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Alph-Art: Reviews and Opinions

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Harrock n roll
Moderator
#31 · Posted: 5 Apr 2005 15:28
One thing which is missing, IMO, from the published version is a timeline, which would let us put all these different parts and ideas into context.

It would be interesting to know the timescale of Alph-Art. Hergé was supposed to have started it in 1979 and I've read somewhere that he was still working on it right up until he died. There were long gaps in between when his health held him back or he couldn't be bothered.

It's quite possible we may have to wait until Philippe Goddin researches the Alph-Art period for the Hergé - Chronologie d'une Œuvre series to find out the dates of the pieces (assuming it ever gets that far).
BlackIsland
Member
#32 · Posted: 6 Apr 2005 02:49
No, I think he intended to finish it.
I see similarities to Emerald, Crab with the Golden Claws, and Red Sea Sharks in the plot.
It was not too hard to see where it was going, if you knew his style, but on the other hand, Hergé could have thrown a curve-ball at us.
He was older when he started Alph-Art, and it was just something for him to do, but he would have finished it, if he could have, I am sure of it.
yamilah
Member
#33 · Posted: 6 Apr 2005 12:44
http://tintin.francetv.fr/en/index.html about Tintin's name origin shows the 'last' drawing of Tintin - please click on lower right image then go to 5/8.
Is that really so in the Alph-art's English version?
edcharlesadams
Trivia Challenge Score Keeper
#34 · Posted: 6 Apr 2005 13:42
No that's a mistake - the "last drawing" is just as it is in the French version, i.e. Tintin being marched off at gunpoint.

Ed
yamilah
Member
#35 · Posted: 6 Apr 2005 13:46
Thanks edcharlesadams for correcting this funny official info.
jock123
Moderator
#36 · Posted: 6 Apr 2005 15:16
I wonder if this was some marginal drawing on the sheet for p.42, which perhaps indicated in some way that it was literally the last drawing, rather than the last of the narrative?

I mean the alleged "first" drawing of Tintin isn't exactly that either - it is only the first published drawing - given that the scene is from a little bit into the story, I think the early pages of the book would pre-date the advert...
yamilah
Member
#37 · Posted: 6 Apr 2005 15:26
In the French Alph-art 2004 you can see this drawing page 42 indeed, which shows Herge's page #37 as far as I can remember, and you can see this 'last' drawing is just a panel among others...

jock123 wrote: the early pages of the book would pre-date the advert...

...just as the mental process of conceiving a unseen rebus-like writing via ...'avatars' (as mentioned on the 1st panel of 'Soviets', 10th of Jan 1929) would pre-date the drawing of...'Adventures' capable to 'erase' them... (please refer to the thread on this very subject...)

--
[Two consecutive posts merged by Moderator (marsbar). Where possible, please use the 'edit' function to update/correct your post. Thanks!]
jock123
Moderator
#38 · Posted: 7 Apr 2005 09:59
yamilah
..just as the mental process of conceiving a unseen rebus-like writing via ...'avatars' (as mentioned on the 1st panel of 'Soviets', 10th of Jan 1929) would pre-date the drawing of...'Adventures' capable to 'erase' them...

With respect yamilah, this paragraph means next to nothing in English!

Nor do I think that it is really relevant to the thread - I am making a point about the lack of rigour in the information given on the Tintin.com site as to when drawings were done, and extrapolating that if it can be shown that the "first" drawing isn't really that, then neither can we be certain of the attribution for the "last" drawing made for Alph-Art either. Nothing to do with avatars, rebuses unseen or otherwise, or "erasure"...
rue du labrador
Member
#39 · Posted: 31 Dec 2005 16:22
How depresing would it be to read 23 sucessful triumphant adventures to find to main character ends up dead.
If I were Hergé, killing off Tintin would be like killing my own child!
I certainly couldn't do it - do you think Hergé wouldve have been able to?
John Sewell
Member
#40 · Posted: 5 Jan 2006 16:13
I tend to feel that Tintin's fate can be overstated. it's sort of apt (in a morbid way) that Hergé's passing left his creation trapped and in deadly peril for ever. There can be no escape; the ultimate cliffhanger, and with few clues, all we can do is wonder and speculate how he'd have got out of it.

It's such a deliciously nasty way to be bumped off too! I wonder if the unfinished story would have acquired the same resonance if it had ended at, for example, Tintin being bashed over the head in the factory, or the sequence where the Captain desperately searches for him after the villains shoot at him? Both would have left Tintin's fate in the balance, but being coated in plastic is a lot more bizarre!

I'm also one of those who gets the feeling that this may have been purposely set up as the final adventure. By this time, Hergé was wealthy enough and had enough of a free hand not to have to produce any more Tintin if he didn't want to.

There are cameos by more old characters that we usually see, wheeled on for one last hurrah (one draft even had the Bird Brothers present at an exhibition - presumably they got released early for good behaviour!)Tintin's also brought full circle - we see him in his original role of reporter / detective for the first time in decades, which also adds to the sense of closure.

With a bit of his usual tightening up of the story, bringing the various threads together, and fixing some of the more implausible bits (such as the unlikeliness of everyone turning up at Marlinspike one after the other on the same night to annoy the Captain!) I still think this could have been a return to form of sorts, after the cool reception Picaros seems to have got.

As it is, it's a tantalising glimpse of what we could have had, with a mystery at the end which Tintin fans will probably be debating over for ever!

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