Tintin Forums

Tintinologist.org Forums / Curious about Tintin? (Non-album specific) /

Le ThermoZéro: Should it be released?

Page  Page 2 of 4:  « Previous  1  2  3  4  Next » 

jock123
Moderator
#11 · Posted: 28 Apr 2012 11:13
luinivierge2010:
but the Herge Foundation's archival material could and should be published in far greater quantities - modern scanning technology makes this astonishingly easy.

I've got to say that I can't agree entirely with your analysis here - the technology is really neither here nor there at the end of the day, it's how you deal with the material itself.

It's not just a question of popping pages into a scanner, and printing off the end results, it's the sifting through the accompanying paper-work (someone is having to read and annotate and catalogue in excess of fifty thousand letters, amongst other things), coordinating that to the archive of Hergé's research materials, which we know is vast, and hopefully conduct primary research with the surviving members of Hergé's family and colleagues, and all with a staff of two or three people. That's not "easy" in my book...

I'd rather they took their time, and did it justice, than that they ran off stuff pell-mell, and then had to update them again as they came across new stuff.
Think of what happened with Alph-Art: first we get the separated pages-and-script version, then we get the revised gold "standardized" version with extra pages, only to be told that in the space of time it took to get that one designed and printed, they actually uncovered further archival material which could have been included.
I've already got grey hair - a bit more won't make much difference...! ;-)
luinivierge2010
Member
#12 · Posted: 28 Apr 2012 14:45
With all due respect Jock123, I have to disagree in turn with some of the points you make. I don’t have time to respond at length now, so will just make two quick remarks. (Needless to say, I don’t dispute the difficulties you allude to, but my intention is to stimulate debate !).

First, I stand firmly by the example I have given (and which you do not address). If Marsu Productions can do it, then Moulinsart - with a larger team and budget - can do it too. No excuses ! And there is certainly nothing “pell-mell” about Marsu productions’ publications. Quite simply, they are very finely produced systematic publications of original artwork at near one to one format (accompanied by light but accurate notes and a good selection of supplementary documents). The demand among Tintin collectors is certainly there, so a series along similar lines would also represent a viable business proposition.

Second, I believe that the case of Alph-Art is more ambiguous than you suggest. The "rediscovered" pages were a something of a myth concocted by the Studios Herge and/or Casterman (to offer a little proof : the very first of these supposedly “new” sheets had already been published in the introduction to the Rombaldi edition of Alph-Art almost twenty years earlier !). It seems that the entirety of Herge’s Alph-Art dossier was available from the very start - and the original intention was to publish all of the approximately 150 storyboard and sketch leaves in facsimile - an option eventually abandoned for a number of reasons, one being that many of the variant storyboard pages were near-duplicates and would have confused readers. Ultimately, the first edition was regarded as something of a failure by the principal members of the team who devised it (although it nonetheless proved to be an unexpected commercial success). In the second edition of 2004 - which undoubtedly has its advantages - the storyboard leaves are now tiny and almost illegible. I feel that the most attractive edition overall remains the first English edition (without the awkward binding of the first French edition) put out by Jane Taylor and Nick Rodwell in London. It is really quite a handsome book.
jock123
Moderator
#13 · Posted: 28 Apr 2012 21:40
luinivierge2010:
I stand firmly by the example I have given (and which you do not address).

Largely that's because I have absolutely zero knowledge of Franquin and his books.
luinivierge2010:
If Marsu Productions can do it, then Moulinsart - with a larger team and budget - can do it too. No excuses!

I have no idea how to compare the relative ease and speed with which these books have been made (I don't see how one can guess unless one was involved in it), for example, the circumstances in which Franquin's art is kept, and how many people are involved - if there are fewer people working on these than there are for Moulinsart, then that is a small number, because Moulinsart has about twelve to fifteen people in total, and the Studio is just three people.

I also don't know if Franquin's people have been undertaking anything like the Chronologies and building a museum in the same period. Without these other chores, and perhaps with all of his original art in good condition (the Studios Hergé vaults contain about 80% of the originals), then perhaps they could have done as you suggest.

I want the art, in as many stages as possible, in as many varieties as comes to hand, but I want the thinking behind it too - the references where available, the correspondence which, as mentioned contains information about the choices made, the changes needed, and notations of what state the art is in, and how else it may have appeared (if you've seen any of the page originals, you'll know that over the years some of the art which has not been lost, given away, or otherwise mislaid, has been chopped up, re-positioned, changed around and otherwise repurposed over the years to revise the format, change page sizes and for re-use in the magazine).

Looking at the artwork with light notes would be nice - knowing about the art with in depth material will be fascinating.

luinivierge2010:
The "rediscovered" pages were a something of a myth concocted by the Studios Herge and/or Casterman (to offer a little proof : the very first of these supposedly "new" sheets had already been published in the introduction to the Rombaldi edition of Alph-Art almost twenty years earlier !)

