The Blue Lotus: black and white English version

Continuing from <a href="https://www.tintinologist.org/forums/index.php?action=vthread&forum=7&topic=99" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">this thread</a>, the black and white facsimile English version of The Blue Lotus is listed on several online bookshops (including <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0867199067/qid=1148483436/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/202-6160370-9875836" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">amazon.co.uk</a>) as due for publication in January 2007. As referred to in the Cigars thread, Last Gasp's website gives a date of November 2006, meaning that they hope it to be released alongside the first part of the story.

(link no longer works)

Ed

Thanks for that! Glad to read that it is on it's way at last! (only 60 odd years late).
;oP

Kam

is this comfirmed though you know what casterman are like why cant they just realese them all at once ?its Knot like there new storys that havent been done before.

My copy arrived today, courtesy of the Tintin Shop. As with the Cigars facsimile, the cover is of a similar design to the previous two in the series. In fact much of what I said in that thread applies here as well. Though there are no surprises this time for the translation: there’s a straightforward credit of “Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner”.

As a small note on the quality of the artwork, this is perhaps the first facsimile which can be read on its own merits as a true ‘alternative’ to the modern colour edition. Would it be too controversial to claim that it’s actually superior? Hergé’s hand is so much finer and clearer in this book, even the typeset text isn’t nearly as distracting as it could be. There are very few ‘deleted scenes’ but for me this heightens a comparison with the later edition; it’s like viewing a completely familiar story in much clearer light.

And once again full marks to the Tintin Shop for the quality of its service!

Ed

edcharlesadams
Hergé’s hand is so much finer and clearer in this book, even the typeset text isn’t nearly as distracting as it could be.

In the original B&W versions, Herge's hand also wrote the bubble texts, in capital letters.

In The Blue Lotus English version, are the fonts in upper or in lower case, please?
Are the Z's always Z-shaped (with two angles)?
If not, which variant do they show?

God I miss the London Tintin Shop! I spent a packet there when I lived in London in 2001/2002.

Wonderful place!

edcharlesadams
As a small note on the quality of the artwork, this is perhaps the first facsimile which can be read on its own merits as a true ‘alternative’ to the modern colour edition. Would it be too controversial to claim that it’s actually superior?

I concur with Ed, I've always thought the B&W Lotus superior to the colour edition. The page layouts are more balanced, less dense than the colour edition and each spread finishes with a cliffhanger as intended. One slight niggle I have with the new English edition is that I think page 1 could have started on the left-hand side (as in the French facsimile) so that the book could be read as two-page spreads (i.e the way it would have originally appeared in Le Petit Vingtième). Then the cliffhangers would work!

Otherwise (and apart from the typeset, which still lets it down a bit) it's a sterling job and great to *finally* have an English edition!

Just to sum up is it out to buy now :)

Where from . . . . . . . ?

The London Tintin Shop: 34 floral street, covent garden.