Tintin Forums

Hello,

This is my first post to the forum, though I have often visited this site and benefited greatly from information shared here.

I recently acquired an original Hergé drawing through a French auction, and I'm trying to trace its history.

It's a single, finished, inked frame, nearly identical to the 3rd frame on page 55 of Red Rackham's Treasure. The drawing depicts Professor Calculus studying parchments aboard the Sirius.

My question is, does anybody here have access to Tintin magazine, issue #42?
On the back of my drawing, there is a hand-written notation: "Tintin 42 page 8" followed by "38mm".
It appears the original drawing was cropped for use in this publication. If anybody has Tintin #42, would you please check for me if this image appears there?

Here is a link to a pic of my drawing. [Expired link removed]

Thanks in advance for any help!

That’s a rather lovely piece!

I’d agree that the chances are that this has been used as a spot illustration in the magazine; sadly I think you might take a while to find out the issue!

I may be wrong here, but I think the system was to number the issues in yearly volumes, from 1 to 52. There will have been an issue 48 every year, more or less, throughout its run (allowing for the changes in name etc. which happened towards the end.

It strikes me that this is probably from a reasonably early volume, as I’m confident that they will have moved to re-copying images, rather than just cutting and pasting frames of original art. However, I think they were still doing it into the Fifties, so a bit more research may be needed!

Still, it’s not such a bad problem to have - I’m very envious!

Thanks for your kind words. :) I suppose you're right, it could be issue 42 from any year of Tintin magazine. Well, if anyone happens to have a fairly complete set of the magazines from the early years (and enough free time to check for me!), I'd be most grateful for any info provided. I'd also be interested in purchasing a copy of the issue in question, if it can be tracked down.

It's from the 15th October 1952 issue of Tintin magazine, and was used in a report - En 3H.26' le "Canberra" traverse l'Atlantique - about the Canberra jet bomber breaking the Atlantic Speed Record, flying from RAF Aldergrove, Northern Ireland, to Gander in Newfoundland, Canada in 4h 34m, and then returning (after refuelling) in 3h 26m (less time, the article helpfully suggests, than it would take to travel by train from Paris to Nice).

The illustration is used in a small panel with facts about the plane, under the title Ce qu'est le Canberra?

Ah! M'learned friend touches his marble once again!

dougross, copies of the Tintin magazine turn up fairly regularly on eBay, so hopefully it won't take you too long to snag a copy!

Harrock n roll
Fantastic! Three cheers for Harrock n roll!! :) I will add that to my Ebay saved searches.

There seems to be a copy on sale here for 4 Euros. [Expired link removed]

That was easy! Thanks again for the help. :)