanzee just to use its fur as a disguise, and he blows up a rhino with dynamite. (Though I've read that the latter episode has been changed in some editions, so that the rhino merely gets scared and runs away.)

well the obvious conclusion is that five people on ILX hate everything you care about

I think you and I can be friends though, in the face of it all. I love really cold beer. What about you?

Also that bit about 3:45 in on Autobahn by Kraftwerk is completely what I wish my life was like. Can you disagree with that? Can anyone?

I never could decide u_u

I just read The Secret of the Unicorn. Do girls/women ever appear as more than fleeting characters?

Not apart from Castafiore really.

If I HAVE to pick...Tintin in Tibet.

Do girls/women ever appear as more than fleeting characters?

There's no girls in boy scouts.

I love Picaros, as it seems Herge has developed a cynical conscience; I wish it wasn't the (second) last installment.

Picaros was always my favourite as well. I need to re-read them all.

His late style -- the line and the colour -- is lovely, I think: Flight 714 is a silly story, but it looks terrific.

Also, I love the banner on this blog: I know there's a ton of French Herge-alikes, but this one really pleases me for some reason.

Secret of the Unicorn is one of the rare ones where someone dies violently. There's a cartoon bomb incident in Broken Ear -- but it's played as a gag (with little red demons dragging a villain to hell etc) -- and, well, [redacted ftb spoilers] has a famous death in it. Still never read Congo or America or Soviets: they may be full of deaths.

There's definitely some violent rhino death in Congo

herge never really develops any convincing female characters that i recall, but the stories do get much better and more complex than 'unicorn.' 'calculus affair' and 'castafiore emerald' are up there with the best of hitchcock.

by the time of flight 714, herge wasn't really doing that much actual drawing - he was still responsible for all the storytelling, but the pages would be worked up from his very rough pencil sketches by a group of assistants, chief among them a guy called bob demoor. i'm not sure that herge ever coloured any of the albums, as such - the early 'recast' ones were coloured by edgar p jacobs, who was also responsible for a lot of the decor, uniforms etc on things like 'King Ottokar's Sceptre'. no doubt the parallels between herge's method and the hollywood studio system did not go unnoticed by either herge or spielberg.

http://www.bobbo.be/upload/2010/12/07/10/39/ed25dc9623/ed25d-de-moor.jpg

i thought it was relatively 'brave' of the animated version to replicate the no-gurls-allowed worldview of the comics - no love interest for tintin (i guess snowy functions as a girlfriend-confidant, with haddock as the parental figure that's also otherwise missing from the strips.)

haha ok well "best direction" then!

i also like that he got a story about "chariots of the gods" out in the same year as reich von daniken's book -- excellent quick work

Any love here for the Edgar Jacobs re-print program going on at the moment? They are so detailed and wordy you have to really chew on 'em.

castafiore is no emma bovary, obv, but i don't think she's any less filled out as a comedy caricature than say the thomson twins -- and there are several women and wives evident in the romany encampment and jolyon wagg's family in the castafiore emerald, though only one small romany girl has more than a walk-on part, and she doesn't say much more than "ooh pretty!"

it's very obviously the "domestic" story though

I read Seven Crystal Balls at much the same time as a Conan Doyle short story about a mummy -- Lot No.249 -- and this sequence provided my sleepeless mind's-eye image for it. This was the sentence I hated: "The form was lifeless and inert, but it seemed to Smith as he gazed that there still lingered a lurid spark of vitality, some faint sign of consciousness in the little eyes which lurked in the depths of the hollow sockets."

(Actually the spark-of-vitality idea is terrifyingly well realised in Boris Karloff's The Mummy, when there's suddenly a glint in its eye, but as usual I am drifting off-topic... )

Ward, it was this cover that caught my eye in a bookshop in Portugal a few years back, I didn't know anything about Blake and Mortimer so I took a camera photo of it, they still hadn't come out in English yet so I had to wait till the 'Yellow M' appeared, I'd read that Jacobs loved opera which Herge disliked so he created Castafiore as a little jibe.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XcBrBqstVas/Tb7WRgkQFfI/AAAAAAAACMk/17jco5uhZhg/s1600/BM61%2B1.jpg

Isn't that great?

yes, that's one of the 'ghost' albums produced after jacobs' death. apparently they've proved so popular in europe that different teams are now working them - Juillard had a pretty respectable career as european strip illustrator prior to this, and he is probably the best of the jacobs imitators. all of these new blake and mortimers published by cinebooks are very faithful to the style and setting of the originals, complete with HUGE chunks of exposition-heavy word balloons.

i call 'em "fake and mortimer"

Hah, right, so which are the original Jacobs stories then?

these are the blake and mortimer albums by jacobs:

