Tintin Movie

The Ephemerist has details of a slightly surreal Flemish comic where all the Flemish comic heros have gone missing and the writers convene a meeting to find new heros.

While most of the story will be beyond everybody who wasn’t raised on a steady diet of Jommeke, De Rode Ridder and Suske & Wiske (not to mention Thomas Pips, Dees Dubbel and others), some of the scenes might be quite intriguing for those interested in Eurocomics. Take the scene pictured above, presenting the cartoonists council mentioned before. We see Hergé presiding over the meeting, but the careful observant also will recognize many more comics luminaries.

Source: The Parliament of Comics

Herge’s other comic creations, Quick & Flupke, have been launched in India.

“Even worse will be the Tintin Purists…” is a blog post looking at purists reactions to the Lord of the Rings films. Even if the Tintin Movie is as good an adaptation as Jackson’s LotR then a lot of Tintin fans will complain because their favourite bit has been cut. Personally, I’m going to take the films on their own merit and their general feel. If they are well made films, with good scripts and stick to the general tone of the books, then I will be a very happy Tintin fan.

From The Guardian:

In Tintin’s last-but-one-adventure, Flight 714, our intrepid boy reporter and his friends find themselves on a small and deserted Indonesian island. The first intimation that things may not quite be as they seem comes when a rather bemused-looking but undeniably giant lizard ambles out of the bushes.


“What on earth’s that?” exclaims Captain Haddock. “A monitor,” replies Tintin. “What’s it doing here, pestilential pachyderm?” demands Haddock, displaying his usual grasp of alliteration (and absence of scientific knowledge). “It looks like it’s escaped from the ice age!”

Into the dragon’s den

Herge’s painstaking attention to detail was always at its best when dealing with the latest and future technology. Sometimes, such as the Me-109s in King Ottokar’s Sceptre, he adapts the latest technology of the time. In other books like the rocket in Destination Moon or the sound weapon in The Calculus Affair, he takes current theories and makes them real.

Yet one area that technology that Herge never explored was computers. Unlike planes and motor vehicles that came to the fore in Herge’s lifetime, computers were only really making their mark towards the end of his life. More importantly, computers don’t look exciting and make for lousy action sequences.

Despite this, I think Herge would be fascinated by the internet and the role technology plays in out lives. So he would be proud to now be part of the iTunes store. Tintin’s animated adventures can be download to your iPod. Perfect viewing for that dull commute into work.

The Pompidou Centre in Paris has accepted a Tintin strip to be part of its permanent collection. The first comic strip to be included in the gallery.

An original black and white strip, signed by Tintin’s Belgian creator Herge and donated by his widow Fanny Rodwell, comes from the 1956 story, The Calculus Affair, the 18th of the Tintin adventures.



Pompidou contemporary art museum curator Benoit Peers said that the donation could lead the way for the acquisition of more comic strips.



“One can say that Herge remains a pioneer and that Tintin, once again, has shown the way.” he told Le Figaro.

From: Tintin enters Pompidou Centre’s modern art collection in Paris

This is the page in question, I believe, though in black & white and presumably in French.

Charles Burns, one of the most disturbing comic artists / illustrators has a portfolio of work out by United Dead Artists that includes this familiar image:


For comparison I thought I would put up the original image and I was amazed at how close Charles Burns’ version is to the original. Try comparing the locations of the rocks. I then noticed something about The Shooting Star. The cover is a redrawn version of one of the panels.

The Shooting Star Cover Art Work

Final Panel of Page 51

It makes sense for the artwork to be redrawn for the cover but my surprise is a naiveté left over from my childhood when I would look through the books finding the frame they had used for the cover. One more precious childhood memory destroyed by the bitter reality of adulthood.

Tom McCarthy’s 2006 book, Tintin and the Secret of Literature is reviewed in the Los Angeles Times.

In France in particular, Tintin became a cottage industry, his exploits fodder for philosophers, psychoanalysts and literary critics, all of whom McCarthy leans on in asking, “Is ‘Tintin’ literature?” He notes the “huge irony . . . that the ‘Tintin’ books remain both unrivaled in their complexity and depth and so simple, even after more than half a century, that a child can read them with the same involvement as an adult.” But the question of whether they’re literature is not as interesting now, given the ascendance of pop culture. McCarthy seems to admit as much when he tweaks his query slightly: “As soon as we ask if ‘Tintin’ should be treated as literature, we raise another question: what is literature?”

From: ‘Tintin and the Secret of Literature’ by Tom McCarthy

AFP have a interesting story on how Herge’s original paintings for the Tintin strips are becoming highly collectable works of art.

A 1932 oil painted for by the Belgian author Herge for the cover of “Tintin in America” is the star item at a one-off sale of 650 comic originals Saturday in Paris, with a starting price of 280,000 euros (440,000 dollars).

“A museum piece. Sublime,” writes the Artcurial gallery and auction house, which is organising the sale, in its catalogue.

Source: Comic book originals break into art market

Over on Now Read This there is a comprehensive review of Tintin and the Lake of Sharks

Although lacking the satirical edge of Hergé’s comedy, action and slapstick are still well represented in this tale which turns animation stills into sequential narrative, with admittedly mixed results. Purists who love the artist’s landmark and legendary Ligne Claire style will be deterred that is laid over and across fully-rendered, moulded and painted backgrounds, but although it is initially jarring, the story does swiftly carry the reader beyond such quibbles.

Rather than doing any proper work I’ve been browsing Flickr for Tintin related photos. My favourite is this composite of Château de Cheverny, the real world inspiration for Marlinspike, and Herge’s vision of it. Check on the Tintin Map for Marlinspike’s real location.

I was also taken by this “Tintin in a blender” shot” and the knitted Tintin rocket.

Still want more. Try these

Tintin fire escape; Fantastic Tintin halloween lantern; Desktop Destination Moon ; Milou .

Herge’s art style, Ligne claire or Clear Line, was highly distinctive but has been used by a number of European artists. Amounst the best current practitioners is Eric Heuvel. An ex-history teacher and long time comics creator who has recently created a book on the Holocaust, The Search. It is the fictional story of Daniel, who after seeking information on the Holocaust on the internet, hears a first hand account from his grandmother Esther, who as a young Jewish girl saw her parents deported to their death in Auschwitz. The Search has recently been translated to German and is being used as a teaching aid to help German school children understand those terrible events.