Tintin Forums

A new magazine "Tintin, c'est l'aventure" is being launched next week. According to the official Tintin site it will be a quarterly edition. It is a joint venture between Moulinsart (who own the rights to Tintin) and GEO, a French magazine specialising in geography.

It will include articles about various parts of the world with illustrations from Tintin books. This first issue will include an article on Scotland in the context of "Black Island", for instance.

It is only in French for now, but maybe if there are enough requests they might consider digital editions in other languages.

Even if you do not read French it might be worth getting a copy since it appears to include Herge's sketch work when he was planning his stories. The table of contents includes a sketch of Haddock laughing in "Destination Moon"

Exciting! I suppose I'll just have to manage with the French edition, then...

Apart from their being availible at the Tintin Boutique, are physical copies sold overseas, or only in Belgium or France?

It might become available in other French-speaking regions such as Quebec. It is also available from the French version of Amazon.

I've been seeing a few things about this, but they appear to be keeping the details pretty much under wraps.

There has been a steady - if irregularly spaced - stream of Tintin-themed "bookazines" (or "mooks", as the publicity calls this new series) from Geo and other French-language titles, usually on a single subject (animals, the sea, sea-ports, etc.), in which topics get dealt with using the adventures of Tintin and Cº asa spring-board.

Earlier still, we had things like the Tintin et la Ville and Tintin, Haddock et les Bateaux books tied to exhibitions on architecture and city life, and the maritime links of the books, and the Carnets de Route de Tintin (published in English as the Travel Diaries series) looking at various countries.

This seems less like a revival of the Tintin magazine, and more like an opportunity to tap the market that National Geographic Kids looks to, in mixing education and entertainment with less emphasis on the comics side of things.

Although I am very intrigued by the inclusion of "Une BD détachable inédite, dans un format innovant, librement adaptée de l'œuvre d'Hergé, par les plus grands noms du Neuvième Art" with every issue, which translates as, "An unpublished detachable comic, in an innovative format, freely adapted from the work of Hergé, by the greatest names of the Ninth Art". This could be a sensational step forward, if I read it right, as it could offer us the beginning of a thaw in the position on how to continue Hergé's comics legacy.
I'm not imaging that this will be anything like a new Tintin story, but could it be in the form of reusing other characters - Jo, Zette & Jocko, M. Mopps, Quick & Flupke, for example - or having artists re-interpret the existing Tintin books in some way?

Frankly, I can't wait!

I agree, it sounds exciting. In a couple of days we will know...

An update to the above...
It appears that the comic-strip in this one will show that the homage to Hergé is thematic, in so far as the title has been revealed to be Elle a marché sur la lune ("She walked on the Moon").
The choice of artist is also interesting; although I am personally unfamiliar with his output, Bernard Hislaire is an artist with a long and impressive C.V., and a number of successful series and strips in periodicals (he first started at Spirou at age 18, and wrote and drew Bidouille et Violette) and critically and commercially successful albums.
He has written under his own name, and the pen-names Sylaire and Yslaire - the latter name under which this new story is being published.

The next issue contains a new strip by Olivier Grenson, who - interestingly - previously had Aldose et Glucose published in the old Tintin magazine. He too has a long C.V., and his website is here.

I was in France recently and I bought myself a copy of the magazine, which is more of a large book.

I'm sorry to say that I found it rather disappointing. It was mainly text articles about various parts of the world and the moon and interviews with explorers and hosts of TV travel programmes with illustrations from "Tintin" thrown in but not always relevant. For example, there are a couple of articles about exploring the South Pole with illustrations of "Tintin in Tibet"! Apart from the fact that they are both lands of cold climate, I see little connection.

If there are references to Tintin's comics, they are mainly information that could be obtained from other sources such as books by Michael Farr and Benoît Peeters.

Herge's sketch work was just really six pages of three scenes from the moon books. A few more would have made it more worthwhile.

Actual articles on Tintin and his books are brief and only take up a few pages of a 164-page book. What I did find interesting were details about the American movie "Destination Moon" and how it may have influenced Herge's own moon adventure which started publication just a few months after the movie's release.

There was also an article about the life of con-man Fernand Legros and how his eccentric appearance (large hat, beard and sunglasses) was the inspiration for Endaddine Akass, the mysterious cult leader in "Alph-Art".

Also included was an interview with artist François Schuiten who recently drew "Le Dernier pharaon" ("The Last Pharaoh"), the latest Blake & Mortimer (but which some may consider non-canonical) and how it was influenced by the Scan Pyramids project. Schuiten has often worked with Hergé biographer Benoît Peeters.

All in all, though, it strikes me as more of a sort of junior "National Geographic" with elements of Tintin thrown in in order to encourage sales.