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Endpapers: Gallery of portraits on the inside covers of Tintin albums?

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Balthazar
Moderator
#11 · Posted: 1 Dec 2011 00:29
jock123:
(actually, I don’t think that anything after Calculus Affair is there)

I was just wondering what date these endpapers were drawn. Actually, there's a portrait of Skut just to the right of the centre-fold of the front endpapers, so I think they must date from The Red Sea Sharks. (And I think that's a portrait of the obnoxious "I want a parachute" passenger from that book too, near the top left of the front endpapers). But there's nothing from Tibet onwards, I don't think.
jock123
Moderator
#12 · Posted: 1 Dec 2011 00:37
You touch your marble! It is indeed The Red Sea Sharks which defines the end of the portrait gallery; I’m always a bit surprised that Tharkey or the Monks don’t turn up in there, so it was in the back of my mind that it was Tibet, and then over-compensated!

I’ve got a feeling that Harrock may know the answer to the dating of the end-papers.
Ranko
Member
#13 · Posted: 1 Dec 2011 21:28
Interesting selection of characters. I wonder if there was any basis to their inclusion? For example between Mr. 'I want a parachute' and Tintin in cowboy garb at the front of the gallery we have Kavitch who is Sponz's secretary in The Calculus Affair. Similarly the top right picture of the end gallery shows the waiter who appears at the beginning of Crab. Both minor roles who appear very briefly.

On a side note, on the 3-in-1's, the galleries are mirror images. (To the Methuen hardbacks anyway) The front left hand gallery is the final gallery in reverse, front right becomes front left. This is repeated on both end galleries also. (Phew, I hope you followed that!) ;-)
jock123
Moderator
#14 · Posted: 1 Dec 2011 22:46
Balthazar:
I was just wondering what date these endpapers were drawn.

Haven’t got a date for the drawing, as such, but I have found out that they debuted in the French books with the first edition of Coke en Stock in July 1958; don’t know if that is earlier or later than the Methuen books first appearing, but I suppose they may have been used in other 1958 foreign editions before that.

Ranko:
the galleries are mirror images

Is it just the page order which changes, or are the images literally in mirror-fashion?

Amongst my notes for the gallery images when I dug them out, I found that I’d noted that the pictures of Coco and the Jewish gentleman located just above the abstract portrait of Haddock were replaced by Thomson and Thompson dressed in their burnooses from The Crab with the Golden Claws.
Navin
Member
#15 · Posted: 2 Dec 2011 02:20
Were they something used by the publisher to promote the books by making the reader curious or were they something thought of by Hergé?
jock123
Moderator
#16 · Posted: 2 Dec 2011 08:18
Navin:
were they something thought of by Hergé

Decorative endpapers were a feature of many books of the time, not unique to the Tintin series, so it would be difficult to say who thought of them; Hergé had a history of designing book and book-jackets not just for himself but for other author and publishers too, so he may have felt it was just what you did and was expected.

All of Hergé’s books had them in one form or another, and the portrait gallery replaced an earlier design which showed a range of characters and scenes against a dark blue background.
Balthazar
Moderator
#17 · Posted: 2 Dec 2011 11:44
Ranko:
On a side note, on the 3-in-1's, the galleries are mirror images. (To the Methuen hardbacks anyway) The front left hand gallery is the final gallery in reverse, front right becomes front left. This is repeated on both end galleries also. (Phew, I hope you followed that!) ;-)

I've just noticed that my old Methuen hardback copy of The Broken Ear (a late 70s or early eighties edition, I think) has its endpapers a different way round from my 80s copy of The Blue Lotus. I'm not sure which is the standard order, if there was one. (I'll need to go back upstairs to look at my other hardback copies.)

jock123:
Is it just the page order which changes, or are the images literally in mirror-fashion?

I can't answer for Ranko's copies, but they're not flipped into mirror images in my books, just re-ordered. Flipping drawings is a big no-no for most illustrators, although publishers sometimes do it, to make a drawing fit a publicity purpose. Apart from being generally wrong artistically, it would put everyone's buttons, swords, etc, on the wrong side!

jock123:
Decorative endpapers were a feature of many books of the time

And indeed still are, of course, especially in children's picture books.

Navin:
Were they something used by the publisher to promote the books by making the reader curious or were they something thought of by Hergé?

Whether it was his idea it was to update the endpapers and to have this portrait gallery, or his publisher's, Hergé certainly seems to have thrown himself into the task with enthusiasm. There's so much thought gone into each expression and each picture frame style, and looking at these endpapers closely following your post, I'm struck, not for the first time, just how beautiful the line drawing is - right up there with Hergé's very best.
jock123
Moderator
#18 · Posted: 2 Dec 2011 12:16
Balthazar:
I can't answer for Ranko's copies, but they're not flipped into mirror images in my books, just re-ordered.

Thanks for that, that’s what I’d imagined…

Balthazar:
Flipping drawings is a big no-no for most illustrators,

…because, as you say, it’s best avoided!

Balthazar:
I'm struck, not for the first time, just how beautiful the line drawing is - right up there with Hergé's very best.

It is indeed!

I also see from my notes that there are some other little “Easter-eggs” for the attentive enthusiast. For example, the three pictures from Black Island (Ranko, Puschov and the old man from the Kiltoch Arms) have been redrawn in the modern style which wouldn’t be applied to the whole book for another eight years.

Even more interesting perhaps is the appearance of Lieutenant Edwards, a character who was in the original versions of Land of Black Gold, but who didn’t survive into the final modernized re-written version which was used for the English-language translation. A member of the British forces in Palestine, he was replaced by the Khemedian Army Officer in Khemikhal, seen interviewing the Detectives on p.17 of the album.

The portrait of Edwards is the bottom left-hand corner picture of the group of four small frames which is located just above the large picture of Thompson and Thomson in Greek national costume.
Ranko
Member
#19 · Posted: 2 Dec 2011 13:40
I'll check again this weekend. It was late last night when I looked. On first glance it appeared they were mirror images. However, as Balthazar says, they are probably just re-ordered.
jock123
Moderator
#20 · Posted: 2 Dec 2011 14:22
The Egmont editions I have to hand have the papers in the following order, using a large image at the top as a reference, and working from inside-front cover to inside-back cover):

A: Tintin as a cowboy
B: HM, King Muskar XII
C: Tintin in Highland dress
D: Tintin and Zorrino

The Golden Press books have them in a different order: ADCB

Is this the order found in the 3-in-1 version, and I wonder if this second order is used elsewhere?
Also, do the images of Coco and the shopkeeper appear in the 3-in-1 version of the gallery, or have they been taken from the Golden Press books?

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