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Cigars of the Pharaoh: When did Tintin Meet Rastapopoulos?

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jock123
Moderator
#11 · Posted: 18 Sep 2010 10:07
Balthazar:
I honestly don't think it was worth the translators confusing readers like us just for the sake of maintaining the pretence that they were bringing out the English translations in chronological order.

While I see where you are coming from, I don't really agree. I see that fans of many stripes - Doctor Who and Trek for example - are now slaves to the notion of chronology, it never seems to have mattered much to the creators of such franchises.

I think if asked, MT&LL-C wouldn't say that they were maintaining a pretence, as you put it; they were just dealing with the books in the order that they came to them, in a practical fashion, and allowing for the fact that each book they did might be the last.

They were also probably working to the notion (at the time) that Soviets, Congo and Lotus wouldn't appear in English; add in that Black Island in English existed only in a highly anachronistic state, art wise, as indeed did Cigars, and the original chronology would have been virtually irrelevant.

I doubt many people realized, nor worried, that the books listed on the bill-board were not in the same list order as the French books.

In Primary One I read Prisoners; I didn't find out it was the second part of a story until I finally read Crystal Balls in Primary Six (thanks, schools library service!).

The first time I even heard of the existence of Soviets was in 1975, around the publicity for Picaros; the first time I saw a list of the original release dates of the stories was in a French encyclopædia on holiday in 1985 (I've still got the info I copied out somewhere).

I still keep my books in English release order on the shelf (when they are in any order at all), because it is sort of wired into me.

I agree entirely that the series could now be re-vamped and made uniform, and why not, but it is as much to pull things like currency into order (all decimal) as to make the books follow the original story order, which largely isn't important.

I've a feeling that this won't reduce reader confusion, it will just introduce new questions for them (why is the art in Broken Ear "so old", when it is "so modern" in Black Island?, etc.).
Mikael Uhlin
Member
#12 · Posted: 19 Sep 2010 14:35
Well, this IS an English language Tintin fan site (the oldest and largest) and I'm a Swede, but much of the same "problems" regarding translations and publication orders appeared in Sweden as well. Our first glimpse of Rastapopoulos was in Flight 714, followed a couple of years later by The Red Sea Sharks, then Cigars of the Pharaoh, Lake of Sharks and finally The Blue Lotus. And, like Jock and Harrock wrote, the translators (Per Kellberg in the early 60s, the married couple Karin and Allan Janzon from the late 60s and onwards) had to deal with this publication order as a fact, not knowing when or even if some of the early albums (like Congo, Lotus and America) would be published. Some years ago though, all albums were re-numbered and re-translated (by Björn Wahlberg), all in an effort to be as true as possible to the originals. This was met by approval both by Swedish readers and reviewers, so Balthazar has a point as well.

As for the original question, I've always hesitated to identify the man sitting beside Tintin at the banquet in Tintin in America as Rastapopoulos, mainly because it doesn't look quite like him. However, considering the chronology and how RR is depicted visually in the original version of Cigars, I'm pretty sure by now that it is him. Remember, America was redrawn in the mid-40s and by then neither the present version of Cigars (c1955) nor Red Sea Sharks (c1957) had appeared. Story-wise it also makes sense; at the banquet, Rastapopoulos is seated between Tintin and actress "Mary Piquefort" (named thus in the B/W version), which all makes a smooth transition to the movie mogul of the next album and the Arabian movie he is filming.

BTW, has anyone noted that there's another man presenting himself as Director of Cosmos Pictures in the Jo, Zette & Jocko-episode The Eruption of Karamako?
Balthazar
Moderator
#13 · Posted: 19 Sep 2010 16:07
jock123:
I see that fans of many stripes - Doctor Who and Trek for example - are now slaves to the notion of chronology, it never seems to have mattered much to the creators of such franchises.

jock123:
add in that Black Island in English existed only in a highly anachronistic state, art wise, as indeed did Cigars, and the original chronology would have been virtually irrelevant.

I think you certainly have a good point that chronology is a concept more important to fans than to creators such as Hergé. But if we're agreed that the whole concept of chronology isn't necessary for enjoying the Tintin books, and that the original chronology isn't all that important, then surely it follows that creating an alternative chronology to make sense of the English translation order also wasn't all that important. Once they'd got the series established, starting with the strongest books and introducing the main characters like Haddock and Calculus in the right order, maybe Methuen should have just brought out these pre-Haddock books like Cigars without any fudging.

jock123:
I agree entirely that the series could now be re-vamped and made uniform, and why not, but it is as much to pull things like currency into order (all decimal) as to make the books follow the original story order, which largely isn’t important. I’ve a feeling that this won’t reduce reader confusion, it will just introduce new questions for them (why is the art in Broken Ear “so old”, when it is “so modern” in Black Island?, etc.).

On the currency issue, personally, I think Egmont should drop the reference to Marlinshire being in England on that address in Unicorn (I think British kids could cope with a Belgian hero these days!) and restore the currency references to the Belgian francs that I presume are in the original books.

On the chronology issue, I agree that restoring the books to their original order would throw up new questions about out-of-chronology drawing styles, but this could be solved by having a page or two at the front or back of each book giving the historical background and re-drawing history to each book, along with interesting research photos, pencil roughs,etc, from Hergé's archives — sort of like a mini version of those Making-Of Tintin editions. Kids like all that behind-the-scenes background stuff these days, being used to it from things like Dr Who Confidential and similar programmes.

You might argue why not leave well alone, but I'd argue that fewer and fewer children seem to read of have heard of the Tintin books these days, so why not get the whole series of books into really good shape, ready to take full advantage of the renewal of interest that the forthcoming movie will bring? (A return to matt printing and hand-lettering would also be nice, but to avoid going completely off topic here, maybe I should start a "My ideal new editions" thread when I've got a moment!)
robbo
Member
#14 · Posted: 19 Sep 2010 16:08
I sympathise with Balthazar's point that the idea that the reader could be fooled into thinking The Cigars of the Pharaoh came after Red Sea Sharks doesn't work. It is quite obvious Tintin hasn't met Captain Haddock yet nor Calculus. The whole feel of the narrative is almost a world away (in the realm of Tintin).

I think now all the books have been published in English it makes sense to update the chronological references. If Sweden has done so why can't the UK? After all the chronology clearly did matter to Herge, as he inserted many foot note references to previous albums, thus establishing a clear chronology in the reader's mind.

Having said that the agreement between Herge, Leslie Lonsdale Cooper and Michael Turner was perfectly valid back in the mid-fifties, and made sense at the time.

Mat

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