[HN Gopher] Tintin, Herge and Chang
___________________________________________________________________
Tintin, Herge and Chang
Author : webmobdev
Score : 253 points
Date : 2023-06-25 13:33 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thewire.in)
(TXT) w3m dump (thewire.in)
| thealienthing wrote:
| I was big into Tintin as a kid as well in 2000. I checked out
| library books and eventually began to purchase my own volumes
| every time we went on a family road trip. My nephews recently
| found them at my parents and I'm happy to see they are enjoying
| them as much as I did.
| jeremy_wiebe wrote:
| I remember borrowing Tintin books from my local library in rural
| Manitoba, Canada! I would get every one that I could transferred
| to my branch. That was in the early '80's
| nmstoker wrote:
| Likewise I did so with my local library. There was a natural
| rotation of the books but some were definitely harder to get
| transferred!
| qawwads wrote:
| IMHO Tintin is at his best when dealing with international
| politic like in Le Lotus bleu, L'Oreille cassee, Le Sceptre
| d'Ottokar, L'Affaire Tournesol, Au Pays de l'or noir.
| bombcar wrote:
| I remember really liking that the different areas were really
| different. Not where everything is basically a copy of Los
| Angeles.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Fun fact, Herge's real name was George Remy and his initials
| backwards are RG or Herge.
| gettodachoppa wrote:
| I didn't know Franco-Belgian comics were so popular outside of
| french-speaking countries.
|
| IMO here are the main differences between Franco-Belgian and
| American comics:
|
| 1. not a single comic (at least the ones written before the
| Marvel movies began dominating the culture) is about superheroes.
| Every protagonist is a normal person, though sometimes extremely
| competent. This results in much more variety in the industry. I'm
| not sure why they didn't even try to copy the American model if
| only for business reasons, but I'm thankful for it.
|
| 2. Each comic usually gets a single 50-page issue per year.
| (Seriously, there's a series I've been reading since I was 8, and
| you can marathon it in a few sittings.) I think this reduces the
| amount of "filler issues" or low quality churn, as the author has
| lots of time to get things right.
|
| 3. Most of the time the comics are written by the same author,
| usually the creator of the characters. They're not getting pimped
| out to every author out there for a run. It makes things more
| cohesive IMO.
|
| My favorite series is Thorgal, by the author of XIII and Largo
| Winch. It's a fantasy series set at the time of the vikings, with
| light sci-fi and magical elements. Think of it like Conan but
| with a non-violent hero. Read issue 9, The Archers, for an
| standalone story that can give you an idea of what it's like
| before you commit. It's been running since the 80s, but once the
| author retired a decade or so ago, some younger guy took over the
| writing, and you can see the quality of the writing drop off, so
| I never kept up. But you got 30 years worth of good books, about
| 35 issues IIRC.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Thorgal was pretty big here in Poland because up until 2018 the
| illustrator was Grzegorz Rosinski, who is Polish.
|
| I remember Franco-Belgian comics being more popular around here
| - partly because those few American comics which you could see
| on store shelves usually contained a lot of gore, so they were
| appropriately labeled.
| brazzy wrote:
| > not a single comic (at least the ones written before the
| Marvel movies began dominating the culture) is about
| superheroes.
|
| Um... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdupont
| senko wrote:
| You've proved the parent's general point. From that page:
|
| > It is a spoof of American super-hero comics that sends up
| French national attitudes.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I never understood US obsession with people fighting in ugly
| pajamas.
| pyb wrote:
| Regarding 2., in the 1950-70s, these comics used to be
| published in weekly magazines first, and only published as
| albums a bit later.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Every protagonist is a normal person, though sometimes
| extremely competent.
|
| Or extremely incompetent! Gaston LaGaffe springs to mind, it's
| one of the most endearing and nice comics that I've had the
| pleasure to read.
|
| And in a way Asterix _is_ a superhero.
|
| What strikes me about European comics from that era is that
| they are in general much more interesting culturally.
| vidarh wrote:
| Gaston LaGaffe is finally available in English as Gomer Goof
| for those who can't read French (or any of the many other
| languages, including minor ones like Norwegian, who got
| translations long before English)
| matthewaveryusa wrote:
| asterix heros are kind of brilliant like that. asterix is
| like superman but superman has superpowers that can be
| thwarted by kryptonite while asterix is simply the cleverest
| gauleois that makes the most out of getafix's potion (wait,
| get a fix?? is that a pun I just discovered after 20 years?)
