I received my copy today and wasn’t disappointed. The true cover is much nicer than the mock-ups found on the Web: the lettering of the title is in the style of the old black-and-white editions rather than the modern colour editions’ style pasted on, the subtitle “Tintin in the Orient 1†has been omitted, and the design is identical to that of the
Tintin in America facsimile from 2004. You can put the two next to each other and they actually look part of the same series. The same red cloth for the spines is also used.
Once again the text has been typeset rather than handwritten, which still looks slightly clumsy. But at this stage it seems that Hergé was taking greater care in making his speech bubbles look regular, and the overall effect is an improvement on that of
America. The four colour
hors-texte pages are included, and several scenes that were cut for the colour edition. Also - another welcome improvement - page numbers are included.
If you were here two years ago you may remember the surprise that Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper wasn’t credited alongside Michael Turner for the translation of the
Tintin in America facsimile (see
this thread). Prepare for a bigger surprise: in this edition of
Cigars of the Pharaoh, the credit reads: “Translated by Michael Turner and Tessa Harrowâ€. Assuming this isn’t a mistake, it would be the first time that anyone outside of the Leslie-and-Michael pairing has translated Hergé’s work officially. There was some suggestion that the credit last time was a mistake; can anyone shed any light on the circumstances this time around?
My thoughts on the facsimile of
The Blue Lotus are in the
related thread.
Ed