Tintin Forums

between the postmark date and the newspaper headline in Tintin in Tibet
Hi everyone,

While re-reading Tintin in Tibet, I noticed something curious. In the panel where Tintin receives a letter from Chang, the postmark clearly shows the date 15-VII-58 (July 15th, 1958), which aligns with the publication period of the story.

However, in the first panel of page 2, there's a newspaper with a secondary headline that reads: "Communication broken between Washington and Tokyo" — a statement that historically refers to events just before the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

This seems like a temporal inconsistency. Do you know if this was an oversight, a reused graphic template from earlier stories or sketches, or perhaps a symbolic choice by Hergé? Has this particular detail ever been discussed in the forum or in any analytical work?

Thanks in advance!

An interesting observation!

According to several sources, one Jacques Van Melkebeke suggested that Hergé set the story in Tibet, after Herge had been playing around with different plot ideas for some months.

Fun fact: Van Melkebeke and Hergé collaborated on the writing of a play produced in 1941 called M. Boullock a Disparu. As you say, this is the same year that appears on that newspaper article.

I wonder if this is a nod towards Van Melkebeke or the play?

Seems a bit niche, however, and this makes me wonder if the date in this panel is the same across other translations?

It's an interesting spot, but really don't think it's in any way significant myself.
For a start, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that the date stamp on the franking mark "clearly" shows anything; to my eye, some effort has gone into making it unclear: the frank is upside-down, and the characters have been distressed, so that they are broken and incomplete. I read the first number as "18" rather than "15", with a scratch through the figure "8" - it's certainly different from the "5" of the year, and the year itself could be "58", or could be "55", as most of the top is missing.
This suggests to me that the intention was to fulfill the need for a postmark (for accuracy and authenticity) but without actually making it specific.
One possibility is that they obtained suitable Hong-Kong stamps to use, from a letter in the office, or perhaps a stamp dealer, and these already bore a postmark, in which case they took a scalpel, and/ or white paint, and removed the details that made it particular.
This could be why the numbers are indistinct, the ring around the outside is only partial, and most of the word that seems to have ended in "ETER" has gone.
I'm not so certain about the newspaper to which you refer; if it's the one on page 2, the French copy I have just says "Washington-Tokio : Black-out", and the English copy says "Bandits in Vienna Raid".
Are you perhaps using the one on the app, with the translation by Michael Farr?

Very interesting. I just checked my Dutch copy (Casterman 1960). Like jock123's French copy, it also just says "Washington-Tokio: Black-out", without any mention to a date.

The date on Tchang's letter on page 3 is drawn to look a bit faded, as I suppose such stamps often look in real life. I'd read mine as 1S VII 53, though the final number is the least legible and may well be an 8. If the format requires the first part to be two numbers, I'd also read this as 15, but it looks more like an S to me.

That goes for the Swedish version as well

This is quite interesting. As jock says, in the French version of the book the headline in the newspaper actually says "Washington-Tokio: Black-out", and not "Communication broken between Washington and Tokyo" (although they do mean the same thing, technically). I'd also like to know which specific version you were reading, jjtt195. It's certainly not the English printed book anyway.

However, I agree that the postmark date says 15-VII-58, even if it is slightly indistinct.

Another way to date this is by the stamps. Hong Kong was still a British crown colony at the time so they show Queen Elizabeth on the left and her father George VI on the right. A rare example of 'real-life' people appearing in Tintin!

See here and here.

Queen Elizabeth's reign began in 1952, but it's usually the case that stamps with the previous monarch are valid for a few years. For example, QEII stamps are still valid in the UK today, three years after her passing.

Either way, it is odd to have a headline that alludes to 1941. I don't believe there was a 'black-out' at any time in the 50s between the US and Japan, but then Tintin isn't actually set in the 'real world'... or is it...?