Tintin Forums

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

Le ThermoZéro: Should it be released?

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

Shivam302001
Member
#21 · Posted: 12 Jan 2019 03:49
13 Jan 2019 13:26 - Merged topic:
Tintin and the Thermozero - New book to be published this year?

As I was going through the newspaper articles concerning Tintin's 90th birthday, a piece of news came as a bit of surprise. In many of those articles, it is mentioned that Benoit Mouchart,editorial director of Casterman, has told in a news conference that a new release of Herge's incomplete adventure, Tintin and the Thermozero is in the works and it may even release this year!

I could obtain no further information about it either in the official site or anywhere else. Does anybody know more about this?

Here is one of those news articles which mentions this information (for the book, see the last bit).
snowybella
Member
#22 · Posted: 12 Jan 2019 05:21
Shivam302001

Exciting! From what I've heard of it, it's a great story!
Shivam302001
Member
#23 · Posted: 12 Jan 2019 08:06
It is exciting! As far as I know, it was done before The Castafiore Emerald. It is about Tintin and Haddock going to the rescue of a car crash victim, when the victim slides something into Tintin's pocket, which Calculus later finds out to be an explosive that works in absolute zero temperature. Meanwhile, Captain is kidnapped by some interested parties who had traced the explosives to our heroes. Tintin and Snowy then travel to Berlin. Wagg also makes an appearance.

It would be interesting to know if the Jo, Zette and Jocko adventure of the same name is also included in the book.

There are a few threads on this book in these forums which anyone interested can have a look at.
KiaraChang
Member
#24 · Posted: 12 Jan 2019 13:32
Wow! Can't believe it! A new book to be released!
luinivierge2010
Member
#25 · Posted: 13 Jan 2019 01:32
Alas, if we are to believe Yves Fevrier's statement (unless he is deliberately hiding official plans - and thus telling a kind of lie) it is not looking likely for now...

http://www.wradio.com.co/noticias/sociedad/yves-fevrier-habla-sobre-lo s-90-anos-de-tintin/20190112/nota/3849083.aspx

In French and Spanish, at 14:48: basically he says that for the time being no authorisation has been given to Casterman for any such publication.

On the other hand, he does confirm that Spielberg/Jackson have indeed renewed their contract for the films - see my post in the film speculation thread about Benoit Mouchart's statement on the 10th of January.
jock123
Moderator
#26 · Posted: 13 Jan 2019 13:42
Shivam302001:
Tintin and the Thermozero is in the works and it may even release this year!

I think what we actually have here may be an aspiration on the part of M. Mouchart, mentioned to the press, rather than a concrete plan to release Le ThermoZéro, being reported as if it was something in the pipeline.

It does keep bobbing to the surface periodically as something which could happen, but there have been several false dawns over the years, and this may be just one more.

I'm also starting to think that some of the "recent" remarks may even date from the 2014 discussion at Angoulême covered here, just dusted off and re-packaged in the press.

I mean, there was an actual, official announcement at that same event that there was to be an in-depth book on the production and history of Cigars of the Pharaoh, and nothing has ever come of that.

There was also the later, seemingly inadvertent, revelation of a possible deluxe release of The Calculus Affair with the broken window rendered in perspex as Hergé had proposed back in the Fifties, but which had proved impossible to achieve, and that came to nothing, even though the picture that leaked out showed a photo of the concept piece.

As I have said elsewhere, I would love ThermoZéro to come out, and perhaps what we are seeing is the 2014 projects starting to come to fruition (after all, we do have the colour Soviets (albeit not in print in English)), and this may mean that more treasures will be forthcoming soon.
Shivam302001
Member
#27 · Posted: 13 Jan 2019 14:21
It would be such a pity if it turns out to be another false lead. I had thought we were really on for a treat. But maybe, it would be better to release the book on the 100th birthday of Tintin? That would be appropriate enough. And better for marketing too I guess.

But I would be happy if it is released earlier, never the less. It will be (or rather should be?) published one time or the other, anyway.
jock123
Moderator
#28 · Posted: 13 Jan 2019 16:51
Shivam302001:
I had thought we were really on for a treat.

Well, let's hope we are...! As I say, this may the time the rumour proves to be true!

Shivam302001:
maybe, it would be better to release the book on the 100th birthday of Tintin?

Possibly, that would certainly be something to consider.
mct16
Member
#29 · Posted: 14 Jan 2019 13:20
According to Benoît Mouchart's Instagram page what they are hoping to do is publish a book of sketches similar to that of "Alph-Art". That would be in the spirit of Herge's wishes. But this page, published two days ago, indicates that it is still in the planning stage and is not final.

