The death as been reported of Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper, aged 97.
No I hadn’t heard of her either.
She was the co-translator, with one Michael Turner, of Belgian writer/illustrator/genius Hergé.
The author of the Tintin books.
Read the obit. She was the person who translated Captain Haddock’s expostulations into English – ie she is responsible for “Blistering Barnacles”, “Thundering Typhoons” – etc etc
My question is – did you grow up with Tintin?
In New Zealand, we all did.
But when I moved to Australia in the early 80s, I discovered two essential differences between the Australian and New Zealand cultures (apart from all the indigenous cultural things that are now deservedly more prominent)
1. Australians did not grow up with Tintin
2. Australians did not grow up with Little Feat
Let us address No 1.
Did Afterworders grow up with Tintin?
When I was a kid the cartoons were on the tv and the announcer at the start would say “Herge’s Adventures of Tin Tin”. I could never get why they were on other days of the week.
We had the books at our small local library in Olton.
I recall that the announcer actually said, “HERGE’S ADVENTURES OF TINTIN!!!”.
Yes, very stentorian, the full March of Time style. That was the only bit that I liked. The rest I found tedious. Turns out he was a bit alt-right, anyway. Hence the haircut I suppose.
DONOVANs mighty influence, no doubt….
Loved Tin Tin. The Black Isle has even been translated into the Gaelic.
Hate those folk who insist on saying Tan Tan in a hideous Belgian drawl.
Tan Tan is a character in Spiral (Engrenages), anyway.
What I was trying to say was that it always sounded like “Thursday’s adventures of TinTin” to this 6 year old
Ah, thumbs up! Like the England football song “Sealions on a church”.
That just made me spit coffee through my nose. Thanks!
Top stuff! I never misheard it like that, ‘cos I already had a Tintin book with that phrase written across the front!
As well as everything else, I loved the accurate drawing of cars, planes, boats etc. Citroen Light 15s! DS19s!
Yes! The ‘Ligne Claire’ style as I believe it’s known, has captivated me since I was first given Cigars of the Pharaoh as a kid. A friend lent me ‘Tintin: The Complete Companion’, which shows Herge’s source material and the lengths he would go to get everything accurate, except the characters’ wonderfully expressive faces.
Although, like Asterix, the books are dated in their views on colonialism/race/women etc, the storytelling and visuals are a treat.
I’m led to understand that over the years some volumes have had alterations made to the artwork and dialogue to present a more modern representation of this ever-changing wold in which we’re living.
…. things are even changing in Lincolnshire.
I only took a Tintin out of the library if I couldn’t find an Asterix I wanted to read, though over the years that meant I probably did read all of them. At the time I thought my preference was due to Tintin being too much of a goody-goody, but in retrospect I think there was a layer of sophistication in the Tintin books which was going over my head (when it was less than 5′ from the floor).
Pretty much the same here, I’d say. I grew to love them later but as a young pup, I only read Tintin when the Asterixes were all out of the library.
Me three. I was about to post the very same. Asterix books were funny, whilst I found the Tintin ones a tad dull.
There’s a full set of those brill paperback editions right here, on the same shelves as the vinyls! I have one or two in French, given to me by the family I lodged with while living in Switzerland picking fruit for the late summer and autumn for a few years. They are great for picking up colloquialisms and everyday vocab, though you had to be careful you didn’t come across as a fantasist would-be detective to the unknowing recipient of your newly acquired phrases. I’ve also got the fab background books called ‘Tintin: The Complete Companion’, and ‘The Adventures of Tintin at Sea’. Love them all.
Ditto.
When I met my soon-to-be best friend Mr S in Grade Four, he had the full set of Tin Tin in hardcover, as well as Asterix. He’d also read all the Sherlock Holmes and James Bond books.
I’d never seen Tin Tin or Asterix, but they weren’t like the American comic books I discovered you could just buy by walking into a newsagent and handing over 15c (I’v always been slow on the uptake).
