Tintin Forums

I've heard that Tintin and Alph-Art was re-released in 2010 but the version I own is from 2004.
Does the 2010 edition have any new material? Thanks

I've seen it mentioned somewhere (Wikipedia, perhaps?), and someone e-mailed asking the same question, but there doesn't seem to be any basis for the assertion that a different edition was published.

It's not impossible that the book was altered in some way, but it would be a pretty big deal if anything was added to it, so surely it would be be shouted about, not slipped out on the quiet?

I think that someone somewhere got a bit ahead of themselves: there was a collector's series of books made available on subscription and by mail order in France, which added extra "making of"-type material to some of the albums, similar to the stuff in Michael Farr's The Complete Companion.

Someone might have assumed that Alph-Art was to be included, but it wasn't in that series, at least not when I last looked*.

It's entirely possible that one will come out – we've had the two versions so far, and Bernard Tordeur of the Hergé Archive has said in the past (at Greenwich) that even by the time the second one had been prepared for publication, they had found further material which might be added to a third version one day. Mind you, that was back in 2004!

So keep your fingers crossed, but don't hold your breath!

* Update: It was added to the series eventually.

Sorry, Jock. I totally forgot that I created this thread. Thanks for your prompt answer. I'm surprised the 2010 version doesn't exist. On the plus side I don't have to buy another copy. Yes, you'd think there would be more hulabaloo if another edition had been released. It's good to hear I'm not missing out on anything. Now to buy Herge et les Bigotudos and try to translate it.

The Egmont edition 2011 has seven extra pages-titled Rediscoverd pages, that Hergé sketches alternate story lines. Has a gold cover.

That's the 2004 edition - it may be a 2011 printing, but it didn't change anything from the earlier run, as far as can be told.

Could the re-released edition hypothetically refer to one of the compact omnibuses containing Tintin and Alph-Art? There are probably enough differences between the full size version and it to qualify as a separate edition: it uses a different page layout, and doesn't contain the introduction or the Rediscovered pages at the end. (I don't have the individual volume, but it was included in the blue 8-volume box set from 2011, where the story takes up pp.193–287 of volume 8).

Edit: I did a bit more research. The layout of the compact English omnibus is identical to the French half-size edition from 2007, only without the introduction and extra content at the end. Which doesn't fit with the theory of a distinctly different 2010 edition.

To clear things up, there exist four editions of Tintin and Alph-art:

1. The original edition published in 1986. The English translation was published in 1990 by Sundancer. The sketches are full-size and the translation (or transcription in French) is in a separate booklet.

2. The edition included in Tome 13 of L'Œuvre intégrale d'Hergé by Éditions Rombaldi. This was published in 1987. It's not really a book, but is instead divided into two parts. The sketches are in a notepad on the right. The transcription is in a book to the left. Two of the pencilled drawings are on separate pages in a folder, shich is separate from the rest. This version has not been translated into English.

3. The 2004 edition. This is now the standard edition and was originally published to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the first appearance of Tintin in Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. It contains a completely new translation. The translation/transcription is on the left page and the sketches are on the right. The sketches don't take up the entire page and are smaller on five pages, where the text also takes up the top of the right page. It contains rediscovered pages from Hergé's desk of where he might have taken the story. It was first published in paperback in 2007.

4. The 3-in-1 edition. This was first published in 2007 in volume 8 of the new editions of the 3-in-1 series, along with The Castafiore Emerald, Flight 714 to Sydney and Tintin and the Picaros (making this a 4-in-1 really). It uses the same translation as the 2004 edition. Due to its smaller size, the sketches take up the full page, which in fact makes them bigger than those in the 2004 edition, despite the book being considerably smaller in size. The exceptions to this are the five sketches on pages where the text is also on the right page. They are the same size relative to the page as the 2004 edition, which means that they are much smaller in this version. The rediscovered pages are not included in this version.

Well, I appreciate the effort, but while this broadly condenses what has gone before in the thread, you've missed out at least one edition, mentioned in passing above: the 2012 Atlas version in the Archives Tintin series, with the image of the gold cover inset into a maroon cloth binding. It contains (as do the other volumes in the Archives Tintin collection) an essay, with information about the story, which would bring the page-count up.
Although this volume was published in 2012, I have seen it listed on-line under the banner of the Archives Tintin series with a date of 2010 when the series as a whole, which was issued as a part-work, commenced, which might lead someone to think there was a new edition of Alph-Art, with extra material, published in 2010.

jock123
Thanks for that, I had indeed missed it! There's also of course the digital edition available on iOS and Android translated by Michael Farr.

Thanks jock123, that is the latest 2004 edition with the gold cover and the re-discovered pages.