Tintin Forums

E.P. Jacobs' Blake & Mortimer: The Yellow Mark is a beautiful work.
I'd love to get a good English version, especially as it's set in London!
The French hardbacks are a thing of beauty, but those cheapo Comcat versions have a terrible typeface and I'm pretty sure that some of the translation isn't too hot either.

Also, from the ones I've read, I don't think Blake & Mortimer was ever as good as Tintin at its best.

The depth of character is one main difference. And who could compare to Hergé as a humourist? But the artwork is comparable, and some of the storylines are quite amusing too.

I don't think I've seen any of Jaques Martin's or Yves Chaland's books, although Alix rings a bell. I'll look out next time I'm in Belgium (soon I hope), where I'll be picking up Le Secret de L'Espadon!

Chris

Jacobs didn't have the economy of story that Hergé had - a very important factor in creating a comic strip (and a difficult one to master).
He was let down by some very verbose speech balloons. One thing that continually impresses me about Hergé is the way he told the story, and you're right, Jacobs didn't equal that.

But I do like a bit of high adventure, and Jacobs applied more touches of science fiction and fantasy to his stories than in Tintin's adventures - a rather subjective attraction for me.

Overall - without a doubt - Hergé produced the better work, and was a more skilled humorist too. But Jacobs is definitely 'up there'.

Another thing that might interest you (and anyone else reading this) is I bought a couple of Blake & Mortimer DVDs from Amazon.fr.
They are animated, not too bad at all, and have an English language option. Furthermore they feature a documentary (about 20-30 mins I think) on Jacobs, though it is all in French.

Excellent news! Thanks for that.

By the way, I just remembered I have seen Alix by Jaques Martin. I have a few in some Tintin Magazines. It's set in Roman times; they did catch my eye. Any recommendations?
I have a page from Alix (which I downloaded from somewhere) where Rastapopoulos makes a guest appearance! I think he's fresh from his experiences in Flight 714. I will offer it up for the 'guest appearances' section on this site.

Chris

I've got the two Comcat English language books (ugly, shrunken, things! I suppose the question is, "How important is it to you that you have them in English?"), as well as an Editions Blake and Mortimer book of The Yellow 'M', which is the proper size, and has sketches for the cover at the back. I think I bought them in GOSH! Comics in Museum Street.

I may be unfairly tarring the reputation of Catalan Comics, who at least made an attempt to get the books out; their editions may be faithful to the originals.

However, they have slapped publication and price info over the cover art, and used an awkward guage of cardboard for their cover, which is too thin to be called hard-back, but too thick to bend easily.

My feeling is that the books have been reduced in size: they are smaller than my The Yellow 'M', which is the same size as a Tintin album, and they are the same size as other Catalan books I have seen.

As tybaltstone says elsewhere, the books can be rather wordy, and given Jacobs' more muted palette, density of frames and the sheer volume of text, I would have appreciated them being a larger size. The effect is rather dark.

Those reservations (largely aesthetic) aside, the English text seemed fine to read story-wise, and it is nice to have these seminal, (sort of) British characters available in their "mother tongue", as it were, so, yes, you should get them if you see them.

The Yellow 'M' lists five further books on the back cover:
Secret of the Swordfish (I & II & III) and
The Mystery of the Great Pyramid (I & II)
but I have never seen these, and don't know if they really exist in English, or are just another case of The Crab With the Golden Nippers.

The Catalan editions have on the back of The Time Trap:
The Mystery of the Great Pyramid (no indication if it was to be one or two volumes)
The Mystery of Atlantis
The Yellow Mark

Confusingly, volume two actually calls itself Atlantis Mystery, not The Mystery of Atlantis, and in addition to The Time Trap, lists:
Secret of the Great Pyramid (now down as Parts I & II) and
The Yellow Mark

I keep my eyes peeled for any other volumes, but have never seen any. Nobody holds the rights to English on the books at the moment, or at least nobody is currently publishing:

I agree with tybaltstone that there are problems with Jacobs' storytelling, but the books are quite entertaining.
I got the animated version of The Yellow 'M' a couple of years ago, and it is fun. Nelvana did the animation, and there were 26 episodes made in French and English, so I am surprised that some TV channel here hasn't picked them up (Channel Five, are you listening?).

I agree with jock123 - they are worth having but don't compare well with the Edtions Blake & Mortimer (Dargaud, I think) versions available on the continent. The Catalan/Comcat books are likely to fall apart after a few years (depending on how well you look after them!) and they have a horrible font for the balloons which is quite often not set very well.

But you still get the story and the great art. If you can pick up a French edition (eg. from Amazon.fr) then do so, as they are lovely books.

I don't like to be wholly negative about anything, so a positive thing about the Comcats (and the Dargaud book too) is that they are on matte-finished paper, not the coated stuff the Tintin books now come on, which I feel is unsympathetic to the colouring of Hergé's work.

And while not as good as the Tintin lettering, the Blake & Mortimer font is still not as horrible as the Asterix books.
I liked the style in the early Asterix editions, and then as they started to come out more frequently the writing deteriorated.
Now they appear to have re-lettered the early books in an even worse face, which is really disappointing...

Being a dedicated fan of the Blake and Mortimer strips it's not too difficult to make a few comments here: size does matter in this case. The bigger the plates the more impressed you are. Editions Blue Circle released (in 1985/86) 3 books in Dutch (The yellow M, The Atlantis enigma and SOS Meteorites) and 5 (the sames three as in Dutch plus The mystery of the great pyramide parts 1 and 2) in French on the format they were originally drawn (35 cm x 46 cm), with a hardcover (unfortunately not laminated), a linnen spine and a slipcase. These were in full colour and had a limited run.
Since the question of the rights has been resolved, new Blake and Mortimer books have been released, 5 sofar since 1996. These were accompanied by a very limited run of about the same format as the Blue Circle editions, but in black-and-white and they come with sketches, annotations and a large print. You can imagine that they don't come cheap. Be sure to wear your photo-gloves, because the parchment-like paper is very susceptable for fingerprints...
If it is masterly colouring you want, forget the albums. The colouring plays a big part in building up the atmosphere of the stories. If you don't do it right the whole atmosphere is gone. The seventies Dutch albums were horrible, with all the pastel teints that were in vogue then. The fifties Lombard albums are not at all bad, but compare that with the original publication in Tintin magazine and especially the Dutch weekly Pep. The yellow M (published 1965/66)and SOS Meteorites (1966/67) are unsurpassed.