Fifty years later, he is a high-powered barrister working in international law, and I’m a suburban nobody. There might be a lesson there.
@Sniffity
Yes, but you’re an AWer, and from the sound of it, he’s not.
Hang about, let me think that through again
If I ever own a boat, it will be christened the Karaboudjan, though it’s more likely it will look like the little launch on the cover of The Black Island.
if I ever have a boat I’ll sail it on the ocean,
and if I ever have a pony, I’ll ride it on my boat
What an odd but charming lyric that is.
“Bashi Bazouk!” was my favourite Haddock exclamation, although I may have misremembered the spelling.
I adored TIntin books. I don’t own any though, as they were all read through library borrowing when I was young.
My favourite was The Blue Lotus, although I have no idea why and I can’t really remember the story now. I think I was into oriental stuff.
I vividly remember The Black Island though, and I think that was one I actually owned. Probably because Tintin actually came to my own country, which was very exciting. The illustrations in that one were magnificent and I remember copying them quite a lot trying to find my own style. He really managed to capture the look and feel of Scottish sea, rocks, ruins, heather, bracken, etc. I seem to remember reading that it was all done from photographs and Herge never actually visited Scotland however??
But, the answer to your question for me is yes: I grew up with Tintin and loved the books. The only one I remember felt a bit light and silly was The Castafiore Diamond. I also particularly loved one of the later ones where he wore flares instead of plus-fours, and he got involved in some kind of South American revolutionary uprising? Can’t remember the name.
Gen. Alcazar (a.k.a. Ramon Zarate) from “Tintin and the Picaros”!
^ Is he meant to look like a guitarist? Because he does.
He’s in AC/DC.
I have framed posters of the covers, in French, of ‘The Castafiore Emerald’ (probably my favourite in the series) and ‘King Ottokar’s Sceptre’ in my office – right in front of me as I type. 🙂
We went to a Tin Tin shop in Brussels about 23 years ago
https://boutique.tintin.com/en/
There’s one on Floral Street in Covent Garden.
Kiss me with your mouf….
Tarquin Gotch is a name to conjure with.
Given the Duffymeister’s rather cool and aloof persona at this time, it’s entirely appropriate that he should be represented by someone with this name. “Stephen ‘Tin Tin’ Duffy is managed by Bert Scroggins Associates” would have been plain wrong.
Absolutely loved them and passed this on to Twang Jr who has all the books and also a Red Sea Sharks poster in French on the bedroom wall which came from the wonderful Tin Tin museum in France. It’s a stately home which was actually the model for Marlinspike. Lovely day out.
https://www.chateau-cheverny.fr/en/
Incidentally in France it’s pronounced Tan Tan which is worrying.
Yebbut, they’re French. They can’t even say ‘beefsteak’ properly.
Plus, as George W pointed out, they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.
Those Amurcans eh? Can’t even walk on the pavement.
Never liked The Thompson Twins
I read the Tintin stories when I had overnighters with a friend called Tim, so I kind of associate them with him – friendly and unassuming. The Asterix stories I read from Ben, who was much wilder with bright orange hair. I enjoyed them equally but differently – the Tintin stories were more measured, more ordered, more sequenced, while Asterix could be very silly. I loved that both sets of books explored the world (well, Europe mainly, in Asterix’s case), so the journeys, the worlds the writers created were as enjoyable as the characters and stories within them.
When I left school and went to Brussels for a year, I bought all the main canon, bit by bit from a branch of WH Smiths , starting with my favourites, which were Secret of the Unicorn/Red Rackham’s Treasure and Destination Moon/Explorers on the Moon. Those for me are peak Tintin, because all the main characters are assembled and they all have their parts to play in the stories. The Eastern Europe/Middle East/Latin America ones are OK, particularly when Tintin goes back over similar ground in successive books. The repetition of minor characters through the series was a kind of ‘Where’s Wally’ pleasure, and I enjoyed identifying the anonymous gallery of portraits in the front and back of the hardback editions.