Herge's assistants Bob de Moor and Roger Leloup also worked on a version of ThermoZéro as a Jo, Zette & Jocko adventure and may be included in such a publication.

Personally I would love Le ThermoZéro to be the basis of a film. This would make it an original story similar to Golden Fleece rather than the mixing of elements from various adventures into one.
RedVictory356
Member
#30 · Posted: 28 Oct 2021 04:58
I've recently read Greg's original scenario of Tintin et le Thermozéro, which was published in 2003 in issue 36 of the magazine Les Amis de Hergé at pages 19–30. The scenario has been mentioned before in this thread (in a post back in 2012). But I haven't seen it discussed in detail on this forum. So I thought I would share a few observations.

1. The magazine includes an introduction by Philippe Goddin, in which he dispels a number of errors that are often made about the project. These include the mistaken belief that Greg put forward two distinct variants of the scenario, Les Pilules and Le Thermozéro. Goddin traces that error back to a mix-up that occurred when Benoît Peeters spoke to Greg in the 1980s.

2. The scenario did, however, go through at least two successive drafts. The first is the one I am discussing here, which Goddin describes as 'the original scenario, the true one'. The second is a draft that was published in a rare volume by Rombaldi in 1988 and inaccurately attributed to Greg. This, writes Goddin, "is just the fair copy of a manuscript by Jacques Martin, presumably developed in the course of multiple exchanges with Hergé'. I have not read this second draft. If anyone else has, then I'd be interested in hearing about the differences.

3. In Greg's original scenario, the item that drives the plot is initially referred to by the English term Zero-Heater. The French term Thermozéro is given as an alternative and used subsequently. Neither term is in the title, which is simply Scénario Tintin. I understand from elsewhere that it was Hergé himself who came up with the title Tintin et le Thermozéro.

4. The scenario begins with Tintin and Haddock visiting Mount Vesuvius as tourists. My guess is that the volcanic environment is supposed to prefigure the effects of the Thermozéro. Still, this prelude seems superfluous to me; the plot does not really start until they are driving home and a car crash occurs. Hergée must have thought the same, because his later pencilled pages skip the prelude and begin with Tintin and Haddock driving. (These pencilled pages are much more widely accessible, so perhaps many of you are familiar with them. For example, I have a copy in the Archives Tintin edition of Tibet published in 2010.)

5. The regular cast are largely absent. Calculus appears only briefly, in the very last scene; the Thom(p)sons have only a slightly bigger role; and characters like Wagg and Castafiore do not appear at all. Even Haddock is absent for almost the entire second half of the scenario, which begins to feel like one of Tintin's solo adventures.
This, too, may have changed later in the development of the project: in the first of Hergé's pencilled pages, Calculus is asleep in the back of the car; and, in the last couple of those pages, Wagg shows up and Castafiore is heard (predictably!) on the radio.

6. The most prominent of the new characters are two Americans, called Major Fullscotch and Douglas D Thinnose: a Francophone's idea of humorous English-derived surnames!

7. The similarities to the Calculus Affair are so obvious that I am surprised that Greg didn't do more to make the story distinctive. Tintin and various spies pursue each other around Europe looking for a dangerous item that we discover, though not until the last scene, to be an invention by Calculus. Much of the scenario takes place in Switzerland. The item is left behind at a hotel (compare the lost umbrella in Calculus Affair). One of Tintin's friends is kidnapped, in this case Haddock rather than Calculus. And ultimately the runaround turns out to have been a waste of time, because a critical ingredient of the Thermozéro never left Marlinspike (compare the revelation at the end of Calculus Affair that the microfilm never left Marlinspike).

8. There is one interesting difference. When Tintin is drawn into political intrigues, they usually involve fictional countries rather than real ones (with the notable exceptions of Soviets, Blue Lotus, and the early versions of Black Gold). But here the climax takes place in the very real Berlin at the height of the Cold War. It has the air of a John le Carré or Ian Fleming story. A raincoat and a briefcase play key roles. The villains are from the ISSA (the International Spies & Saboteurs Association - yes, its name is given in English), a group of spies who operate independently of both Cold War blocs, just like SPECTRE in the James Bond books.

9. Some of you will know that, after abandoning Tintin et le Thermozéro, Hergé asked Bob De Moor to adapt it into a Jo, Zette, & Jocko adventure (see this other thread). That must have been a thorough rewrite; I find it hard to imagine those characters in a Cold War spy setting.

10. In my opinion, Hergé was right to abandon this project. It did not promise to add anything novel to his work. And instead we got the much more interesting Castafiore Emerald.

My apologies for the length of this post! I hope the content justifies it.

Page  Page 3 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!