| On the other hand obelix is a big dummy that always has the
| potion superpowers (by virtue of falling in a coldron of it
| when he was young) and is terrible at using his superpowers
| without the help of the cunning asterix.
| srean wrote:
| > wait, get a fix?? is that a pun I just discovered after
| 20 years?
|
| You must be kidding ! Readymix just doesnt cut it. My
| favourites are dubbelosix, squareonthehypothenus and
| dogmatix.
| andrepd wrote:
| Dogmatix is an especially brilliant one, since the
| original is Ideafix (stubborn, single-minded, literally
| "of fixed ideas"), and the translation not only manages
| to preserve that meaning but also add "Dog" to it :)
| srean wrote:
| Exactly! The translators did such a fantastic job over
| all. I would have imagined that kind of humor to be
| untranslatable.
| antod wrote:
| Yup, even as a kid I could tell the translators also had
| to be comedic geniuses too. I would constantly be
| marveling at the names, and how they were only a joke
| that made sense in English.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Same with the Muppets, whoever translated that show was
| doing an amazing job.
| ggambetta wrote:
| I grew up on Asterix, but translated to Spanish. The names
| were all different, but usually good puns too. Admirable
| that they made that work in every language they translated
| them to!
| Jarmsy wrote:
| The English translators did a great job. This page always
| stuck in my head for the wordplay: https://2.bp.blogspot.
| com/ZRlllWCKGjl9aKUy7F_WhgF4-B9fo74LY9...
| Jarmsy wrote:
| Most of the joke is the same as the original, but the
| 'mild and bitter' part is an addition by the translators.
| Here's a blog post on them with a comparison of this and
| a few other pages
| https://auntymuriel.com/2012/12/23/asterix-in-
| translation-th...
| jacquesm wrote:
| All the names are puns, even the translated ones. They're
| also super funny if you finally get it.
| RobinL wrote:
| A podcast on this topic that I enjoyed:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06txxmq
| shakow wrote:
| > wait, get a fix?? is that a pun I just discovered after
| 20 years?
|
| If it's like in the French original (where Getafix is
| Assurancetourix, i.e. assurance tous-risques, full-coverage
| insurance), every single character name is a pun; so keep
| searching if you're missing some ;)
| AntiqueFig wrote:
| > where Getafix is Assurancetourix
|
| Panoramix*
| shakow wrote:
| Geez, you're right :/
|
| Welp, here is my excuse to binge the whole serie once
| again.
| glandium wrote:
| Assurancetourix is the bard.
| Jarmsy wrote:
| Who in the English became Cacofonix
| ilkke wrote:
| I have no source for this so anecdotal, but I read in some
| comic anthology that boycotting American superhero comics was
| an intentional act to preserve the local comics legacy. It
| didn't resist Manga equally well, though.
| trwired wrote:
| > not a single comic (at least the ones written before the
| Marvel movies began dominating the culture) is about
| superheroes
|
| I would argue that Rork - one of my favorite Franco-Belgian
| comic characters - counts as one. He would not feel very out of
| place at DC's Vertigo as Constantine's colleague of sorts.
|
| And then there are Asterix and his friend Obelix, who having
| access to powers unavailable to regular humans, go around
| solving problems by punching people particularly hard - just
| like a regular Marvel/DC character would. ;)
| OnlyMortal wrote:
| In the UK, Kaufje (TinTin), Asterix and Suske & Wiske (Janet &
| John) are well known
|
| So is the little rabbit thing I forget the name of.
|
| They are predominantly children's books, of course.
|
| Now... Rooi Oortjes isn't known.
| moomin wrote:
| And The Smurfs.
| murphyslaw wrote:
| Close, close... It's "Kuifje" and Rooie Oortjes" (Red Ears).
| I can't figure out the rabbit one you mention?
| trm42 wrote:
| Ooh, Tintin is one of the first comics I was introduced after
| Donald Duck (the Carl Barks stories are still as good as then!)
|
| Luckily the Franco-Belgian comics have been readily available in
| Finland and usually with good translations as well although not
| all jokes can be translated.
|
| From what I've heard, Asterix is notorious on the French
| wordplays that cannot be translated.
|
| There's so much more ideas and humanity in those compared to
| Marvel/DC stuff (which I happen to read occasionally as well but
| they are repeating the same stuff from decade to decade). The
| Franco-Belgian comics are the reason why I'm contemplating on
| learning French enough to be able read them in the original
| language.
|
| And don't forget that the Metal Hurlant comics anthology affected
| quite a lot of English comics as well.
