Showing posts with label Tintin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tintin. Show all posts

Books about Herge and Tintin

Along with 24 volumes of comic adventures, there are numerous non-fiction books focused on Tintin and his creator, cartoonist Herge. Here are some of the best:


Tintin: the Complete Companion
A fully illustrated guide to the world-famous comic character Tintin, and his adventures. This well-researched and gorgeously presented overview follows Tintin through the 23 titles of the complete series. Tintin is the classic example of groundbreaking graphic narrative that all others can be compared to. Written and drawn between 1929 and 1976, the 23 adventures of Tintin, his dog Snowy and an unforgettable cast of characters has become a defining standard of graphic literature. The Complete Companion contextualizes the work of Tintin's creator, Hergé, and places it in its historical context. Author Michael Farr shows Hergé's drawings side by side with their references, demonstrating how he established believable backgrounds and realistic details. The Companion includes a large number of sketches, which Hergé would re-work and polish until he found the clearest, most easily readable line-giving birth to a style that would later be called Clear Line. The Adventures of Tintin mix universal appeal, adventure and slapstick, drama and humor in a collection of stories that have stood the test of time and whose art style has been adopted by new generations of European cartoonists. This is the ultimate companion to the Adventures of Tintin.


The Adventures of Herge: Creator of Tintin
Following on from his best selling Tintin: The Complete Companion, Michael Farr portrays the little known but fascinating life of Herge, the remarkable artist behind Tintin, the boy reporter who continues to thrill and delight an ever-widening audience. In seven separate sketches he presents his picture of a man whose life is the key to his creation.


Herge: The Man Who Created Tintin
Timed to coincide with Steven Spielberg's long-awaited film The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, here is the first full biography of Herge available for an English-speaking audience, offering a captivating portrait of a man who revolutionized the art of comics. Granted unprecedented access to thousands of the cartoonist's unpublished letters, Assouline gets behind the genial public mask to take full measure of Herge's life and art and the fascinating ways in which the two intertwine. Neither sugarcoating nor sensationalizing his subject, he weighs such controversial issues as Herge's support for Belgian imperialism in the Congo and his alleged collaboration with the Nazis. He also analyzes the underpinnings of Tintin--how the conception of the character as an asexual adventurer reflected Herges love for the Boy Scouts as well as his Catholic mentor's anti-Soviet ideology--and relates the comic strip to Herge's own place within the Belgian middle class. 


The Art of Herge, Inventor of Tintin: Volume 1: 1907-1937
The first in a three-volume series, The Art of Herge presents a selection of Herge's outstanding, often unpublished drawings showing the diversity of his work and offering the reader a view of the range of his talent. Georges Remi, better known as Herge, the creator of Tintin & Snowy, was born a century ago. He left us an exceptional legacy.


The Art of Herge, Inventor of Tintin: Volume 2: 1937-1949
The second in a three-volume series, this is a selection of Herge's outstanding, often unpublished, drawings showing the diversity of his work and offering the reader a view of the range of his talent. The period illustrated in this volume is fascinating on a number of counts. It marks the maturity of Hergé, the creator and artist. In 1937 Hergé was only 30, but he had already laid down enough markers to lay claim to his future territory - the strip cartoon. It was during this period that he began to render the Adventures of Tintin in color. The period covered in this volume was also marked by the national and international political tensions, and mounting dangers, that boiled over into the Second World War. From his childhood onwards, Herge produced a vast number of drawings, and these are all presented in chronological order, with many high quality reproductions, all accompanied by concise commentary, allowing us a closer look into the artist's daily routine, and by extension, his thoughts.


The Art of Herge, Inventor of Tintin: Volume 3: 1950-1983
 This third volume of The Art of Herge covers the years 1950 to 1983, The prolific output of the master of the "clear line" included advertisements, comic strips, illustrations, fashion designs and caricatures. In this series, Herge's work is presented in chronological order, with many high-quality reproductions of the art. The artwork is accompanied by concise commentary, allowing us a closer look into the artist's daily routine and output.


