Tintin Forums

Tintin and The Lake of Sharks is released with the official Egmont books, but the story is not by Hergé.

If it is canon, would that make Rodier's or Edwood's books canon too, as none is by Hergé, and Rodier and Edwood are far better at imitating Hergé than Lake of Sharks creator, Greg?

SingingGandalf
If it is canon, would that make Rodier's or Edwood's books canon too

Well, no.
The plot and art of Lake may not be be by Hergé, but he had input and approval, which you can't say of later pirate album makers.
Of the team involved with making Lake of Sharks, Greg was respected and admired by Hergé, and Bob de Moor, himself an animator before joining Hergé's studio, was in charge of character designs and settings.
It is a debatable point that Rodier and Edwood are "better" at "imitating" Hergé than Greg, as you aren't really comparing like-with-like: remember Greg wasn't involved in the drawing, only the writing, and while his art is often good, the scripting of Rodier leaves much to be desired (notwithstanding the fact that he was very young when he udertook the work, and what he produced was an immense undertaking), and there really isn't enough of Edwood's work to say one way or the other if he could carry off a whole book.

As to whether it is canon, I'd say not, and neither are the plays, live-action films or the other animations; personally I'd stick with the books by Hergé.
However, the notion of a canon is a purely speculative thing, so each to their own!

I was looking at the official Tintin site, and they had Lake of Sharks for sale!

Does anyone know why this is?

Because it is one of the officially licenced Tintin books I suppose?

R

Captain Chester
they had Lake of Sharks for sale!
Can I ask why this surprises you?

I guess they exploit everything else for money. Hergé was very much against heavy merchandising and it in effect cheapens the 'quality' of Tintin's name.

Tintinrulz
Herge was very much against heavy merchandising

I'm not sure what the evidence is for that - do you have any sources for that opinion?

It's from 'Tintin: Herge and His Creation', the original quotes are from the book 'Tintin et Moi.'

Thanks - that's really interesting, I'd not heard that before.

Given that he was keen to have had Disney exploit the books as animation, and that the characters were regularly plastered all over all sorts of items and promoted things from Nutella and soap to cars and anoraks, I'm not certain that this supposed dislike of merchandising stands up to scrutiny really, but it is useful to know what he thought.

In the book that Tintinrulz mentions, Tintin; Hergé and his creation by Harry Thompson, both Bob de Moor (Hergé's right-hand man) and Michal Turner (English translator and friend) are quoted directly as saying that Hergé very much disliked the Belvision TV animated adaptations, and it's made pretty clear that this dislike extended to other Belvision projects like The Lake of Sharks (film and book). According to Harry Thompson, Hergé simply wasn't in a strong enough position to prevent these adaptations - he'd had to give too much control of his rights to Raymond Leblanc (the man behind Belvision) when Leblanc rescued Hergé's career after the war by starting the Tintin magazine.

Whilst Harry Thompson's book is by no means infallible factually, and was neither authorized, nor particularly approved of, by Hergé's estate, I've never heard anyone disputing Thompson's assertion that Hergé hated The Lake of Sharks.

Certainly it's difficult to imagine how a man of Hergé's talent and taste could not have hated it! Even as a Tintin-hungry child - when I'd eagerly wait for our nearest bookshop to stock the Tintin books I hadn't got, and desperately hope that the UK publishers would hurry up and bring out the last few untranslated titles, and literally dream about finally finding new ones that didn't even exist - I was never even tempted to buy The Lake of Sharks! I could see, as could any eight-year-old, that it wasn't proper Tintin, "officially approved" or not! Tintinrulz's terse four-letter description of this book may indeed be a subjective opinion, but I bet it's one Hergé would have considered wholly accurate.

So - with no disrespect for what Jock123 has said - I think Captain Chester's initial question about The Lake of Sharks being promoted on the official Tintin site is a pertinent one.
Given how many rights Hergé's estate have wrested back since Hergé's death, and given how vigilant they are about protecting the integrity of his work according to what are deemed to be the creator's wishes, is it not high time that their official approval of the The Lake of Sharks was withdrawn and the book be allowed to disappear quietly into the dustbin of obscurity?