Tintin Forums

I am happy that Moulinsart is coloring the black and white books, but, to be perfectly honest, I am not that enthused about it.

While I understand their rationale, when the original artist draws a comic, it's intended end state has a huge bearing on how they approach the comic. So, a comic that was intended to be black and white will never truly be amazing in color. That's probably why Hergé redrew the comics when he wanted to republish them in color.

Also, while meaning no disrespect to Michael Farr, the English translations of Lonsdale-Cooper and Turner are as original as it gets with respect to the English comics. That's also why I can't consider these new books as canon.

I found it disappointing that the black and white editions stopped after Blue Lotus. Not sure why the new effort has to take priority over finishing the publishing of the original canon material.
Similarly, the color facsimiles of the original editions strangely enough included comics that didn't really get redrawn much, while not including Land of Black Gold - which was one of the only 2 comics to have been majorly redrawn.

As I see it, the books from the official canon missing in English are the Cooper and Turner translations of
1) B&W Broken Ear
2) B&W Ottokar's Sceptre
3) B&W Black Island
4) B&W Crab with Golden Claws
5) Color facsimile of original Land of Black Gold

The questions I have are
1) Anyone has a clue about when/if the missing canon books will get published? If not, can a limited run of the missing books be initiated by fans who pledge to buy the entire run?

2) Did Cooper and Turner finish the translations of the missing books? This way, if they do get published, the translation differences don't look jarring as with the recent books.

In terms of albums (rather than serialised variants) we are also missing the colour version of Tintin in the Congo with the original page 56, where Tintin blows up a rhinocerous. This scene is available in the black-and-white facsimile edition though.

The 1942 edition of The Shooting Star has also yet to be published in English. This album was completely recoloured in 1954 (but not redrawn). The villain in the 1942 version is also named Blumenstein, lives in the USA and owns a bank in New York. The competitor expedition is from the USA and sails under the American flag.

As far as I know, these are not currently scheduled to be published in English. I also don't believe that Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner translated any of the unpublished works. Tintin in the Congo could probably reuse most if not all of the dialogue from the black-and-white version. The Shooting Star would require very little reworking and so wouldn't stand out.

Land of Black Gold could use some of the 1972 translation, but would definitely need a new translation for parts of the new content. The black-and-white editions would require completely new translations.

In addition to the variants mentioned above, there are a great many others that have not been translated into English (and a small number that are not even available in French at present, such as the colour serial of Black Gold). Most of the variants have only minor differences. In my opinion, these are the most significant and interesting:

1. The b&w albums (which are available in English other than the ones mentioned above)
2. The incomplete b&w serial of Black Gold
3. The original colour album of Black Island (available at some point in English, I think)
4. The original colour album of Black Gold
5. The b&w serial of Crystal Balls
6. The colour serial of Prisoners
7. The colour serial of the two Moon stories

I would not hold my breath waiting for translations of these. I recommend just getting them in French (I have). If you can read them, great; if you can't but you're familiar with the standard albums, you'll still be able to get the gist.

I have always wondered why did the publication of the black and white English facsimile editions stop after the Blue Lotus?

Were the sales figures not encouraging enough? Or perhaps because of copyright issues? I have the facsimile of Cigars and Lotus and it is a pity that the other books following these aren't available in English.

Let's hope that the colored versions of these black and white albums ultimately reaches till the end to the Crab with Golden Claws.

Bought 2 of the 9 B&W facsimile editions. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in America. The back covers list 7 others up to The Crab with the Golden Claw. Wondering where to find these.

Moderator Note: Although listed, they were never produced, because of lower than expected sales of the previous volumes in the black-and-white series.

The Tintinologist Team