Tintin and the World of Herge: An Illustrated History
Examines the early life and career of artist Hergé, discussing the development of Tintin, influences on Hergé's work, and the international popularity of the Tintin series.


Tintin and the Secret of Literature
Arguing that the Tintin books' characters are as strong and their plots as complex as any dreamed up by the great novelists, Tom McCarthy asks a simple question: Is Tintin literature? Taking a cue from Tintin himself — who spends much of his time tracking down illicit radio signals, entering crypts, and decoding puzzles — McCarthy suggests that we too need to “tune in” and decode if we want to capture what's going on in Hergé's extraordinarily popular work. What emerges from McCarthy's examination of Tintin is a remarkable story of illegitimacy and deceit, in both Hergé's work and his own family history. McCarthy's irresistibly clever, tightly constructed book shows how the themes Tintin generates — expulsion from home, violation of the sacred, the host-guest relationship turned sour, and anxieties around questions of forgery and fakes — are the same that have fueled and troubled writers from the classical era to the present day.


Hergé, Son of Tintin
Author of the critically acclaimed Tintin and the World of Hergé and the last person to interview Remi, Benoît Peeters tells the complete story behind Hergé's origins and shows how and why the nom de plume grew into a larger-than-Remi personality as Tintin's popularity exploded. Drawing on interviews and using recently uncovered primary sources for the first time, Peeters reveals Remi as a neurotic man who sought to escape the troubles of his past by allowing Hergé's identity to subsume his own. As Tintin adventured, Hergé lived out a romanticized version of life for Remi.


The Metamorphoses of Tintin: or Tintin for Adults
Published in French in 1984 and republished many times since, this pioneering work examines the long career of both the cartoonist and his creation. Hergé's right-wing upbringing, all too apparent in his first two albums, brought accusations of misogyny, anti-Semitism, and racism, but in the endless revisions he undertook over the course of his career, he proved skillful at evading his critics. After the Second World War, Tintin's adventures became more psychological than political, thus appealing to a wider range of readers. He left behind the real world and came to occupy the center of a fictional universe where he tirelessly championed the underdog. A figure without origins, he turned international hero at the very moment that Western nations were becoming homogenized and transmitting their commodities and values on a global scale. Arguing that the series of albums thus offers a reflection on the whole of twentieth-century life, Jean-Marie Apostolidès traces the evolution of Tintin's character and reveals the unity of Hergé's masterpiece.

A history of Tintin on screen

The recent Steven Spielberg-Peter Jackson film isn't the first on-screen venture for Hergé's boy reporter. He's been featured in a variety of animated and live-action films over the years.

Recently, the great U.S. music and video label Shout! Factory has issued compilations of the 1990s "'Adventures of Tintin" animated adventures on disk. They also are available to download via Amazon and iTunes.

Here's a trailer:





There also was an animated series titled "Hergé's Adventures of Tintin" that ran from 1959 to 1963, featuring 104 five-minute episodes, which seem to all be available on YouTube, but not yet on DVD. Several VHS editions have been released in French and English. Here's a peek:


Other Tintin productions include:

"The Crab with the Golden Claws" in 1947, a black-and-white, stop-motion puppet production.



"Tintin and the Golden Fleece" in 1961,  French live-action films:


"Tintin and the Blue Oranges" in 1964, a live-action follow-up to "Tintin and the Golden Fleece":


"Tintin and the the Temple of the Sun," a 1969 animated adventure:



"Tintin and the Land of Sharks," a 1972 animated film:



Complete listing of Tintin books

New readers will find that Tintin's comics adventures by Hergé come in a variety of different formats, and you may not know the reading order.

Although you won't get terribly confused if you read the books out of sequence, some adventures do lead into others and characters sometimes refer to events from previous stories. The adventures are listed chronologically below.

As to format, you can go with the full-size, single "albums" or, if you're ok with the beautiful artwork being a little smaller, the more economical three-adventures-in-one volumes.

As a tie-in to the 2011 Tintin movie, there are also several "young-reader" versions of the books. In these, the adventures are intact, but supplemented with historical information that ties into the stories.

