Tintin Forums

According to every source I came by, the coloured version of this book was published in 1943 then saw no change (except for titles on front cover) until 1966 when the redrawn one was published.

But look closely at this last page of an original 1943 book I found on ebay. It is the orignal French 1943 editon with red spine and correct A20 back cover.
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Identical to that one, here is the same page from an original French 1947 book

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Now, look at this page from the French facsimile released by casterman in 1996. On the copyrigh page they confirm that it is an exact copy of the 1943 book!!

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As you can see there is a change in the title of the newspaper and the two bits on either sides are inside rectangles. I searched everywhere but there is no record of that change, not even in Farr's book. In fact in Farr's book, page 69, it says that in 1996 Casterman released a "carefully reproduced" facsimile of the 1943 book..... So?? Hopefully someone can shed light on this.

Extra information: In the black and white book, the newspaper's title and the two side bits are identical to the ones from the first two photos.

I don't know, pharaoh. Maybe they put the "publication information" in rectangles so that it would look more like a real newspaper. Anyway, thanks for taking my request and resizing the pictures.

Could be that you have good grounds for calling the lawyers, if they say that the facsimile is an exact copy of the 1943 edition and your facsimile is not.

However, I also own a 1996 facsimile of the 1943 edition and the rectangles at the top are not present. It matches your editions from 1943 and 1947.

I do not have a copy of the 1966 edition with me at the moment. Could the rectangles have come from there? When your copy was about to be printed someone along the line may have thought that the title with rectangles looked better and decided to include them.

Pharaoh

This is a great observation! I am sure this can be a part of the forthcoming Tintinologist Journal. It would be great if you could compile and create an article out of your observations. What do you think?

I see now. They first made a mistake with the cover and used the two lines one from later editions, then they corrected the cover, but left the newspaper, then they finally corrected all.

I need you to do two things for me, first, an edition check:

* Please look at who printed your book on the copyright page, is it printed in belgium by casterman, proost, or someone else? I do not mean the copyright, I mean the line starting with "imprime en belgique par"

* Does that last page, 62, have "imprime in belgique" at the bottom left side, and "printed in belgium" at the bottom right side?

* Also, kindly check page 15. Does it have two black stars at the bottom?

Secondly, please tell me where did you order it from and when. I need to get one like yours but I want to be sure I'm not getting the one with the mistakes again, or even worse, get a book with new set of mistakes! So far we have identified 3 different books!!

Of course yours is Frnech and have the correct one line title on the front cover "les adventires de tintin", right?


The 1966 have a totally different newspaper, no where near those we are talking about. I've made some research and found where that one came from: it came from the 1958 edition of the book. They added the rectangles and "Tuesday" as a homage for the last day the B/W was published in Le Petit Vingtième, Tuesday, June 16th, 1938. Click here to see a scan of the 1958 book which is probably what they used to make that facsimile before fixing it on two stages
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/5927/imgyp2.jpg

I wonder what will we find in the new english facsimile, and if one day those french ones with mistakes will be expensive collectors' items!!

Thanks for your information and help.

Thank you for this suggestion. I'd like to hear from the journal people if they were interested in such an article.

Oh yes, you should write to Ed with a brief synopsis. Write directly to his email id edcharlesadams[at]hotmail[dot]com

Done!

It is:
"imprime en Belgique par Proost, Turnhout."



Yes.



Yes.

Hope this helps. Any more comparisons you want, let me know. Good luck with the article.

The publication of Tintin, all the various editions, from the originally crude black-and-white of the 1930s to the ligne claire of the post-war years, not to mention the changes made from when the stories were published in weekly magazines to book form, has led to one of the most muddled series in the history of comic publishing, and you have just added to the record.

Never mind. It is these little peculiarities and finding them that have helped maintain its charm all these years. Keep it up.

^ Fantastic! This makes them 4 different versions so far! I've been able to locate one with the right page 62, but not the stars, and wrong copyright page that corresponds to later editions!

Yours seems to be the final perfect edition. Those black stars were used on the early colour books to determine the beginning of each signature, and are missing from the other three. Here is one of the very first patch that had the wrong cover for the records
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160253796726

Thanks for your help.

Oops! You forgot to tell me where did you order it from and when? I want to increase my chances of getting the right book this time. Cheers.