Tintin Forums

I purchased a hardback copy of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets on Amazon and would like some information about this particular edition, as I did not see this ISBN listed on the Tintinologist book guide.

Here are the details from the Amazon page:
Hardcover: 141 pages
Publisher: French & European Pubns (October 9, 1985)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0785909788

The book has a dark blue spine cover.

Were any of the other books published in a similar design to this one? Would this book be considered a facsimile?

Thanks!

It's a bit puzzling, as at first glance, the Amazon details don't make much sense however you cut them: Soviets wasn't available in English in 1985, it was produced to celebrate the 60th anniversary in 1989; and the "publisher" listed was a specialist bookshop in New York, which now continues on-line (having been unable to afford to continue in bricks-and-mortar retail when its lease expired on premises in the Rockefeller Centre).
It seems to be possible to me that French & European Publications stocked and perhaps distributed the French version of title in America, which might somehow lead to them being classed as its publisher, and lead to them adding a different ISBN.
They may subsequently have carried or sold the English version after that was published by Sundancer in 1989, but I imagine that the details were carelessly grafted from one product to another when the Amazon page was compiled (the blurb even says, "This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition").

The volume with the blue cloth spine is generally referred to as a facsimile, although as someone once said here, the term is a little misleading as whilst the French book is a copy of an edition from 1929, the 1989 English version is in fact the "original" in English, so the terminology is a tad misleading (although its clearly meant to be "in the style" of an early edition, being given the period look, just French copies were).

Although Soviets has latterly been made available in a more standard perfect square bound version with cardboard spine to match the other books, the other early black-and-white books up to Blue Lotus have only had English "facsimile" editions with cloth bindings.

A very thorough and interesting explanation, thank you very much. So the book I have then is most likely the 1989 Sundancer edition (ISBN 2203020016).

Would you happen to know which of the other Tintin editions would match this copy in terms of appearance? I looked through the album guide on Tintinologist and I only found one other Sundancer edition: Tintin in the Congo. The other black and white style books seem to have been published by Casterman, which I believe feature a light yellow cover.

Well, really the only way to tell is to open it up and look inside... ;-)
Perhaps confusingly, I've just had a look in mine, which is definitely a 1989 Sundancer copy (that's when I bought it), and the ISBN given in the publication information is 0 9512799 1 2 (make of this as you will - I didn't write the book's page on this site, so I don't know when or where the ISBN information given there came from, I'm afraid).
What does your book have to say on the subject?

As to the appearance, well, the images in the book guide show the English-language covers we have had, which reflect various early editions in French. If by "match" you mean have a uniform spine colour and cover design on your book-shelf, then I'm afraid you will be disappointed, as that never happened for the black-and-white books, even in French.

The only one really "missing" would be a white-covered "facsimile" of the first cover for Tintin in America which had a different picture by Hergé, which has gone on to prominence because it set a world record for the price of a piece of comic book art when the gouache painting used on the cover sold at auction; other than that, what we have matches the non-uniformity of the books when they appeared.
They settled down into the yellowy-brown cover with red-cloth spine for the last few black-and-white books, which is what has come out in French, but we've not had them all, as yet, in English.

I finally had a look at my copy, and I think I was mistaken about it being a Sundancer copy. What it states is that it was "first published in the U.S.A. in 2003 by Last Gap of San Francisco" and the ISBN printed is 0867199032.

I'm not quite sure where the copy I own 'fits' in. It does not match what was listed on the Amazon page (ISBN 0785909788).

Hi can anyone help?
I have Tintin in the Land of the Soviets published in 1989 by Last Gasp and not Sundancer.
It's in English but it's printed in Spain ISBN 2-203-79702-9. Does anyone know number of print runs and is this an American copy?

The facsimile edition that I purchased is hardcover with blue binding-with Les Editions du Petit "Vingtième" Bruxelles on the bottom, published in 1981. Printed in Spain.