Note that the Tintin books have been in print for decades now in various editions. The links below are an attempt to connect readers to in-print copies of the books in the most common different formats. You can click the links to order the discounted books from Amazon.


Complete comics adventures of Tintin, in order:


1. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
Sent on assignment to the Soviet Union, Tintin boards a train. . . but after an explosion, Tintin is blamed for the bombing, and he must make his way to the Soviet Union by stealth. Once there, he uncovers some shocking Bolshevik secrets.
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin : Tintin in the Land of the Soviets / Tintin in the Congo


2. Tintin in the Congo 
Tintin and his dog Snowy travel to the Belgian Congo to report on the situation of the country there. Once in the central African nation, the duo get into various adventures, encountering wild animals, friends and foes amongst the local black and white people, and American diamond smugglers in the employ of Al Capone.
NOTE: "Tintin in the Congo" reflects the colonial attitudes of that period in its depiction of African people, which may cause offence to some readers. Herge himself admitted that he was influenced by the bourgeois, paternalistic stereotypes of the period.This entry refers to the most common version of the book. There are versions that include Herge's original, black-and-white comic strip version of the book, which he later re-drew and revised for this volume.
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin, Vol. 1 : Tintin in the Land of the Soviets / Tintin in the Congo 


3. Tintin in America
Tintin and Snowy travel to the U.S. to report on a crime syndicate.
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Young readers edition
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in America / Cigars of the Pharaoh / The Blue Lotus


4. Cigars of the Pharaoh
Tintin tries to take a vacation, but while on his cruise ship a mystery unfolds! He meets Dr. Sarcophagus who leads him to the undiscovered tomb of the Pharaoh Kih-Oskh.
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Young readers edition
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in America / Cigars of the Pharaoh / The Blue Lotus


5. The Blue Lotus
A sequel to "Cigars of the Pharoah," with Tintin continuing his struggle against a major gang of drug smugglers. 
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Young readers edition
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in America / Cigars of the Pharaoh / The Blue Lotus


6. The Broken Ear
A sacred tribal statue has been stolen from the museum! Tintin and Snowy are on the case! Clues lead them straight into the heart of the jungle.
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Young readers edition
Combined volume:  The Adventures of Tintin: The Broken Ear / The Black Island / King Ottokar's Sceptre


7. The Black Island
Investigating a mysterious plane crash, Tintin discovers he's onto something big! The case leads Tintin to Scotland, where he learns of a monster that stalks a lonely island.
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Young readers edition
Combined volume:  The Adventures of Tintin: The Broken Ear / The Black Island / King Ottokar's Sceptre


8. King Ottokar's Sceptre
Tintin meets Professor Alembick, an expert with a very rare royal seal in his collection-the seal of King Ottokar the IV of Syldavia. Tintin joins the professor on his trip to this foreign land, but can the Professor be trusted?
Formats
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume:  The Adventures of Tintin: The Broken Ear / The Black Island / King Ottokar's Sceptre


9. The Crab with the Golden Claws
As Tintin is investigating a mysterious can of crab and a drowned sailor, he meets Haddock, a "miserable wretch" who's being kept in ample alcohol so his insidious first mate, Allan, can run a drug operation.
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: The Crab with the Golden Claws / The Shooting Star / The Secret of the Unicorn


10. The Shooting Star
A meteorite collides with Earth! Tintin is part of the expedition to the Arctic Ocean to locate the fallen star. But they aren't the only ones hungry to make the new discovery-someone is trying to sabotage Tintin and his team!
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Young readers edition
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: The Crab with the Golden Claws / The Shooting Star / The Secret of the Unicorn

 
11. The Secret of the Unicorn
Tintin stumbles across a model ship at the Old Street Market. Only it isn't just any model ship-it's the Unicorn, carved by one of Haddock's ancestors, and it holds a clue to finding pirate treasure!
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Young readers edition
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: The Crab with the Golden Claws / The Shooting Star / The Secret of the Unicorn

 
12. Red Rackham's Treasure
Tintin and Captain Haddock set sail aboard the Sirius to find the sunken remains of the Unicorn ship and notorious pirate Red Rackham's treasure.
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Young readers edition
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure / The Seven Crystal Balls / Prisoners of the Sun


