Thursday, January 7, 2010

Tintin English Facsimile Editions in Color

I recently discovered a curious set of Tintin editions in English. Published by Egmont in 2008, they are known as the "English Colour Facsimiles".

Tintin as most of us know evolved in form and content and style over long periods during the first half of the 20th century. Beginning as black and white periodical comic strips, it evolved into the book form, and then at a later point was introduced in color.


The style, language and content kept refining. Censorship played a role in its evolution as well, primarily related to racial sterotyping. Even the paper on which these stories are printed accquired a distracting gloss reducing the charm of the matt, somewhat muted colors that are vintage Herge.


These books are wonderfully made hardbound , have a cloth like spine and brings out the soft and enchanting coloring that is known of Franco-Belgian comics in general and Tintin in particular.



The Back Cover Reads: The Tintin Classic Collection by Hergé. Published in English for the first time, this is the original colour edition that first appeared over 50 years ago. An essential edition for Tintin enthusiasts! Editions available: The Black Island (1943); The Broken Ear (1943); Tintin in America (1945); The Blue Lotus (1946); King Ottokar's Sceptre (1947); Cigars of the Pharaoh (1955).



These are available at Amazon (UK) where I got them from. The Tintin Shop (UK) and Egmont (UK).



The English Colour Facsimiles are the exact replicas of the first color versions minus the censorship. There are currently six books published in this format. I just got hold of them, and they are simply stunning. The best Tintin books I have to date!

4 comments:

Ernesto said...

They are lovely editions indeed.

yonan32 said...

these has been out for more than a year, check Tintinologist.org.

for example, Cigars of Pharaoh:
http://tintinologist.org/guides/books/04cigars.html

Unknown said...

What do you mean these are exact copies minus the censorship? Are they censored or not?

Ganapathy Subramaniam said...

these facsimile editions are uncensored. they are NOT censored.