Tintin Forums

Was The Seven Crystal Balls redrawn?

Tintin says "She turns up in the oddest places: Syldavia, Borduria, the Red Sea..." Two places that Tintin did not visit before The Seven Crystal Balls.

It must have been redrawn. All places that come after The Seven Crystal Balls are capitalised.

And in Prisoners of the Sun, when the members of the expedition are free of their comas, Sanders-Hardiman says, "Where are we, Carling?" I don't remember an expedition member called Carling.

miloumuttmitt wrote: And in Prisoners of the Sun, when the members of the expedition are free of their comas, Sanders-Hardiman says, "Where are we, Carling?" I don't remember an expedition member called Carling.

See the thread on 'Missing explorer in The Seven Crystal Balls'.

I think this occurs because of the order of publication in English. The English language edition of The Seven Crystal Balls (published 1962 by Methuen) was released after The Calculus Affair (1960) and The Red Sea Sharks (1960). The English translators must have decided that references to their previous encounters with Bianca Castafiore should be added. The original conversation goes something like this:

"Look, Bianca Castafiore, the Milanese Nightingale!"
"Oh good! So what?..."
"We've met before in Syldavia during the affair with Ottokar's Sceptre..."
"Oh? Really? You know her?... That's..ah!..here she comes..."

Are you sure that this wasn't one of Herge's original dialogues?

Anyway, all the original books were redrawn at some stage, iirc. Even if it was just the transition from Le Petit Vingtieme or Le Soir or the Tintin magazine to album form...