Tintin Forums

According to this listing, on 4 October 2023 Casterman will publish (in French of course) The Castafiore Emerald as it originally appeared in Tintin magazine, before it was adapted into album format.

Compared with other stories, there are very few differences between the magazine and album versions. The official Tintin website (again, in French) recently did a comparison of many of the altered panels. Most are just changes to backgrounds or colours. Still, I believe this is the first time this version will be published since the original magazine.

It was scheduled to be published in volume 12 of Hergé: Le Feuilleton intégral. But it has appeared for a while that the remaining seven volumes of that series will never be published, either because of the death of one of the editors (Jean-Marie Embs) or because of the tension between Casterman and Moulinsart. I wonder if the decision to publish the magazine version of Castafiore as a standalone book confirms that.

I also wonder if they'll now do the same with the other magazine versions that have never been republished. One is Black Gold (the colour magazine version, as distinct from the black and white version and the two versions of the colour album). The others I believe are Tibet, 714, and Picaros (all three of which are very close to the album).

It will be released in Swedish as well: https://seriersant.se/tintin-castafiores-juveler-jubileumsutgavan-inb-utkommer-okt-2023

Good find. The Swedish listing shows the cover art.

I now have a copy of this. After several recent publications about the early Tintin adventures, I'm pleased one of the later adventures—and one of the best—has got some attention.

And it's a good book. I actually prefer the cover to that of the album. It has a 14 page preface, which reproduces things like Hergé's sources and sketches and points out some of the differences between this original version and the final album. It also includes the map of Marlinspike Hall that Hergé had beside him. I've never seen this before; it differs from the other (less authentic?) maps that pop up when you search the web. The colours of the adventure itself have been restored and look much better than scans from the magazine.

My only complaint is that, except on page 1, the book omits the header that appeared each week at the top of each page in the magazine. For me, part of the charm of a book like this is experiencing the adventure in its original, serialised form. Still, a minor issue.