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Tintin in the Land of the Soviets: Colour edition in January 2017

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jock123
Moderator
#11 · Posted: 19 Oct 2016 19:50
mct16:
an early "sort of" colourisation of "Soviets"
That's one of the two "Christmas" pages mentioned above - the issue of Le Petit Vingtième in which they appeared ran on Christmas Day, so they gave the readers a treat!

Nice to see the cover artwork for the original cover!
Rocky
Member
#12 · Posted: 9 Nov 2016 15:08
Looks like there will be two colour editions, the deluxe version being twice the price, with a different cover and titled Chez Les Soviets.
Translation:
The deluxe edition is in the format of the first edition of Vingtième Siècle, with an original cover by Hergé, the "forgotten" board produced in the occasion of a special Christmas issue of the Petit Vingtième, and completed with an unpublished notebook of 16 Pages written by Philippe Goddin.
FormulaFourteen
Member
#13 · Posted: 12 Dec 2016 09:05
Very interesting. I'll definitely pick it up, but I've got reservations myself. I suppose the biggest thing for me isn't that it's being colored by someone other than Hergé, but rather that Hergé wouldn't be available to do his customary revisions before the color was added. (I'm under the impression that before an album was prepared for coloring Hergé would customarily revise and restructure the artwork a bit to ready it for the different coloring...?)

It'll be interesting to see what ends up coming of it. The teaser artwork sure looks good, though.
Rocky
Member
#14 · Posted: 9 Jan 2017 13:46
Casterman has two example pages here.
mct16
Member
#15 · Posted: 9 Jan 2017 16:42
Land of the Soviets was originally published in Le Petit Vingtième from 1929 to 1930, and when it ended, a boy dressed as Tintin appeared at the Gare du Nord station in Brussels as a publicity stunt.

For the launch of this colourised version, they have done something similar.
An actor, looking like Tintin, was at the launch, and even drove an old Amilcar similar to the one driven by Tintin in the book.
Members of the public cosplayed as Tintin with Snowy-like dogs, and there was even a very good Captain Haddock-lookalike.

Pictures can be seen here.
Balthazar
Moderator
#16 · Posted: 9 Jan 2017 19:15
Thanks for that link, mct16. Interesting stuff and a nice idea by the publisher!

Although the Tintin actor struck me as looking very different from the oval-faced much younger looking 1929 Tintin, on reflection, I actually quite like the way he carries off the outfit and quiff with that more contemporary 2016 look. I think Hergé would have approved, given the way he tended to continually modernise Tintin's look himself.

The car is great too, as is that Snowy look-a-like in the latter photos.
jock123
Moderator
#17 · Posted: 10 Jan 2017 08:11
The return to Brussels was part of a bigger event, following this Tintin back from a visit to Moscow (including posing in front of St. Basil's, as shown on the cover of the album), which has been running for about a week.

Festivities reach a head this evening, with the launch party for the book at the Hergé exhibition in Paris.

It's another reminder that our Twitter feed and Facebook page cover many things which don't necessarily get duplicated here... ;-)
mct16
Member
#18 · Posted: 10 Jan 2017 17:49
I've been reading a French of this book and the main criticism is that, if it is aimed for a modern readership, then it ought to include explanatory notes in order that modern readers can understand the context of the Bolshevik revolution, the propaganda and the motives of Hergé's editor in attacking the Soviet regime.

There has been a deluxe edition which does include a 16-page preface by Philippe Goddin, which the critic recommends and laments its limited publication.

Personally, I have not changed my opinion that this colourisation is a travesty, but since it has been done then I think that they could at least have made an effort to use paints, watercolours or markers as it was done in Hergé's time. This colourising by Photoshop feels so flat and grey.
jock123
Moderator
#19 · Posted: 11 Jan 2017 10:26
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!"
-- Hergé

Etienne 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!
jock123
Moderator
#20 · Posted: 20 Jan 2017 18:37
In further good news, the new version of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets has gone straight in at number one on the French bestsellers list! A remarkable achievement as that's number one on the overall charts, not just on a specialist comics list, or for reprint titles.

You can read about it (in French) here.

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