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According to this listing, on 4 October 2023 Casterman will publish (in French of course) The Castafiore Emerald as it originally appeared in Tintin magazine, before it was adapted into album format.

Compared with other stories, there are very few differences between the magazine and album versions. The official Tintin website (again, in French) recently did a comparison of many of the altered panels. Most are just changes to backgrounds or colours. Still, I believe this is the first time this version will be published since the original magazine.

It was scheduled to be published in volume 12 of Hergé: Le Feuilleton intégral. But it has appeared for a while that the remaining seven volumes of that series will never be published, either because of the death of one of the editors (Jean-Marie Embs) or because of the tension between Casterman and Moulinsart. I wonder if the decision to publish the magazine version of Castafiore as a standalone book confirms that.

I also wonder if they'll now do the same with the other magazine versions that have never been republished. One is Black Gold (the colour magazine version, as distinct from the black and white version and the two versions of the colour album). The others I believe are Tibet, 714, and Picaros (all three of which are very close to the album).

It will be released in Swedish as well: https://seriersant.se/tintin-castafiores-juveler-jubileumsutgavan-inb-utkommer-okt-2023

Good find. The Swedish listing shows the cover art.

I now have a copy of this. After several recent publications about the early Tintin adventures, I'm pleased one of the later adventures—and one of the best—has got some attention.

And it's a good book. I actually prefer the cover to that of the album. It has a 14 page preface, which reproduces things like Hergé's sources and sketches and points out some of the differences between this original version and the final album. It also includes the map of Marlinspike Hall that Hergé had beside him. I've never seen this before; it differs from the other (less authentic?) maps that pop up when you search the web. The colours of the adventure itself have been restored and look much better than scans from the magazine.

My only complaint is that, except on page 1, the book omits the header that appeared each week at the top of each page in the magazine. For me, part of the charm of a book like this is experiencing the adventure in its original, serialised form. Still, a minor issue.

I too finally received a copy of this book (thanks Santa! :-)) Format-wise I was pleased to note that it sits very nicely alongside the anniversary edition of Crabe from 2021, with the same style spine and binding. However, both volumes are slightly too big for my Tintin rocket book spinner! Not a deal-breaker, however...

I concur with most of RedVictory356's points. The 14-page preface is most welcome (and double that of the recent Crabe 80th anniversary book). I love the first attempts at a cover. The original plan was to have Haddock in his wheelchair pushed by Castafiore, with Tintin and Calculus in the background looking on and a paparazzi photographer snapping photos. There's a rough sketch of this idea and then a more detailed one which includes a couple more characters. Tintin seems to be talking with Wagner (I believe), although it might be a journalist. Calculus is also talking to another reporter. In the background you can see the 'villains' peeking over the Marlinspike wall.

I think it would have been quite a hilarious idea for a cover, and this edition has revived the idea by using the image from the title page of the final book. It makes for a very nice cover, but personally I prefer the final one. It retains the theatre of the original idea but has much more drama, in my opinion, and the lighting is superb. Also, Hergé (or his team) felt that Tintin had become a bit too background on the first idea, so he's put right at the front for the final cover, breaking the fourth wall.

I too hadn't ever seen the floor plan of Marlinspike Hall before, although it may have appeared in one of the Chronolgie books or elsewhere. I spent a while pondering over this, and it is very interesting. Hergé had even noted which period decor would decorate the rooms (Castafiore's bedroom, Louis XIII; The Maritime Hall, Louis XIV; Office, Louis XV, etc).

I was also very taken with Hergé's pencils for page 49, that shows Calculus's demo of his colour television. There are some more distorted sketches of the Thompsons in the margins I found very amusing.

Like RedVictory356, I was disappointed that they'd removed the headers from the original magazine version. I'd have much preferred to have had them even if it meant that the size was slightly reduced. It's made somewhat more obvious by having the text which originally introduced each page as a standard font text at the top of each page.