| layer8 wrote:
| Yeah, translated Asterix is just not the same.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's not, but it was a fantastic stepping stone to learning
| other languages. You already had the story from your own so
| then you could learn to read in some other language and see
| if you got the jokes and if you could understand the story.
|
| There even were Latin editions.
| murphyslaw wrote:
| You can just get the name puns translated, they're not very far
| fetched (child level). The bard is Assurance-tout-risque =
| insures all risks, which is funny cause he gets beat up all the
| time.
| andrepd wrote:
| >Carl Barks stories
|
| Don Rosa is a worthy successor and by far the absolute best
| duck artist. All his stories are an absolute delight to read.
|
| No wonder he is extremely popular in many countries in Europe
| (Sweden, Italy), and almost unknown in the US :_
| StephenAmar wrote:
| Let's not forget the Donald Duck comics from Italy. They were
| huge in France.
| ttepasse wrote:
| ... and from Denmark. Those pocket books were huge in my
| childhood in the 80s and findable in multiple european
| countries so I was surprises to learn later that they weren't
| really a thing in the Duck's origin country.
| LelouBil wrote:
| I read a lot of Disney comics when I was 12-15.
|
| I don't know in what format people read them overseas but in
| France I was subscribed to two things :
|
| "Le journal de Mickey" (Mickey's newspaper) Which was a
| weekly 30-35 pages book with two Disney comics and some
| articles.
|
| "Mickey Parade Geant" (don't know a good translation sorry)
| which was a monthly ~200 pages pocket-sized Book aimed more
| at 15+ children, it had the best stories imo with reccuring
| ones.
|
| Both of these contained a lot of translated comics from
| Italy, Spain, etc...
|
| But Mickey Parade Geant always had a page before a story
| which indicated where it was from and a couple of facts about
| it's authors, sometimes even small interviews !
|
| These stories remind me of all the multiverse stuff going on
| in movies nowadays, because each time it was the same
| characters (Mickey, Donald, Goofy...) With (often) the same
| personalities but in different roles and times !
|
| I remember one where they were all superheroes (Ultra heroes
| I think), another where Mickey was a reporter in a big city,
| or one where he was a doctor ( and a bit unfriendly) in a
| parody of Dr House.
|
| I should re-read them all in the correct order someday !
| Bayart wrote:
| I've always thought Carls Barks and Don Rosa stories became
| much more important in Europe than in the US because they
| struck the same chords as do Tintin.
| ttepasse wrote:
| > (the Carl Barks stories are still as good as then!)
|
| >.. with good translations as well although not all jokes can
| be translated.
|
| Funnily enough I prefer reading the Barks and Rosa comics in
| german translations. One of the original translators put some
| wordplay and literary allusions into her translations - making
| them slightly different, but, I think, better:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erika_Fuchs
| alexdong wrote:
| Wikipedia entry: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Chongren
|
| "Zhang had been a street sweeper during the Cultural
| Revolution,[1] before becoming the head of the Fine Arts Academy
| in Shanghai during the 1970s."
| underlipton wrote:
| Tangential observation:
|
| "I don't understand why diversity in higher education admissions
| is important."
|
| Imagine if Herge had met a Congolese student before writing
| "Tintin in the Congo". The atrocities committed in the Congo Free
| State (which many credibly term a genocide) were in living memory
| at the time of publishing; the youngest survivors would have been
| in their twenties. This is an example of how universities often
| serve a public good for humanity as a whole, far and away from
| the notion that they exist simply to grab the highest-scoring
| domestic students possible and shove knowledge and elite
| connections down their throats. As TFA tells it, Sino-Western
| relations were altered for the better by Herge and Chang's
| encounter and subsequent friendship.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Herge never had any higher education. The argument is also
| questionable in general, because why bring up children
| segregated and then force "diversity" later? Why don't people
| push for diversity in kindergartens? By the time someone is
| grown up they can already be a well developed racist.
|
| Also on that note there were certainly plenty of Jews around
| when Herge grew up and still he stereotyped them with the
| typical antisemitic stereotypes of the time. Just because he
| had a Chinese friend doesn't mean he was any less racist for
| it. That's a misconception, that's exactly what the US gets
| terribly wrong these days. Diversity is almost like a religion
| over there, yet some of the most racist things I've heard were
| from people that went to those kinds of universities.
