Tintin Forums

Is Hergé and Tintin, Reporters, translated by Michael Farr, a good book?
It's so hard to find and I just want to know if it's worth getting - or do all the other English books on Hergé and Tintin (not that there are many) cover the same ground?

Tintinrulz
Is Hergé and Tintin, Reporters, translated by Michael Farr, a good book?

Yeah, I think it's good. It came out not that long after Hergé's death, and much of it consists of memories of Hergé and tributes to him, written by people like Raymond Leblanc and both Hergé's wives.
These testimonials run alongside the main text by Phillipe Goddin.

This gives it a sort of hodge-podge scrapbook feel, which is nice. It's elegantly designed and lavishly illustrated throughout.

There are fewer research photos than you'll find in The Complete Companion, but more pencil roughs and more information about Hergé's approach to drawing, composition and working method.

In particular, several pages of the pencil roughs for Tintin in Tibet are reproduced, and these are really interesting and beautiful. They were a real revalation to me when I bought the book when it came out, really demonstrating how Hergé's clean, clear pen line was built on very muscular, lively pencil drawing.

Because it's a tribute book rather than an in-depth biography, and because it's mostly written by French-speaking intellectuals, some of the writing is a bit waffly and meaningless and a bit pompous in places. (I'm guessing that Farr did a fairly direct word-for-word translation).

But the amount of interesting stuff packed into this big book more than compensates for that, in my opinion. It wasn't cheap when it came out, and I was stretching my budget to buy it, but I didn't regret it.

That said, there were so few other books about Hergé and Tintin available in English back then that this filled a huge void in my knowledge, and that maybe wouldn't be the case now.

And I don't know how much copies go for now. I guess I'd say if you like visual stuff, it's a book worth having if you see one for sale that you can comfortably afford. But I wouldn't bankrupt myself to buy it.

Hope that helps.

Thanks mate, you've been very helpful. If I can find it for a decent or almost decent price I'll be getting it.
Thanks again, it sounds great!

No problem. Hope you track one down.
Shame it isn't still in print, along with Harry Thompson's and Benoît Peeters' books, which are also good.

Moderator Note: Combined two similar threads.
Has anyone read Philippe Goddin's Hergé and Tintin Reporters: From "Le Petit Vingtième" to "Tintin" Magazine? I'm curious to know what it's actually about?

Also, what about his Les débuts d'Hergé: Du dessin à la bande dessinée? (Which I don't think has yet been translated into English)?

The title translates as "Hergé's Beginnings". It was published about 1999 and is thus quite hard-to-find and expensive.

According to this article (in French, I'm afraid), Philippe Goddin, then secretary general of the Hergé Fondation, had access to the archives which included Hergé's early work as an illustrator in the 1920s.

This book includes photos of Hergé as a child, boy-scout, doing his military service, etc. There are also illustrations by him which were used in Scout magazines, le Vingtième siècle newspaper (of which Le Petit Vingtième was a supplement), his early comics, and how Tintin developed in the early years.
M. Goddin includes a lot of commentary and analysis.