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    Tintin

    I mentioned on Mundane Thread how Mrs Thistle scored me a stack of hardback Tintin books in a charity shop recently. Most of them are ones I didn't have as a kid.

    Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
    Tintin in the Congo
    Tintin in America
    The Blue Lotus
    The Broken Ear

    I had Tintin in America when I was a kid. The rest aren't ones I'd read before.

    I read a book about Herge and Tintin which explains why the early stories are so ropey - a lot of the weekly strips ended up omitted in the book versions, which is why the plot jumps on or seemingly very minor characters end up being involved in the shenanigans.

    I started reading The Broken Ear. It suffers from jumping about narrative. And then unexpectedly features Tintin blacked up in an undercover role. Maybe I'm too sensitive but that was a WTF moment.

    (I've read the Congo story before so I know there are racism issues with some of the back catalogue)

    #2
    Sorry.


    Been too busy down in the Central Children's Library defacing every copy of Rupert on the Island of Coons by the racist shit at the Daily Express.

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      #3
      Originally posted by Guy Profumo View Post
      Sorry.


      Been too busy down in the Central Children's Library defacing every copy of Rupert on the Island of Coons by the racist shit at the Daily Express.
      It's good to have a hobby, I suppose

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        #4
        Can you get Congo in English over there? I had to buy it in French here.

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          #5
          "Good" used copy currently going for USD 7.39 on AbeBooks.

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            #6
            Yes, Congo was released in a new format a few years back, complete with warnings about the way African people are depicted.

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              #7
              Good tips, both. I'll see if I can track it down.

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                #8
                For a boy reporter, he never did file many stories...

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                  #9
                  Expense reports, on the other hand. . .

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by WOM View Post
                    For a boy reporter, he never did file many stories...
                    The whole point was that the cartoons were the filed stories.

                    That was the conceit behind the series.

                    Please.

                    Try to keep up.

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                      Expense reports, on the other hand. . .
                      Oh do fuck off.

                      He was never an MP.

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                        #12
                        I've just finished reading The Blue Lotus, which is a sequel of sorts to Cigars of the Pharaoh. I don't have a copy of Cigars, but I have read it relatively recently.

                        The Blue Lotus is all about opium smuggling and politics (Japan invading China under pretense of restoring order) and has some worthy comments about how Europeans need to properly understand Chinese culture and so on. There is a funny bit where Tintin talks about how Europeans think of Chinese people as stereotypes and then Thompson and Thomson turn up "in disguise" looking exactly like those stereotypes.

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                          #13
                          I really enjoyed reading Tintin and the Secret of Literature by Tom McCarthy and heartily recommend it.

                          The series only really gets going with Cigars of the Pharaoh doesn't it? I didn't realise that a colourised version of Land of the Soviets had been done.

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                            #14
                            Tbh I feel The Secret of the Unicorn is the watershed in terms of quality. Everything up to then is patchy.

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                              #15
                              Probably in terms of plot yes. But the characterisations are there in Cigars. I'm hesitant to talk about the look of them as lots were redone in later weren't they? Like The Black Island being redrawn to remove guns and to make it look more accurately British.

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                                #16
                                I find it quite interesting that in Blue Lotus and Broken Ear, Tintin has an automatic pistol which he regularly draws on people. In later books he is rarely armed.

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                                  #17
                                  I'm pretty sure that goes back to Soviets. A second for the McCarthy book from me.

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                                    #18
                                    I'll be ordering that, pronto.

                                    For something truly different, read Tintin in the New World by Frederic Tuten.

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                                      #19
                                      I dug up a pdf of the Tintin book that I had as a child. Tintin and the lake of sharks. I could remember every frame. I read it religiously at the time because it was a book I had and I was 9. I must admit, that looking back at it, I didn't feel the need to buy any more of them. Tintin is basically an alpha jon Snow, but duller, and tintin and the lake of sharks seems heavily influenced by the Connery Bond films in terms of what a criminal mastermind would be up to. But it's just basically humourless. On the other hand I moved small mountains to get my hands on every Asterix. (I think it helped that my dad also wanted to read them. There used to be three frames of Asterix in the Irish times every day) God I loved Asterix.

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                                        #20
                                        Herge hated Asterix because of all the puns and wordplay. Asterix was always my fave when I was a kid.

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                                          #21
                                          For some reason I have never been able to determine, Tintin was a thing in the US, whereas Asterix was unknown outside of Francophone circles.

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                                            #22
                                            I loved Asterix. I'd read Tintin if I couldn't find anything else in the library that I fancied, but I would actively search out every Asterix book (and borrow many of them repeatedly)

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                                              #23
                                              I was huge into Tintin, while Ms Frenchy French has gone on about Asterix for 20+ years. I've still never read one.

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                                                #24
                                                I'd be interested to know if she has a theory as to their relative popularity over here.

                                                I have wondered whether it has to do with Americans being woefully ignorant about the classical world in general, whereas Tintin inhabits more of a Raiders of the Lost Ark world.

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                                                  #25
                                                  I just asked her (she popped home at lunch to pick up some maths lessons). She said "It's based around French culture and history, and who'd be interested in that over here?" She also said she's never read a word of them in English.

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