Tintin Forums

Hello folks...long time lurker, first time poster.

Just wanted to throw this out there and see if anyone had any input or info about this unknown (to me) white cover for what appears to be a b&w US edition of Tintin in America similar to the original Soviets and Congo covers...



This turned up on a (dead?) Amazon link that can be found here.

Sounds like maybe it was a prototype or version that Last Gasp planned to put out that never wound up happening - publication date is given as "January 1, 1723"(!), though the title text says 2015-02-25. I have the original 2004 yellow cover facsimile edition that Last Gasp did. I assume this other version never happened, because I can't find any other trace of it. I believe Tintin in America was actually reprinted by Last Gasp in 2015 with the same cover as my 2004 version.

--SKot

This cover was actually used when the original B&W version was published in book form in 1937.

Details can be found at the official tintin.com website.

You said "white" cover as opposed to the light yellow usually used for this type of publication. Probably a poorly-made scan.

The 1937 cover is close to this, but still not quite the same. This cover I'm talking about above seems like a conglomeration of the 1932-1941 covers, as seen here.

This one takes the top part of the cover text "The Adventures of / TINTIN / Reporter for Le Petit Vingtième" and white color of the 1932 version, then seems to combine it with the bottom part of the 1937-1941 version.

Perhaps it's just a mock-up image or prototype, and the final cover for this wound up looking like the one I have:



That's my best guess. I've never seen a French version that looks just like the white cover from my original post.

--SKot

I think that's possible. It's certainly not unknown for an early version of a book cover that's needed well before publication for a publisher's catalogue to end up being used on online sites like Amazon even though changes are made before the actual book is printed.

My other observation is that the lettering style and layout at the top, in conjunction with the white cover, looks very similar to that of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (in my late eighties Sundancer English edition and probably other editions of that book) so I'd guess that whoever produced this cover for Tintin in America (whether as a mock-up or for an obscure actual edition) probably used that as their starting point template.

Anyway, welcome to the forums, Skotk!

Thanks, Balthazar!

Yes, it does look like they were trying to go for a cover similar to Soviets or the original b&w Congo release. Since this wasn't really a look that Tintin in America ever had, it may not have been approved. Perhaps they planned a whole series of releases in that style to give them a consistent look...hard to say. We do know Last Gasp changed the cover style for the 2015 reprinting of Congo from that original white cover to the "yellow cover" look, and the 2015 reprintings of The Blue Lotus and Cigars of the Pharaoh to the "Adventures in the Orient Volumes 1 and 2" version. It's possible this white cover style was being considered for the 2015 printing of Tintin in America, but in the end they scrapped that idea and just gave it the same cover as the 2004 version.

--SKot