Le Secret de l'Espadon (The Secret of the Swordfish), in 1947 (3 volumes)
Le Mystère de la Grande Pyramide, (The Mystery of the Great Pyramid), in 1950 (2 volumes)
La Marque Jaune (The Yellow "M"), in 1953
L'Énigme de l'Atlantide (Atlantis Mystery), in 1955
S.O.S. Météores: Mortimer à Paris (S.O.S. Meteors), in 1958
Le Piège diabolique (The Time Trap) in 1960
L'Affaire du Collier (The Necklace Affair) in 1965
Les trois Formules du Professeur Sato: Mortimer à Tokyo (Mortimer in Tokyo) in 1970 (vol. 1). Vol. 2 Mortimer contre Mortimer (Mortimer versus Mortimer) completed by Bob De Moor, 1990

So far, cinebooks have translated into english pyramid, yellow m, sos meteors and the necklace affair. there are also earlier english language translations of swordfish and time trap, tho' they are p hard to find these days. professor sato and atlantis remain untranslated.

are the original unrevised herges available anywhere

IMO the "fake" Blake & Mortimer albums that I've read have actually been better than the "real" ones by Jacobs. They retain the old-school 1950s boys' adventure story sensibility, but discard Jacobs' wordiness, which I think is the biggest problem with him. The best way to read OG Jacobs stories is just not pay attention to the exposition boxess at all and read only the speech balloons. The exposition boxes appear in more than half of the panels in those comics, but almost all of them are superfluous, explaining the same thing that we already see in the picture.

Re: Herge and women, the biggest problem is not the that there so few female character (which is true), but that they are all caricatures based on negative stereotypes of women: they're either hysterical drama queens (Castafiore) or ballbreaking shrews (Alcazar's wife). Even Irma, who turns out the be wrongly accused in Castafiore's Emeralds, is more pathetic than sympathetic. This, together with the fact that Tintin and Haddock are clearly living together in Moulinsart and show absolutely no interest at all towards women in any of the books, certainly makes for an interesting alternate reading of the series. The most dramatic, most romantic love scenes in Tintin is between him and Haddock in Tibet.

are the original unrevised herges available anywhere

They've all been published in new collected editions in French, don't now if they're available in any other language.

On Blake & Mortimer, if you manage to find a copy of The Time Trap, I'd recommend checking that one out. It was always my favourite B&M story, mostly because it has a pretty crazy time travel story instead of the "realistic sci-fi" seen in other books.

In the other B&M books, I mean.

the whole revision biz w tintin is p complicated, and the following may not be 100% accurate, but afaik the early stories were first serialised in newspapers, then revised and condensed for their first album version, and then revised AGAIN by bob de moor etc in the 60s - so, for example, the Black Island that we know and love today is actually the third iteration of that story. i think there are only two versions of the stories - magazine serialisation in Tintin and slightly tweaked album version - from Seven Crystal Balls onwards.

as tuomas says, you can get the original-originals in nice dinky french collectors editions, though they now look exceptionally crude. a few years ago, the first album versions of black island, cigars of the pharoah, and a few others were finally translated into english and issued in nice hardcover editions - the differences are mainly to do with greater background detail etc, rather than substantial revisions of the storylines or dialogue, afaict.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Island-Adventures-Tintin/dp/1405240695/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320760806&sr=1-1

Secret of the Unicorn is one of the rare ones where someone dies violently. There's a cartoon bomb incident in Broken Ear -- but it's played as a gag (with little red demons dragging a villain to hell etc) -- and, well, [redacted ftb spoilers] has a famous death in it. Still never read Congo or America or Soviets: they may be full of deaths.

IIRC Soviets has some deaths, used to illustrate its anti-Soviet Union agenda. America has casual deaths too. And as mentioned above, Congo has Tintin shooting a chimpanzee and blowing up a rhino with dynamite. I don't recall any humans dying in it though.

the whole revision biz w tintin is p complicated, and the following may not be 100% accurate, but afaik the early stories were first serialised in newspapers, then revised and condensed for their first album version, and then revised AGAIN by bob de moor etc in the 60s - so, for example, the Black Island that we know and love today is actually the third iteration of that story. i think there are only two versions of the stories - magazine serialisation in Tintin and slightly tweaked album version - from Seven Crystal Balls onwards.

This pretty much correct. For example, with Black Island there was the original B&W story, then a condensed and coloured album version, then a new album version that modernized parts of the story (for example, the policemen's uniforms and the arcane firetruck used by the firemen in the previous version). There are other interesting changes too: the original late 40s strips of Land of Black Gold feature Zionist revolutionaries, but when Herge revised and finished the story in the early 70s, they were changed to Arabs.

I am proceeding directly to Red Rackham's Treasure, as I'm reviewing the Spielberg film in 3 weeks. I'm going to pick books at random and see how long it takes for me to catch Tintin doing any "reporting."

there's almost nothing of red rackham's treasure in the spielberg movie, apart from the v. end, which is a shame because i love the contrast between the urban mystery adventure of secret of the unicorn and the far more relaxed/colourful/tropical RRT.

Do you want some copies, Morbs? I have many.

