These notebooks are quite exquisite, and the picture has an air of eruditeness about it that I’m quite jealous of…
(from jjtelecaster’s Flickr Photostream, Cigars Of The Pharaoh emblem © Moulinsart, I guess)
In 1979, when Tintin celebrated his 50th birthday, Casterman published a small booklet in which Hergé explained how he and his team went about creating the quiffed one’s adventures. As an example, they used the fabled page 22b from Tintin Et Les Picaros, at that time Tintin’s latest, and eventually also his last adventure. While drafting that book, Hergé and Bob De Moor, his second-in-command, accidentally had provided for 65 pages, instead of the obligatory 64, and so one page had to go. This was later also reprinted in Tintin’s Imaginary Museum.
The booklet was called “Fifty years of real fun work“, but judging by Bob De Moor’s illustration on the cover, I wonder if this title was not totally in irony…
By the way, this post is dedicated to Dean Haspiel, on his birthday. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the sentiment of the picture. Many happy returns, Dino…
Belgian prime minister Yves Leterme, famous for his quiffed hair and Tintinesque earnestness (and lack of humor), is on adventure in South-America. As seen by Vincent Rif.
(Translation : “Excuse me, I’m looking for the Temple of the Sun ?”)
Charles Burns created the cover for the special BD hors série of French rock magazine Les Inrockuptibles, and turned Tintin into an adequately strange and alien version of himself. I just wonder what he would make of La Castafiore.
For more info on the magazine, see my article at the Forbidden Planet International Blog Log.
(Illustration © Charles Burns, Tintin © & ™ Moulinsart)
As Charles Bremner reports, you’re looking at 764,200 euros (1.22 million dollars) here. That’s what this illustration in indian ink and gouache, was worth according to an anonymous French collector at a Paris auction last week. The total auction (653 comics-related items) made a good 3.4 million euros. Ils sont fous, les bédéphiles…
Flemish cartoonist Steven De Rie created this poster for the 20th edition of the Wilrijk Comics Festival. Try and find all references to characters and comics-related news items.
This take on H.G. Wells’ classic War Of The Worlds by Edgar P. Jacobs was published on the cover of the 2nd issue of Tintin Magazine for 1946. It clearly shows the influence of American illustrator like Harold Foster onJacobs’ art, which would later be replaced by an ever increasing tendency towards a more realistic version of Hergé’s ligne claire.
Jacobs also provided the illustrations for the serialised version of the story that ran in Tintin in those days. For these he wasn’t able to use color, which renders the art much more academic and sketchy, and less cartoony. But no less menacing. A selection is included after the break.
Last week I visited the Ever Meulen exhibition again, this time with my mom (who got me hooked on Meulen in the first place). And this time I took some pictures. They’re not that good, as I used a cameraphone and all artwork was behind quite reflective glass. So you’ll see me lurking here and there. We started off, by the way, with a quite nice self-portrait à la Française from 1999.
The young creative hopefuls at the RITS film school animation department in Brussels have found inspiration in the Tintin illustrations I’ve been posting for a while now, and they decided to do their own on their blog. Three examples have been posted so far, and they are quite promising - they show what an animated Tintin could be without the constraints of Hergé’s rigid style (in Dutch).
In case you were wondering what the Thompson Twins (or Jansen & Janssen, as they are called in Dutch) have been up to since 1983, when Hergé died, here’s your answer. They’re in real estate and doing pretty well for themselves, with six offices across the country, and Snowy endorsing their activities.
Their website is “all rights reserved”, but even in their impressive disclaimer there’s not a trace of Moulinsart or any other property statement. Strange… I’d even say, “Strange”.
