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The original B&W animated version of The Black Island is currently available to members of tintin.com to view on-line; for those who don't subscribe, you can just watch a clip.

A real curiosity, I think you'll find! It's closer in style to the later Belvision cartoons than the card-board cutouts used in the two earlier adaptations they did - in fact, it looks as if they might just have recycled the same artwork for the later adaptation, just re-filming it in colour. Does anyone know?

I just played the clip side by side with the colour version; apart from the 'Franfilmdis' intro and the lack of colour, every frame is identical.

I agree with Rocky, it definitely is the colour version, although it looks very different in black and white and with the film grain, and in French with the different opening sequence...

The 1959 date can't be right though. Larry Harmon wasn't involved with Belvision until 1959, and he later left the project and they continued with Charlie Shows and Ray Goosens in Belgium. I think this is a post-Harmon, Goosens-Shows production. I'd put the date at around about 1962 or '63 (someone may know better...), but still before it was officially released in English in 1966 in the updated form.

I'm pretty sure that this adaptation of The Black Island would have been based on the original 1943 version. It's difficult to tell because they took such liberty with it that it barely resembles the original story (Haddock and Calculus's involvements, etc). But I did spot that at the beginning the pilots are wearing matching boiler suits and aviator's caps, like they are in the earlier version. Although at this point the Belvisions were being made in Belgium , they were still dubbed into English by Paul Frees and Dallas McKennon, but whether it would have be dubbed into English or broadcast before or after the official English release, I don't know...

Well I’ve raised a few of these points over on the site - let’s see if they are answered!

I just realised, I spelt Ray Goossens wrongly in my post, but then they can't seem to spell it right at Tintin.com either (Gossens), so I'm in good company.

It also says something about the reliability of information on Tintin.com...

Thanks for mentioning that - I’ve just updated the spelling of Goossens on my Tintin.com message!