Tintin Forums

I'm in Lancashire as well (Preston) and last time I was in they had the Companion and a scant few paperbacks crammed on a shelf in my local Waterstones.

Where abouts in Lancs are you Richard? Never knew we had an Ottakar's round here.

Rik

I'm just outside Blackpool, and when I said "local", I meant in Lancaster - so "closest" would perhaps have been more accurate ! My grandparents used to live in Caton (near the Crook o'Lune), so Lancaster was the closest town, and whenever I went up to see them I'd nip into Ottakar's and see what they had in stock.

I think my local Waterstones had the Companion in stock too, now I come to think of it. Does the Preston branch still have that great display panel at the top of the shelves from The Red Sea Sharks ?

Well I used to live in Lancaster when I was at Uni there, where is Ottakar's? Only bookshop I know was the Waterstones on the corner near the train station

Rik

It used to be called Hammicks, in the Marketgate Shopping Centre. It had quite a lot of Tintin books when it was under its old name (when I used to go), plus a Tintin poster on the wall ; it changed to Ottakar's in 2003, according to their website, and they got the rocket spinner.

Cheers for the info I remember it when it was a Hammicks but I haven't been back since it was called Ottakar's

Rik

On a sort of related note - and one that doesn't really need a whole new topic to discuss it - does anyone know why the Dutch facsimiles of the first colour printings are so expensive on eBay.nl - to the extent of being more costly than some actual first editions ! I imagine there must only have been a very small print run of the facsimiles in Dutch, but it just seemed odd and I thought I'd mention it.

does anyone know why the Dutch facsimiles of the first colour printings are so expensive

I wasn't aware of this. I've noticed that it's hard to obtain Dutch editions generally, facsimile or otherwise. Amazon.nl doesn't exist* (it directs you to the uk site) and a search for "Kuifje" there yields zero results anyway. Searching for "Kuifje" on amazon.fr actually brings up 99 results in the books section but every single one is listed as no longer available!!

Being as Dutch (at least Dutch/Flemish) was the first language Tintin was translated into you'd think the Netherlanders would be better served. Suffice to say, it must be quite tough being a Kuifje fan...

* there is an amazon.be site but it appears to be taken by an insurance firm...

There are facsimile copies of Het Gebroken Oor and Die 7 Kristallen Bollen for opening bids of 175€ each on eBay.nl - I've known some of them actually finish at over 200€! What's even more surprising is that there are first editions of Cokes in Voorraad and Kuifje in Tibet in fairly good condition for 75€ each also on eBay.

I didn't know that Dutch copies were very hard to get hold of - as you say, it's rather strange that the Dutch albums aren't readily available online. It seems that most of Moulinsart's books get a Dutch printing at the same time as the French, though, so a bit of a mixed bag.

It is absolutely no problem here in the Netherlands to buy Kuifje books, new or second hand (antiquarian books not, of course). Even my local supermarket has them for sale and they have never been out of print since 1946 (with the exception of The golden fleece and The blue oranges).
You can buy them in the standard softcover/paper spine (all over the place) or the hardcover/paper spine (in the specialist shops, a little more expensive).
The facsimile copies are a different story. Since it was considered by Casterman in Brussels that the Dutch language copies would be selling in an area much smaller than the French version, the printrun was adjusted accordingly. For the first four or five titles it was only 1500 copies. When it became apparant that these facsimile's were a huge success, they expanded the printrun to 2500 for the next couple of releases and the last few even had 3000.
I have heard rumours that of two titles (one of which is The seven cristal balls) a large part was bought by a single person in order to speculate. That would explain the very limited amount of copies available to the general public.
I do have a couple of Dutch hardcovers from the fifties spare and would be willing to trade them for nice English hardcovers. Mind you, these are not cheap. Also 8 French facsimile's still in seal...

Me: I definitely recall seeing French language Tintin paperbacks for sale in a few comic shops the last time I was in Belgium....I hope the old memory isn't playing up signifying the first signs of advanced age...

Nope, the old memory must be playing up. I looked for French paperbacks when I was in Brussels just recently. The result was a big "NIET".

However, I did notice that there are Dutch paperback versions of the facsimile editions which were a fair bit cheaper than their hardback counterparts.