Tintin Forums

There have been a couple of threads recently (here and here) mentioning the cover thumbnails which appear on the back of the albums, and anomolies spotted.

These include:
• the updating of the layout to include all 24 volumes for the first time, following the release of Congo
• the changing of Flight 714 to include to Sydney
• the title of The Broken Ear being shown as Tintin and…, which is not how it appears on the actual book cover (although it does on the spine)

I’ve noticed a further, very minor difference, between the cover art of Destination Moon and its thumbnail: the capital “I” has a slope to its top, which runs down, from left to right; the thumbnail uses an “I” with the slope running up from left to right (I’m doing this without the books in front of me, so I’m prepared to think I’ve got that back-to-front).

This suggests to me that the cover thumbnails are prepared independently of the actual cover, and perhaps have been computer-set for longer than the books themselves. Looking across the range of titles, I notice that the direction of the slope actually changes from book to book, but I haven’t compared all books to their thumbnails…

jock123 the cover thumbnails are prepared independently of the actual cover (...)

I think it's noticable in the size of the title lettering on The Black Island. It fills a much smaller space than on the actual book. Also the title lettering appears less sharp on the Congo thumbnail (from the back covers of Congo and the re-lettered Tibet) which makes me think that this one has been scanned - perhaps because it's fairly new and hasn't been made yet?

(...) and perhaps have been computer-set for longer than the books themselves

I have a copy of Soviets from 1999 which has a thumbnail of The Black Island with the smaller lettering. My 1997 Red Rackham's Treasure on the other hand has full-size lettering, so the practice might have begun sometime between those dates.

One other difference I've noticed with the latest books is that they have added a small strip of colour to the side of each of the thumbnails which corresponds to their spine colours (see the Flight 714 to Sydney scan).

Harrock n roll
I have a copy of Soviets from 1999

That would make it the last of the Methuen books, I think? So the Black Island change happened before the hand-over to Egmont, and the changes are still happening afterwards - more Casterman-backed tweaking, I suppose?

Oh, and I like the little coloured strips of spine colouring!

jock123 That would make it the last of the Methuen books, I think?

Actually, I goofed a bit there. I checked again and it's actually a 2004 copy of Soviets by Egmont (sorry!)

The first place I noticed the small Black Island lettering was in The Complete Companion from 2001 where a cover to a British edition is reproduced (not sure which page). Of course that book also contains the new font, not to mention a recolouring of many of the Tintin images.

One other difference spotted! The thumbnails no longer have the publisher's name written on them as they would on a real cover (the old ones said Methuen, who are obviously no longer the publisher, at the bottom of each).

I expect these computer created thumbnails are just part of Casterman's drive for "a high standard of quality for the new typesetting". And also so that they are able to change the title more easily at a whim... (just kidding!)

I like the little coloured strips of spine colouring!

I suppose it makes them look more like "bonsai" versions of the books.

I can demonstrate one example.
Amazon.co.uk's Black Island cover image, with small font and no publisher box, is as it looks on the new book. And the one at Amazon.com, published by Little, Brown, is similar to how the thumbnail used to look (except it's a different publisher).

Harrock n roll
And also so that they are able to change the title more easily at a whim...

Well it’s about time that The Crab With the Golden Nippers was released!

As an experiment I thought it would be interesting to make a comparison between the thumbnails, so I've put together a scan of 714 from three different editions. The one on the left is pretty much how it looked from the 70s up until the 90s, the middle one is taken from the back of the 2004 Alph-art and the last is from the latest edition of Tibet.

Note the flipped over letter ‘I’ on the newest editions and the changes in perspective from different cropping.

It would seem these digitally created thumbnails have opened up a whole new field of research for those interested in such minutiae of detail!

That's interesting, Chris - when compared to the other two, the new thumbnail (in my opinion) looks even worse with the cropping. I'd presume it's just a mistake - or I hope it is.

I've spotted a fourth version of the cover which is quite unusual - Amazon has it without the blue "The Adventures of Tintin" line and headshot at the top. The background, that's usually hidden, is present. It's hard to see, so this is a high contrast version.

The odd cropping is probably because the new thumbnails have a slightly more elongated format. All of them appear to have a bit more at either the top or bottom. Compare the Prisoners thumbnails lined up to the same picture scale.

I also think the old ones were a bit sharper, so much for technological improvement, eh?

Harrock n roll
I also think the old ones were a bit sharper, so much for technological improvement, eh?

Definitely! I also think that something's been lost with the introduction of the new style thumbnails - they seem too formal and stilted. I suppose it's just preparing you for what's waiting inside. At least it's less of a change than the transition from the 'island image' to the cover gallery.

Something else I just noticed - Amazon's cover for The Broken Ear (which is one of these recoloured, relettered digital ones) has the title Tintin and the Broken Ear.