The only thing that really spoiled the almost perfect run (apart from early aberrations like Land of Soviets and Congo, and the never realized Alph-Art) was when a redesign of the Cigars of The Pharaohs had a character come up to Tintin with a copy of Explorers on the Moon.
…But that’s not possible! He hadn’t even met Haddock by the time of the Pharaohs story! Illusions shattered…
I’m getting serious nostalgia vibes from this thread and desperate to read Tintin again now.
Loved the tv series as a kid. Read the books from the library and knocked out by the illustrations. Coveted them to own but never got round to it until quite recently.
We visited some pals in Brussels and went a bit mental with the wallet in the TinTin shop.
Hergé and TinTin were Hollywood huge in their heyday.
Absolutely love Tintin & have since I was a kid.
My older Sis had a few of the books in French she used to improve her language skills & I twigged fairly early on that the narratives were so well laid out you could pretty much follow the story with no understanding at all.
We have quite a few merch items around the house, a moon rocket, various pretty classy mugs & tea cups as well as my fave breakfast bowl.
Both my daughters had Tintin pyjamas AND dressing gowns & still treasure their plush ‘Snowies’ & the figures they used to play with at bath time.
I guess I allowed myself to succumb to the merchandise as it was always much classier than the Disney equivalent stuff that bombarded us as parents at a particular stage – the Herge estate is famously being pretty picky about agreeing to licensing.
There was also a terrific stage production of ‘Tintin In Tibet’ that toured the UK 15 or so years back.
There were so many potential pitfalls- not least the casting of Snowy ( played by a human) but it was an absolute triumph & genuinely stylish.
Tintin as a character is borderline dull of course, being such a plucky good egg, but the other characters such as Calculus & Haddock are beautifully rendered & minor figures like Jolyon Wagg, General Alcazar & the Milanese Nightingale, Madam Castafiore are so delightful that rereading the titles after a suitable pause is like slipping into comfy slippers.
Good point – the pleasure of re-reading them; they really do stand up to it don’t they? I keep them here in the room I use as an office, and roughly once every two or three years, I pull one out and read it from start to finish. Then I get tempted and another one follows. Once sated and reminded of their brilliance they all go back on the shelf until the cycle repeats, always in a different order of consumption depending upon my mood when I start again.
I loved Tintin. I never read the stories now, mostly because the books are all in my Dad’s loft, but I do have a bust of his head on the windowsill halfway up my stairs. He tends to wear a revolving series of hats and the occasional scarf.
I’m really sorry to hear that you bust your head on the windowsill when you’re halfway up your stairs. I don’t think revolving hats and scarves will help – you probably need to speak to a builder. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Specsavers right now.
“Hey Captain how about we put some bowie on and get hammered”
At a meme store near you, now.
Get a fix. That’s all.
Anybody see the Spielberg film? I thought it was ….. ok
It was rather odd but we enjoyed it.
Very uncanny valley, I thought. And they mished together too many stories – it was like one of my dodgy mash-ups.
https://rave.dj/wuWxA2567LLyRg
Loved Tintin, had all of the albums growing up (still do, still revisit occasionally).
In Swedish of course; the original Swedish translators are also beloved for the now classic expressions they made up for Captain Haddock. The translations were however also full of mistakes, so they’ve made new translations in later years, correcting all of the oddities. But the most loved old expressions were kept as was, to avoid upsetting the fans…
Anfäkta och anamma! Bomber och granater!
This would seem to be the place to (re)mention Anthea Bell. mother of the redoubtable Martin Bell, but more importantly largely responsible for the English translations of the Asterix books.
Full sets of Tintin and Asterix were present and correct in this Australian child’s house in the 1970s, as they are in my children’s house now (the same copies, in some instances).
Had to pay a library fine of over a pound for keeping a Tintin book well beyond its due date. I had sleepless nights over that.
We had one of them in French and my (much older) brother helped me read and understand it by explaining what was going on and translating the words. I’m sure I remember Snowy’s bark being shown as “pan! pan!” but I seem to have imagined that.
Probably pin pin…..