Tintin Forums

I have the official Tintin App on my iPad and noticed that some of the digital books are being given new published dates.

For example, I have Tintin and the Picaros (Michael Farr translation), with "2018" on its back page, on an old iPad.

I have recently installed the app on a new device and now the several of the books including Picaros have a "2023" publication date.

Anyone know why they are being 're-published'?

It's merely a guess, but it might have to do with the recent English publisher takeover. Harper Collins Publishers own the publishing rights for Tintin presently, and the books are being printed under the "Farshore" label, which is their children's books division. Maybe the "migration" to the new publisher came with incremental updates to the books, therefore the digital editions being updated as well.

This is merely a theory, I would also love to know for sure!

Welcome to the forums!

It's an interesting idea, but unlikely, I would think.

As far as can be told, the rights that HarperCollins/ Farshore have are for the standard English-language albums (excepting Congo, which is published by Casterman) in print; Moulinsart/ Sudios Hergé/ Tintin Imaginatio have the rights for digital publications in English.

As the copyright in the English translations done by Michael Turner and Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper rest with the English print rights holder, Moulinsart had Michael Farr create new translations for their digital editions, so any changes to the digital text will have most likely been at their direction, and be independent of HarperCollins.

However, this is as much an educated guess as anything concrete - we're not party to the behind-the-scenes negotiations and details of contracts and agreements between the entities involved, and they both play such things close to their chests, so I doubt anyone will tell us! :-)