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Heights of Tintin characters

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Ranko
Member
#11 · Posted: 19 Mar 2007 15:16
Balthazar
Is there a Department of Tintinology research grant available for me to make an all-expenses trip to Geneva in order to measure that doorway? ;-)

In all seriousness Balthazar, EasyJet are offering midweek flights to Geneva from all London airports for around £10-£15 one way.
Maybe a Tintinologist day trip could be planned for the summer? A few photos of Hotel Cointrin and the lake? Miss the train to Nyon? :-)
Balthazar
Moderator
#12 · Posted: 20 Mar 2007 16:54
Yeah, I've been to Geneva on two occasions during the last couple of years and it's a lovely city, as well as a good place to pretend you're in a Tintin book. I guess the ideal Calculus Affair tour itinerary would be:

1) Land at Cointrin airport;

2) Take the short train ride in to arrive at Cornavin Station;

3) Go to the nearby Cornavin Hotel to measure their doorway (for character height reference) and check if their lifts are the same as in the book (just for interest).

4) Go back to the station, have a fight with a revolving door, and miss the train to Nyon. (It's quite easy to miss a train in Switzerland, as they leave the very second they're scheduled to, which takes some getting used to for us Brits.)

5) Get a taxi to Nyon and persuade the driver to swerve into the lake en route. Alright, maybe that's a rather expensive and reckless option. Perhaps it'd be better to take a bus to Nyon, and look out for the actual spot on the road where the taxi goes into the lake (near Trevon, according to Harry Thompson's book). And maybe stop off at a nearby beach (there are several all along the lake) to have a quick swim, to get a feel for Tintin and co's impromptu dip. (The lake water's cold but very pleasant for swiming in when you get used to it, in my experience.)

6) Find Professor Topolino's house in Nyon. (Break in, go down to the cellar, help ourselves to a bottle of wine, blow the house up and drive away in a sinister black citroen, wearing creepy grey raincoats and hats etc.)

7) Take a lake steamer from Nyon back to Geneva, trying to spot the model for the Bordurian Embassy building as we pass Rolles. Not the way they find the embassy in the book, I know, but a nice way to travel back to Geneva. (Anyone wanting to do it more authentically could wait till nightfall, hire a rowing boat and sneak into the building's grounds, then have a big fight on the lawn, and pinch a helicopter etc.)

8) Go back to the airport and book tickets for Borduria, making sure we've all got our fake Red-Cross visas and tank-driving licences with us, just in case. Do easyJet fly to Szohôd? (The last time I attempted to travel with easyJet, when the last flight of the evening was cancelled, it certainly felt like the airline was run by the same people responsible for Borduria's national telephone service. But that's another story.)
tuhatkauno
Member
#13 · Posted: 20 Mar 2007 17:50
Hello Balthazar and Ranko

The idea to visit Geneva is cute and worth of trying. Actually I've been to Geneva once, but it didn't occure to me that I could pay a visit to places where Tintin and Captain have been. I think the real tintinologist should drive into the lake (instead of looking out of the window of the bus)once in a lifetime.
motheroftintin
Member
#14 · Posted: 21 Mar 2007 05:45
You should probably also train a swan to try to eat your dog's tail. Or you could take the train. I don't know, in Tintin, too many occurrences have occurred on trains.
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tintinspartan
Member
#15 · Posted: 30 Mar 2007 09:39
Uhh.. Hello. Are you a bit 'off' the subject. We can change the title to Tintin in Geneva then.

Well, anyway. Your jokes sure are a bit funny. Well, for me is this,

Tintin: 5 feet 7 inches
Haddock: 6 feet 1 inch ( Haddock is 2 metres tall!?)
Thompson Twins: 5 feet 8 inches
Calculus: 5 feet 7 inches (A few nailpins taller than Tintin)
Chang: 5 feet 6 inches
Snowy: 4 feet long, 2 feet high
Rastapopoulos: 5 feet 7 inches (a few cm shorter than Tintin)
Allan: 6 feet 3 inches
Me: 5 feet 7 inches (same as Tintin's)
toddly6666
Member
#16 · Posted: 28 May 2007 22:43
I live in Geneva and I took a boat trip to Nyon (20 minute car/train ride from Geneva) and surpringly...NYON is a Tintin Tourist town! In many of the shops closest to the lake, they have THE CALCULUS AFFAIR itinerary maps advertised on the windows. It's awesome! I didn't follow the itinerary, but i'll do it next time.
Mark Falconer
Member
#17 · Posted: 30 May 2007 19:33
It would probably be easier to measure something at "Marlinspike".
Captain Chester
Member
#18 · Posted: 12 Sep 2007 00:50
in Cigars, I seem to recall Tintin walking past a sarcophagus containing the remains of a certain E.P. Jacobini... maybe we can use that to figure out his height.

CC
Balthazar
Moderator
#19 · Posted: 13 Sep 2007 14:20
At the risk of spoiling my own grant application for that research trip to Geneva, I've found this simpler way:

According to a website I found about the cars in Tintin books, that blue taxi that Tintin catches on page 7 of The Black Island is a Ford Zephyr Mark III.

In the first frame of the second line of page 7 (ie: frame B1), Tintin is standing next to the taxi, The top of his head is a litte lower than the height of the taxi's roof, but he's stooping just little to talk to the driver. I reckon that if Tintin stood up completely straight, the top of his head would be pretty much level with the height of the taxi. (If you look at that picture, you'll see what I mean.)

According to this Ford Zephyr enthusiasts club website, the height of a 1962 Ford Zephyr Mk III is 1.454 metres, or 57.2 inches, which is 4 feet 9 (and a bit) inches.

This is considerably shorter than most people's estimation of Tintin's height on this thread. Is Tintin really 4 feet 9 inches, or did Hergé and his team draw that Ford Zephyr too big? Or is Tintin stooping more than I thought? Or has the website I used got the make of car wrong?

Personally, I'm not sure that 4 feet 9 inches is unfeasibly short for Tintin, given that Hergé saw him as being a boy between the ages of 14 and 18. Maybe all the estimates earlier in this thread really are putting Tintin (and the other characters) too tall.

I guess we need to find a picture of Tintin (or any of the main characters) standing next to another known vehicle, to double check the figures derived from my Ford Zephyr gauge.
Richard
UK Correspondent
#20 · Posted: 13 Sep 2007 16:19
Excellent work Balthazar - not just a primitive sculptor but a mathematician too ;)

To double-check the figures I went further into the same book and used the image of Tintin stood by the Triumph Herald 1200. According to Wikipedia the height of a Herald is 52 inches (4'4"), or 133cm. Judging that if Tintin were to stand straight up next to the car the windscreen would come upto his chin, and accounting for his head, I would place Tintin around five feet tall. That's slightly taller than in your calculation, but the drawing of the Ford Zephyr does make it appear remarkably large.

I tried to find a measurement of Haddock's Lincoln, since Tintin is slightly shorter than it (see The Seven Crystal Balls where they try to put the canvas hood up) but drew a blank. Any ideas?

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