Tintin Forums

Hi,
While shopping in Brussels today, I stumbled on a Chinese version of "Explorers on the Moon". I was intrigued and I ended up buying it.

I searched around on Google, and I found out that this probably is an illegal version. It is an A6-format, black and white and printed in 1984.

Could anyone tell me more about this edition? I'd give more information but my knowledge of Chinese is very limited. The shopkeeper didn't seem to have a clue about this edition either.
Why was it printed illegal? How come it became so popular before the legal Chinese release? Is it rare? How did Mr. Hergé react on this?

I'm new on this forum and all I know about Tintin are my childhood memories. I figured this was the best place to start out my search on this, next to Google. I thank you for your help.

I would assume it is a legal translated version of the book... The books were (legally) translated into a lot of languages after the original version (which explains the 1984 thing), as far as I know, and it's probably one of them. And I thought "pirated versions" are Tintin stories that is NOT canon and illegally printed, while Explorers on the moon is a canon story... But tell me - what was your first clue you found on Google that in the end you assume it is a pirated version? It might help. (Nice meeting you, by the way :D)

No, sorry, by the sound of it more than likely is a pirate version: the size and the fact that it is in black and white says that. There were several different pirate versions of the books over several years, before in 2001 the books finally got a bona fide publisher, in a (close to) A5 format, in colour.
There are various threads about both Chinese pirates (and the legal books) on the forum, which may include the Explorers that Irina has. For example:
Chinese pirate Tintin - Neimenggu edition
Last pirate Tintin from CCPH in China
Tintin books: third traditional Chinese edition
Pirated Tintin (Chinese): Yuanfang edition
Chinese Tintin books from the 1970s


They can be, but they can also be illegal copies made of the real books, and sold to make money for the copyist.
Harry Potter has been subjected to similar treatment: there are illegal copies of the genuine books made and sold in China, plus additional books that use the characters in new, unauthorized tales.

For the same reason that the Harry Potter books were too: someone wanted to make money, and didn’t care how they got it.

There’s no way of knowing how popular they were to be honest; by the sound of it they were fairly common, and that might be a sign of popularity, or it might just mean that the pirate found them easy to reproduce. But as mentioned above, they don’t appear to have been too rare.

Hergé was dead by 1984, so that is not possible to guage; however when he was alive he was very particular about how his characters were used, so we will have to assume that he would not have liked it.

@ Rianna: nice meeting you too!
I found a few Dutch/English sites that described these illegal editions and showed coverscans, and mine resembled those.
@ Jock: thank you for the information! You told me a lot I did not know yet. I will check these links tomorrow, once I'm on my own pc. (I'm using a borrowed laptop right now)
Thanks for your help :)