Tintin Forums

Thanks for the compliment, Jock.
I really do mean softcover.
The Tintin books were published as hardcovers in the Netherlands from 1946 up to the end of 1960, with the last one being Tintin in Tibet.
These were basically the same as the French editions: hardcover with a linen spine (either red or orange/yellow).
There are two exceptions, though: The Black Island and The Shooting Star have a blueish-grey spine. I guess these were the first two to be reprinted after the war.

In 1961 this was changed to the (obviously) cheaper softcover editions (= bendable, but not too far - otherwise the card would break - very stiff; later, in the sixties, it changed to a more flexible material), but still with a linen spine (either red or orange/yellow).
The print-quality and saturation of colours is still brilliant.
This lasted right up to 1970. In either 1971 or 72 they changed it to softcovers with paper spine, with the title printed on it. To make it more confusing: the first printrun with the paper spines had the old style back-cover with Tintin surrounded by his friends, from the second printrun (my guess is from the release of The Lake of Sharks onward) it has the now familiar collection of covers.
With this change everything changed: the paper, the binding, the glue, The Land of Black Gold and most horrible of all: the colours. Those awful pastel tints of the seventies (see also my comments on Blake & Mortimer)...

I think the Netherlands was the only country during the sixties that had a complete run of the books in softcover.
I've seen a couple of German books (Ottokar, Crab) on eBay which were issued the same way as the Dutch ones, but Germany continued with the hardbacks well into the sixties (like the British Methuen editions), so they can't have had a complete run of all the books.
I don't know if I can post scans and/or photos on the site, just let me know and Ill send a couple.