For those who don't read French, but can't wait for a hard copy, and have the requisite technology, an English-language version of the colour
Soviets is now available for purchase in the
Tintin App, available through the iTunes Store, for use with iPads, iPhones (iBooks version 3 or later, iOS 4.3 or later), and Macintosh computers (iBooks version 1, Mac OS X 10.9 or later).
mct16:
Personally, I have not changed my opinion that this colourisation is a travesty
"...in Portugal my drawings are massacred in an indescribable way, and coloured as if by a child of three years afflicted with color blindness..."
"I console myself by thinking about the publicity that this is for us. It's better to be known by bad reproductions that not known at all!" --
HergéEtienne Pollet (grandson of Louis Casterman, who was Hergé's publisher, and a former officer of the company) has followed his recent piece (shared by Léonard Pollet) on
Hergé's thoughts on the rights and wrongs of republishing Soviets - including a thoroughly forensic statement of the actual truth behind years of rumour, supposition and legend, backed by supporting letters from those involved
- with another, equally remarkable, look at what Hergé's thoughts were on the colouring (and non-colouring) of his work.
Everyone can have their opinions, and say what they will, but they will have to find equally or more convincing quotes in Hergé's own words to make a case that stands up as well as this one!
Well worth a read - to those who don't speak French, even if one has to use auto-translate, it's easy to get a sense of things.
The quotation, drawn from the article, which introduces my comments, is a response found in a letter of 1944 by Hergé to Charles Lesne, who was worried that the colouring done by French children's magazine
Cœurs Vaillants might not be to Hergé's taste; his answer is that it can't be as bad as that done for Portuguese comic
O Papagaio, which was - by any standards - lurid!