Well, again, I think we are slightly at cross purposes here: what I am talking about is that Bernard Tordeur said (at the same time as he talked about the fact that the J,Z&J version of ThermoZéro was de facto complete) that further material - additional to the extra material they had just released - had been uncovered as they were going through Hergé's papers, and which, had he been able to, he would have included, and that they amounted to enough significant material to be able to produce a further, third, version.
calculite
Member
#14 · Posted: 29 May 2012 04:04
I noticed the Moderator's message to me(after a very long time), so I thought I would give my opinion. I think that Le ThermoZero should be published in a collection work. This work could contain deleted sketches and various plot lines.

For example, if Herge wrote down sketches of perhaps Sakharine having something more to do with the theft of the parchments in The Secret of the Unicorn that were later edited out, they could be put in this book. That is just my thought, because it would be nice to see these, and it would be more for your money's worth!
calculite
Member
#15 · Posted: 23 Jul 2013 14:31
I remember reading about a story on the original Tintin website (before they changed the layout). It was a plot that was pitched to Herge. He sketched 8 pages of the story before deciding he didn't want to complete it. (I think this is correct, my memory fails me). Apparently, it was too much like another story, but I can't remember which one.

Some things I remember about it:
1. I think there was a focus on Calculus finding some new substance.
2. The villain was supposed to be Professor Phostle. (This I clearly remember).
3. It had quite a unique title (can't remember what) which Herge thought was an "American" sounding name. (I faintly remember the title having something to do with heat or temperature).

If anyone has information or the name of this unfinished story, it would be a great help.

*NOTE: I don't know if this would help anyone, but the article about this story was published during Christmas time (probably years 2009-2011). The article had the pictures of the 8 sketches, and said this was the website's Christmas gift to you.

Moderator Note: It has to be said calculite, that, in addition to the usual request that one does a forum search before posting, you should do a quick memory search, and think back to only last year, when you yourself started a thread on the subject of Le ThermoZéro, and whether or not it should be released, at which point you seemed to know about the story in some detail...?
Your post has been moved to that very thread...
Secondly, it's hard to tell what site you might mean as the "original Tintin web-site" - this site has been around longer than Tintin.com, and there are others which have even longer histories; so what site are you talking about? It's also odd that they would have provided the art for those page, yet no-one has discussed them here, not even you, although you taked about the book after that time; please let's hope you are talking about somewhere legitimate!

The Tidyying-Up Tintinologist Team
mct16
Member
#16 · Posted: 23 Jul 2013 19:06
calculite:
2. The villain was supposed to be Professor Phostle. (This I clearly remember).

Actually the story in which Phostle is a villain was the original storyline that Jacques Van Melkebeke and Bernard Heuvelmans wrote for the Moon adventure. In this version Phostle steals the plans for Calculus's rocket in order to sell them and get an expensive diamond for a famous Hollywood actress.

Herge drew a couple of pages in which Calculus gives an interview on American radio but it goes wrong because of his deafness. He then decided to come up with his own storyline instead.
calculite
Member
#17 · Posted: 24 Jul 2013 11:30
Sorry Moderator! I have no idea why I couldn't remember that I made a post about this very same subject!

calculite:
Secondly, it's hard to tell what site you might mean as the "original Tintin web-site"

I was talking about Tintin.com (should have said "official"). I was referring to the time before the most recent layout change. This was when there was an articles section, which often had various pictures about the subject. It wasn't just news, there were several articles explaining, clarifying, or commenting about Tintin. There was an article about the abandoned Le Thermozero and it provided all 8 sketches in a sort of slideshow gallery.

Sorry for any confusion!

Moderator Note: Ah, the matter becomes clearer! The official site is fine, so a link has been added to their very informative Thermozéro piece!
advnarayan
Member
#18 · Posted: 30 May 2015 03:00
Mikael Uhlin
Member
#19 · Posted: 1 Jun 2015 21:40
advnarayan:
I found this link interesting:
http://www.comicsandcola.com/2014/03/tintin-thermozero-everything-you- need.html

I may have stated this before, but I think an Alph-Art-style edition of Thermozéro would be great!
jock123
Moderator
#20 · Posted: 5 Jun 2015 10:29
advnarayan:
I found this link interesting:

Thank you - it's really just an update of what I've written elsewhere on here. When I have a moment to do so, I'll re-draft it as an article for here...

Page  Page 2 of 4:  « Previous  1  2  3  4  Next » 

Please be sure to familiarize yourself with the Forum Posting Guidelines.

Disclaimer: Tintinologist.org assumes no responsibility for any content you post to the forums/web site. Staff reserve the right to remove any submitted content which they deem in breach of Tintinologist.org's Terms of Use. If you spot anything on Tintinologist.org that you think is inappropriate, please alert the moderation team. Sometimes things slip through, but we will always act swiftly to remove unauthorised material.

Reply

 Forgot password
Please log in to post. No account? Create one!