I am proceeding directly to Red Rackham's Treasure, as I'm reviewing the Spielberg film in 3 weeks. I'm going to pick books at random and see how long it takes for me to catch Tintin doing any "reporting."

Tintin is kinda of famous for being a reporter who does almost no reporting at all in his adventures. Only the first three books (Land of Soviets, America, Congo) is he actually shown working as a reporter, and arguably it plays a significant role only in the first one, in the second two it's mostly just an excuse to send Tintin to a foreign land for his shenanigans. After that, Tintin's occupation is rarely even mentioned, and he's never again seen doing his supposed job.

He interviews a guy at the beginning of Black Gold, but it's a ruse to get information.

Fun fact: in the original strips the newspaper he was working for was the same one that published Tintin stories in real life. After the American adventure ended, the paper even arranged a parade to celebrate the "return" of their reporter from America, complete with an actor playing Tintin.

Do you want some copies, Morbs?

uh, not really. Cute n' all, but c'mon, Belgian comic books. I'm in a hurry here.

I remember thinking Destination Moon was really really boring when I was a kid - confirm?

The original Cigars of the Pharaoh has quite a few plot diversions that don't appear in the revised version; you can really tell where Herge just added a cliffhanger to round out the week's strip. The later books don't have many plot differences, I think.

I've no idea what Morbs' comment on " Belgian comic books" is supposed to mean...

I kid. But srly, never heard of these books when I was a yute (yeah, go ahead, they hadn't been translated yet)...

Also, in case I get hit by a bus next year, I'd rather read Proust or Moby-Dick first.

you could read basically every Tintin book in a week though

There are only 21 of them, you could read them in 3 days even if you didn't take any time off work!

I do not read (even this stuff) that fast. For one thing, the art is the thing, not the text.

The slapstick, esp involving the Thom(p)sons, could play really well in bigscreen animation if they do it right.

I remember thinking Destination Moon was really really boring when I was a kid - confirm?

Well, if you're expecting moon adventures, you might be bored by it, as it's all about the preparation for the trip. It's hella funny though, especially the Dupondts' hijinks (IMO they've never been as funny as in the two Moon books) and Professor Tournesol's uncharacteristic fit of rage, Probably it reads better as an adult than as a kid though.

At this point Herge was aiming for quite a high level of realism in Tintin, and I guess he realized realistic depiction of exploring the Moon's surface wasn't gonna provide with plenty of high adventure, so that part of the story is actually relatively short. He probably also wanted to show off the amount of research he and his studio had done for the comic, which is why he included all those technical details. From what I've gathered the books were remarkably accurate in their prediction of what the moon trip could be like, considering that they predate the actual moon mission by over 15 years.

Isn't the idea that the books themselves are the story he's researched and returned with? It's true we never see him get out a notebook, let alone phone his editor, but he's pretty good at being on-hand for world-historical events! Borduria's doomsday weapon, the first moon landing, alien encounter...

http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/tintin/7-1.jpg

I always thought the moon books were kind of boring, though the rocket itself is iconic and the only piece of comic memorabilia I've ever craved...

The Black Island is the first one I ever read, when I was a tiny. I was baffled by the fact that he got on a ferry to come to Sussex! Where did he live? They all spoke English also!??

Awesome
http://www.comicsreporter.com/images/uploads/rocketmodel_thumb.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VD2RXZResxU/TeUm8_uSuQI/AAAAAAAAAn8/aEra8rOg-HY/s640/IMG_4946.jpg

The Black Island is the first one I ever read, when I was a tiny. I was baffled by the fact that he got on a ferry to come to Sussex! Where did he live? They all spoke English also!??

Thankfully the Finnish editions never tried to claim they were other than Belgians. Albums like Secret of the Unicorn would've felt wrong even for a kid if they'd tried to pass Tintin & co as Finnish.

To be fair they didn't "try to claim" anything, it's just that the Belgian speech and signs were all translated into English. And then the action was actually in England and Scotland.

rocket makes me suspect Wes Anderson is a fan.

love that rocket so much. i made a painting of it (for my brother who is a rocket builder):

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6111/6326807431_00c4a7b149.jpg

I saw a tiny model o one of those rockets for sale in a Bruges tourist trap for something in The region of 50euros. How depressing

xp - would hang

Yeah fantastic painting!

send me one lxy

I like the Moon books a lot more as an adult than I did as a kid.

yeah i think one of the moon books was the first one i read as a kid and it bored me, so i never really read any more for ages. But I read them a couple years ago, and the "acting the goat" sequence is pretty much the best thing ever.

thanks guys :)

Acting the Goat is boss. There's also a sequence near the end of Destination where Haddock walks into/gets hit by the same door four times which is hysterical.

So I bought a copy of Destination Moon, because it was going cheap. This was my first English language Tintin book, apart from Breaking Free. I am already excited to see that English Snowy still says "Woaah Woaah" rather than "Woof Woof".

Also the guns go 'pan'.