13. The Seven Crystal Balls
Seven explorers return from an expedition in the Andes, where they unearthed the tomb of an Incan priest. One by one, they fall into a coma. Can Tintin figure out what is causing the mysterious illness? 
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure / The Seven Crystal Balls / Prisoners of the Sun


14. Prisoners of the Sun
Tintin discovers that one of the last Incan descendants has kidnapped his missing friend, Professor Calculus. Tintin and Captain Haddock follow the kidnapper to Peru--can they save Calculus?
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure / The Seven Crystal Balls / Prisoners of the Sun


15. Land of Black Gold
Car engines have started spontaneously exploding all over the country . . . someone's been tampering with the oil! Tintin, with Thompson and Thompson at his side, sails on an oil tanker to the Middle East to track down the source of the faulty oil.
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: Land of Black Gold / Destination Moon / Explorers on the Moon


16. Destination Moon
 Professor Calculus is building a rocket, but Tintin quickly realizes that there are spies around every corner trying to steal the professor's design! When Professor Calculus' rocket finally takes off for the moon, Tintin and his dog Snowy are on board. 

Formats:
Full-size hardover, softcover Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: Land of Black Gold / Destination Moon / Explorers on the Moon


17. Explorers on the Moon
Picking up where Destination Moon left off, Professor Calculus and Tintin discover a secret agent has managed to sneak onboard the rocket with plans to hijack it and abandon everyone on the moon!
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: Land of Black Gold / Destination Moon / Explorers on the Moon


18. The Calculus Affair 
Tintin and Captain Haddock peek in Professor Calculus' laboratory to find a sonic device and a very mysterious-and violent!-stranger. Realizing that Calculus' life is in danger, Tintin and the Captain rush to warn him before it's too late.
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: The Calculus Affair / The Red Sea Sharks / Tintin in Tibet


19. The Red Sea Sharks
When his old friend Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab is overthrown by Sheikh Bab El Ehr, Tintin goes to his aid. But before Tintin can help return his friend to power, he will have to survive shipwrecks, fires, and worst of all, Abdullah, the emir's rotten son.
Formats:
Fullsize hardcover, softcover
 Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: The Calculus Affair / The Red Sea Sharks / Tintin in Tibet


20. Tintin in Tibet
One day Tintin reads about a plane crash in the Himalayas. When he discovers that his friend, Chang, was on board. Tintin travels to the crash site in hopes of a rescue.
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: The Calculus Affair / The Red Sea Sharks / Tintin in Tibet


21. The Castafiore Emerald
When Tintin and Captain Haddock happen across a community of gypsies they invite them home . . . just as Bianca Castafiore, the famous opera singer, decides to visit Tintin. It's chaos at Marlinspike Hall, and then a precious emerald goes missing!
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: The Castafiore Emerald / Flight 714 / Tintin and the Picaros


22. Flight 714
On their way to Sydney, Tintin and Captain Haddock run into an old friend, a pilot who offers them a ride on a private jet. But when the plane gets hijacked, Tintin and the Captain find themselves prisoners on a deserted volcanic island!
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: The Castafiore Emerald / Flight 714 / Tintin and the Picaros


23. Tintin and the Picaros
Bianca Castafiore, Thomson and Thompson are being imprisoned for allegedly attempting to overthrow General Tapioca's dictatorship. Tintin, Professor Calculus, and Captain Haddock set out to clear their friends' names.
Formats:
Full-size hardcover, softcover
Combined volume: The Adventures of Tintin: The Castafiore Emerald / Flight 714 / Tintin and the Picaros


24. Tintin and Alph-Art (unfinished work)
The unfinished final adventure of Tintin featuring Herge's black-and-white sketches. Opera singer Bianca Castafiore has a guru: Endaddine Akass is handing his advice out to everyone, but Tintin doesn't buy it-especially when he realizes that Akass might be connected to the death of the owner of an art gallery, who had been on his way to see Tintin when he died.
Formats: 
Full-size hardcover, softcover