Tintin Forums

To clarify matters somewhat, I've scanned the two symbols. There's the 1939 black and white edition's and the 1947 colour edition's.

Thanks Richard for those scans.

Do they belong to the original edition, or to an English one? Does the 1939 symbol always look like X-shaped on Tintin's plane?

I found a colour version of the 1939 edition published in Tintin Magazine in 1980. Whilst the shape isn't very consistent the colour does match the description from the flag site (i.e. "a black flag with a red disc centered charged with a black device similar to a hourglass")

http://membres.lycos.fr/wings2/tintin/sceptre/original.jpg

yamilah
Do they belong to the original edition, or to an English one? Does the 1939 symbol always look like X-shaped on Tintin's plane?

The '39 symbol is from the 1980s Casterman facsimile edition (original French), the '47 image is from the English language edition. I haven't got a French copy of the colour book but I presume it's the same symbol (it is in Spanish anyway).

I found a colour version of the 1939 edition published in Tintin Magazine in 1980.
Great! I didn't know that page yet.


the shape isn't very consistent

Richard would you please be so kind to scan the best right side of this plane's rudder (B&W Sceptre, p.96, I think), to clarify matters a bit more, for its seems different! Another 'mistake', maybe.

yamilah:
Richard would you please be so kind to scan the best right side of this plane's rudder ( B&W Sceptre, p.96, I think ) to clarify matters a bit more, for its seems different! Another 'mistake', maybe.

Here you are, that's probably the best image. Admittedly the symbol does look different between images, but this may be due to the photoengraver. I'll check the relevant Chronologie and see what the original artwork looks like.

Edit: That drawing isn't in the Chronologie although the following page appears. There's a couple of Petit 20ème covers that feature the fighter plane, the symbol looks like an hourglass on those. And regarding the colour, the plane appears to be red (half-tone colours as in the Dossier Tintin).

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[Admin note: our RSS feeds died earlier, and I managed to trace the problem to the round brackets in the quote at the beginning of your post! To fix the problem, I have had to add an extra space after the opening bracket and another after the closing bracket--sorry for 'tampering' with your post.]

our RSS feeds died earlier, and I managed to trace the problem to the round brackets in the quote at the beginning of your post!

I've always thought the entire internet was less likely to be brought down by cyber-terrorism than, say, someone simply explaining their inside leg measurement.