Tintin Forums

Thanks, Mct16, that's exactly the kind of thing I was wondering about!
I'll possibly look into getting the B&W version. Any other b&w versions you can recommend over their colour counterparts?

I don't think that anyone's suggesting that books like the B/W Cigars of he Pharaoh should be recommended over their colour counterparts, just that they're interesting to have as well.

It's not as if the colour versions were done by other artists, spoiling Hergé's original black-and-white versions, as you get with some coloured-up versions of b/w comics or even old b/w films (like those awful colourizations someone did to old Laurel and Hardy films).

Hergé himself oversaw the editing, redrawing and and colouring of the modern 62-page colour versions, and generally took the opportunity to improve on his earlier b/w versions. Scenes which were cut when fitting the books into the standard 62-page colour editions tended to be extraneous or out of place in the more considered, realistic style that Hergé had developed. So we can assume that the colour editions represent the adventures in the state that Hergé felt were best and most finished.

So personally, if I were you, I'd get the full set in their colour editions and collect the interesting b/w versions, etc., alongside, for their great interest value.

And not all the earlier versions are b/w, of course. The earlier version of The Black Island (available in a facsimile edition) that Jock mentioned is in colour (though there is also an earlier still b/w version). This earlier coloured Black Island is one that many Hergé purists really do consider superior than the completely redrawn 1960s version. I'm not so sure - I like the modern one a lot - but it's definitely great to have both. The story is frame-by-frame the same, but set in two different eras.

The early colour version of Land of Black Gold is also quite different from the modern one in setting and story details and artwork in some of the early pages, and worth having too alongside the modern version, if that sort of thing interests you.

And there are also scenes from some of the post-war adventures (in colour from the outset), which appeared in the adventures' original runs in Tintin magazine, but which had to be cut in order to fit the book versions into 62 pages, or details which were changed slightly before going into the book. I don't think all these magazine versions and out-takes have been compiled into one handy book, but they should be!

As others have said, you'll find plenty more on all this sort of stuff by searching the forums, often by people who know a lot more than I do!

I certainly would recommend the colour version of The Blue Lotus, it is one of the best books in the entire series I think.

The B&W versions of Broken Ear and The Black Island do have some extra scenes but most of them are minor. On the other hand though, there are some dramatic ones that add to the excitement.

In The Black Island for instance, following the incident with the goat on the cliff, Tintin chases the crooks back to their car only to be fired upon by the driver - as opposed to when he simply trips over a stone in the 1960s version.
The B&W version of Broken Ear does include a scene similar to an incident in Seven Crystal Balls which is quite enjoyable.

Other than that I'd say that the only real differences are artistic, but comparing the various versions does have a charm in itself.

If I might add my thoughts, I agree with Balthazar and would definitely recommend getting the whole series in colour.

Of the alternate versions, I'd suggest the black and white editions of Cigars of the Pharaoh (entirely different artwork, additional scenes and a very 1930s 'pulp serial' feel), The Blue Lotus (which I think works better in black and white - the artwork has more of a chance to breathe) and the first colour edition of The Black Island (the art better suits the story, and there's some stunning colouring in it). All are available in English, but if you're handy with French you get Hergé's original lettering in the black and white volumes.

For what it's worth, I'd say that Tintin in America is perhaps better suited to black and white, but I'm not hugely fond of either.

According to my information, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in the Congo, Tintin in America, Cigars of the Pharaoh, The Blue Lotus, The Broken Ear, The Black Island, King Ottokar's Sceptre and The Crab with the Golden Claws were all originally published in black and white and contained more than 100 pages each.

There was also a black and white edition of Land of Black Gold which was never finished as it was interrupted by the second World War.

However, according to information from the Danish language comicwiki.dk also later histories was published in black and white.

Does anyone here know whether there were any differences between the newspaper editions and the later colour albums, other than the lack of colour in the former? Were they longer than the colour editions?

Moderator Note: Hi Elvind! Whilst enormously interesting, the subject of the differences between versions is something that we have covered quite a lot, and can be found in several book-specific threads on the forums, as well as in this one.
As a quick guide, all stories up to and including Seven Crystal Balls were done in black and white in some form; Land of Black Gold as you suggest was a bit of an oddity, given that it was never completed in the black and white version. See our book guide here for individual album info, and first publication table here.
The question of whether or not they were longer in the original than in the album version isn't actually limited to the black and white stories - many of the colour books ran longer in the original magazine publication than in the albums (possibly all of them, if it comes to that, if you count the loss of a few frames here or there), and even Picaros has an entire extra page, although that may just have been made by Hergé as a technical exercise, given that it wasn't published in the magazine, but used to demonstrate the development of a page from pencil-sketch to finished-artwork and colouring.
Other than that, a browse through the Books section of our site might help! Welcome to the forums!

The Happy Tintinologist Team

I don't know if this is the right thread to ask this, but reading though this, I started wondering why "Tintin in the land of the Soviets" was the one album, that Hergé never wanted to colorize. Was it really that much worse than "Tintin in Congo" or "Tintin in America"?

I agree with Furienna. Neither Congo nor America should have been colourised. They simply do not have sufficiently high quality. The stories lack a clear structure. It is only with Cigars of the Pharaoh and particularly The Blue Lotus that we start to see the high quality Tintin that is worth remembering.

Moderator: Thank you for your reply!

Hergé would have been quite happy to do without Soviets, period; he only agreed to have it back in print to stop the spread of pirate editions, and even then he initially only had it included in the Archives Hergé series, which collected his early work in omnibus edtions, rather than the later version which reproduced the story in facsimile of the original edition. Goodness knows what reaction the inclusion of it in its perfect-bound "standard" format would have recieved!
He didn't consider it a good book, wasn't happy with the story or art, so making it over obviously just didn't appeal to him; it wasn't a question of whether or not it was better or worse than any other book, as looked at from the point of view of the audience - it obviously didn't inspire its author.

I'm not sure how this point can be developed - what element of quality in the story would dictate whether the book would be available in colour? If the stories had remained un-coloured, should they even be available in black-and-white?
I could sort of see something in saying that neither is work of the first order, and neither is improved or really enhanced by the colour (I wouldn't completely agree, as I don't have a problem with America in either format, but I'd happily live without Congo, in black-and-white and colour), but don't see that not colouring them makes a difference, one way or the other.

Important Update! Since this post was originally made, new evidence has turned up which has completely re-written the history of Hergé and his relationship to Soviets!
Contrary to the long-held and standard position that he was against it, and did not want it re-published or coloured, paper-work and correspondence from the archives has now been found to exist which shows that Hergé requested that Casterman re-print the black-and-white version over the years, but the printing plates had been damaged. Hergé would have been obliged to cover the costs of new ones, which he initially couldn't afford; by th time he could have covered the costs, the original artwork had been mislaid, and it wasn't relocated until the end of the sixties
We also now know that a colour version might have been attempted, had he been able to find the time (but he definitely wasn't against it).
Finally, it was additionally revealed that it was a threat by Hergé to Casterman to take Soviets to another publisher - Dupuis - which led to the Archives Hergé release and the later facsimile re-edition. So he actively instigated its re-introduction to the public, rather than being cajoled reluctantly into it, as had previously been thought.

Yeah, it seems like the three first adventures were only "for practice" before Hergé started making his later masterpieces.
They feel much more dated and far less interesting than what came afterwards. But he also made all those three adventures before he was twenty-five years old, so I guess we can cut him some slack, that he still hadn't perfected his strength as a writer.