In terms of differences between the magazine version and the final book, there are very few. In fact, I think there might only be two frames, one of Haddock and Nestor (from page 26) that was divided into two, and another of Haddock skipping away from Castafiore (page 56) where the perspective has changed so it's viewed from the ground, since it originally made it look as if Castafiore was tiny and Haddock a giant. There may be some minor changes to the text too, but nothing I could spot. I note that the parrot is called Coco in the original French edition, not something I'd noticed before. Castafiore says it was a "typically Italian name", not quite sure what the joke was meant to be here. I do prefer his name in English, Iago, however!

Overall, a very nice volume and at a reasonable price too (currently). It's a pity we're not getting an English edition. Well, at least not yet.

In the next panel, where the skipping Haddock sees Tintin bringing in the doctor and Calculus, there is a chest of drawers in the background.

In the magazine version it is bare, but in the book edition there are various items on it, including a couple of books and a vase with a rose.

There are actually a quite a lot of differences, though they are easy to overlook! In my post at the top of this thread is a link to a 30-page ebook on the official website that covers many of them.

Thanks, RedVictory356, I did download and read that PDF. Lots of very minor changes, but changes nonetheless. Hergé never stopped revising his work, he was programmed to! He worked to very tight deadlines and it becomes one of those things, you cannot stop revising, tweaking and re-writing right up until submission. I have the same issue in my line of work and I can guarantee that the people I work with would still be making changes on the back of the courier bike to the submission address if they could!


It's funny, because I have studied this panel before. Not because of the stuff on the table, but because of the incredibly wobbly chest of drawers. I think the first time I noticed it I assumed it might have been a printing error. It's interesting that in the panel before (with Haddock skipping away) Hergé has also updated it to show the edge of the wobbly drawers, as if to say "yes, they are meant to be that wobbly!" Presumably they were some kind of Louis XV art furniture.

Note: This specific piece of furniture was discussed at length in this thread

I finished this last night and wanted to add my thoughts.

I concur with everything said above. I'd like to highlight the restoration work done on the colours for this edition, in particular, which is exemplary. I read the book over several evenings and spent quite a lot of that time simply enjoying the artwork. I'll be curious to see if the newly announced Calculus Affair volume has undergone the same treatment – I hope so.

In addition to the examples everyone has pointed out above, there was one other artwork change I spotted that I thought improved the storytelling. At the end of p.39 the Thom(p)sons trip out of frame as they leave Castafiore and the TV crew. At the top of p.40, Tintin hands them their hats, then they drive away into the night. In the magazine version, all of p.40 is shaded in night tones which suggests that the scene with Tintin takes place outside, rather than in the well-lit maritime gallery where they presumably fell. In the book version, a background has been added in and it's coloured with 'normal' lighting to correct this. It's admittedly a small detail, but another sign of Hergé revising his work down to the minutest detail.

Not exclusive to this serialised version, but reading the story in French I found myself marvelling at the ingenuity (once again) of the English translation. Take this exchange on pp.38-39, when Castafiore is interviewed following the presumed first theft of her jewels:

Castafiore: Monsieur Lampadaire m'avait promis de venir avec sa police mais...
Dupond: Sa police?... Sa police?... Quelle police?... Il a une police privée cet individu??... Dans ce cas, madame...
Castafiore: Non, non, messieurs, il s'agit bien entendu d'une police assurance.

The mix-up in French is due to the dual meaning of 'police', as police but also policy, which leads Dupond to the conclusion that a private detective is involved. That play on words doesn't work in English, but was instead rendered very cleverly by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner as:

Castafiore: Mr. Swag promised to fix the whole thing up for me...
Thompson: Swag? Fix it up?... Fix what?... Madam, is this some sort of conspiracy?
Castafiore: No, no gentlemen. Mr. Swag represents an insurance company.

Brilliant!

Another (albeit small) difference on page 40 is in the fourth panel when Tintin and Haddock glance back into the Hall as Castafiore again bursts into song.

In the magazine edition they are simply staring back in, but in the book version Herge added some beads of sweat showing them as more startled by the sudden outburst :)