Blake & Mortimer: The Cinebook Publications

I recently acquired a set of B&Ms. These are published in belgium in the late 80s.The 3 books are the -
1. yellow 'M'
2. 2 volumes of the lost pyramid.
These books are much larger to the normal large size tintin or other european comics.(i.e the cine art ones, biggles,asterix and B&Ms timetrap/atlantis mystery.The beauty of these books is that the conversation bubbles fit in beautifully within the frames unlike the comcat publications of timetrap/atalantis mystery.The story flows very well and reading is not a frustration as in the other 2.
Few eroors though which are fairly obvious..in london the traffic is following the european system though cars are shown to have a right hand drive!!!
I also felt the stories though grossly similar to the cartoons recently put out are very different and more engaging with more intricacies.

Got this today - looks nice and includes the drafts of the front cover that were also in the French edition. Printed on matte paper which is something Tintin's publishers could learn from. Two annoyances - first, presumably because Cinebook see themselves as a children's publishing house, one or two of the English language exclamations have been sanitised e.g. on board 1 a "Goddamn!" has been replaced with a "What the... ?" and second, the spine is numbered "1", which is going to be irritating if they ever print the five earlier volumes.

the spine is numbered "1", which is going to be irritating if they ever print the five earlier volumes.

That shouldn't be too bad, though they might regret it when/if they publish the two parters ("This book with '4' on the spine, is this the second part or the first?"). The Lucky Luke books they've brought out have a 'to be published' page - anything like that in here?

Are Tintin books numbered? I know they are on the back, but I've never looked at the spine long enough for that to register.

Out of interest, where did you pick this up? I've not spotted it in any of the London stores yet.

George

Out of interest, where did you pick this up? I've not spotted it in any of the London stores yet.

Ordered it direct from the Cinebook website. Pretty good service - ordered Thursday, got it yesterday (Monday) which is very fast given my location (Ireland) and the state of our postal service: most stuff ordered on the net takes 5-10 working days from dispatch to delivery.

Are Tintin books numbered? I know they are on the back, but I've never looked at the spine long enough for that to register.

Never seen any printing of Tintin with numbers on the spine.

That shouldn't be too bad, though they might regret it when/if they publish the two parters ("This book with '4' on the spine, is this the second part or the first?"). The Lucky Luke books they've brought out have a 'to be published' page - anything like that in here?

The fact that The Yellow "M" refers to events in earlier volumes makes starting the numbering from 1 a problem. No "to be published" page, I'm afraid and no indication on the site as to whether more are planned. I guess they must be waiting to see how this one turns out - in which case it's a bit worrying if copies aren't showing up in stores, especially in a big city like London.

I ordered mine from Amazon back in November. The release date for it was January but it later got put back to March. However, I received an email this morning saying it had been dispatched, so the delay was just a blip, I think!

2Orangy4Crows
I guess they must be waiting to see how this one turns out - in which case it's a bit worrying if copies aren't showing up in stores, especially in a big city like London.

I was in Gosh comics in London this morning and asked about it - unfortunately they didn't have a clue that it was coming out! But I believe it'll be available in most stores eventually, and that there will be more.

2Orangy4Crows
one or two of the English language exclamations have been sanitised e.g. on board 1 a "Goddamn!" has been replaced with a "What the... ?"
I don't know if it is sanitised so much as improved; I think that the character - a Britsh army officer at The Tower of London in the 1950s - would be far more likely to utter the latter rather than the former. I don't have a French copy to hand - what does that say?

Ordered it direct from the Cinebook website.

Ah, thanks for the tip. I usually like to give my custom to my local Comic shop, but if I don't see it in the next month or so I may go direct. I have signed up for Cinebook's newsletter but haven't heard a peep from them.

I was in Gosh comics in London this morning and asked about it - unfortunately they didn't have a clue that it was coming out!

I'll likely nip in to GOSH! later this week so I'll double-check. Usually they're pretty good for Cinebook's range. I've bought all my Lucky Lukes through them. The only album I've not seen them stock is the 4th Yaktari one.

I don't have a French copy to hand - what does that say?

I believe it actually says "Goddam". I checked it the other evening after reading ..Crows' initial post. There's another 'dam' on the page somewhere I think. The "Goddam" is intact in the Belgian-published English edition mentioned by Shankaro. You're correct about it not feeling right though. It's not a big deal for me - I'd rather that than the American accent that Blake suffers in the cartoon versions.

George

Just to follow myself up, I went to GOSH this morning (1/2) and they've now got copies of The Yellow M in. Additionally, the Cinebook Biggles album is also available, along with the first Marvel published volume of XIII.

George

Thanks for the info george. I received mine this morning and it looks fine. Only slight gripe so far is that the spine lettering is printed the opposite way up. It appears to be the same translation as the earlier English edition (by Clarence E. Holland, published by Proost in 1989). The only differences I've spotted are in the exclamations, "good lord", "good heavens", etc.

Yes, by george, 'George' got it right. The original english ones have 'goddam'...also it is labelled no 6.
the mystery of the great pyramid ( 1 and 2) are 4 and 5 respectively.