|
| Racist or not depends on the upbringing, the ideology one
| follows and generally if one subscribes to the pseudoscientific
| idea that there are separate human "races". What color people
| you know does not directly influence that. Else the world's
| racism could be cured by everyone knowing someone with a
| different skin color. South Africa is another sad example for
| how that doesn't work.
| underlipton wrote:
| Your contrarianism and pessimism is contradicted plainly by
| TFA; it is a positive example of higher education playing a
| crucial role in bringing together people of disparate and
| diverse expertise and background, who otherwise likely would
| not have met.
|
| I assume that something about my comment has caused you
| discomfort, and in being unable to argue against its central
| holding, you've instead invoked several tangentially-related
| tropes as straw men. I invite you to instead introspect wrt
| what about my comment caused you such discomfort that you
| felt compelled to write your reactionary reply.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| I still watch Tintin's animated series and the movie from time to
| time. They're just so well made, such amazingly adventurous
| stories.
|
| Idealistic guy, always standing up for righteousness, not afraid
| to be in difficult situations for people who are close to him.
| Many great moral lessons can be found in Tintin.
|
| They're on YouTube so whenever I feel like watching the
| 'Uncharted before Uncharted was a thing', I put up Adventures of
| Tintin (1991).
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Just don't read the original version of the Congo one. Even the
| corrected version to be honest.
| andrepd wrote:
| Quite the opposite. It's very important to (1) know what the
| accepted (in fact, majority) views were not that long ago,
| and (2) to witness an example of how a man could so clearly
| change his worldviews despite being educated and mentored in
| the Catholic ultraconservatism that gave him his former
| views.
| swores wrote:
| +1
|
| This was the one Tintin my mum wouldn't let me have as a
| child - at the time I thought it grossly unfair, and argued
| that surely she could just point out the aspects that were
| offensively racist the way she'd point out problematic
| aspects of anything else she might read to me / introduce to
| me to read myself.
|
| I don't remember the specifics, as it's the only Tintin story
| I've only read once rather than many times, but when I did
| read it in my early 20s I immediately told her that I no
| longer disagreed with her decision to keep it out of the
| hands of her children.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| I think its bad to censor these types of things. People need
| to see how we evolve as society and not hide this just
| because it could upset someone today.
| SomeoneOnTheWeb wrote:
| Quite the opposite. It's very interesting so see how his
| point of view on strangers and especially black people
| changed.
|
| In an interview, he told his story wasn't racist on purpose ;
| he truly believed that was how black people were based on the
| very few informations he had at the time - he never traveled
| outside of Belgium.
|
| When he made the next one with a chinese person, he contacted
| a student who was originally from China to educate himself on
| how Asia really was, the culture, the people, etc. And that's
| how he came up with one of the best books of this career.
| jtrip wrote:
| From the above article.
|
| >Herge met Chang Chong-Ren for the first time in Brussels
| in 1934 at the urging of one Abbe Gosset. Gosset, the
| chaplain to a group of Chinese Catholic students at Louvain
| University, had been concerned about the racist stereotypes
| in Herge's first two hugely popular Tintin books, Tintin in
| the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo, and urged
| him to 'do a little research' before embarking on his next
| book, The Blue Lotus, set in China.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Totally agree, but this context is important, the book in a
| vacuum is not the complete picture. The corrected version
| is much better, but there is still a lot of white
| saviorism. But Chang is indeed not a caricature.
| heywhatupboys wrote:
| > Just don't read the original version of the Congo one. Even
| the corrected version to be honest.
|
| I think adults can manage reading things they disagree with
| and consider inappropriate.
|
| people literally watch horror movies.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I know, I was saying that in jest, so as not to shatter the
| parent comment's view of Tintin. As an adult, you should
| read it and see the evolution in Herge.
| cubefox wrote:
| I remember reading those comics as a kid. They always felt
| special in a way that e.g. Spirou didn't. I think the article is
| right that the relatively higher amount of realism was one thing
| that set these comics apart. Also their "international" approach,
| with Tintin traveling around the world to investigate. Some of
| them were written like action/crime thrillers aimed at adults.
|
| The TV series was also pretty good. I still remember the dramatic
| intro with Tintin jumping from a train on a bridge into a river:
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=APrxbp3zpBw
|
| The more recent Tintin movie by Spielberg was also great. It had
| blockbuster vibes entirely comparable to Spielberg classics like
| Indiana Jones, but he kept it close enough to the source comic.
| Unfortunately Peter Jackson never made the second part.
| rubenv wrote:
| All this love for comics from Belgium and nobody mentioned the
| great Michel Vaillant?
| NeutralForest wrote:
| As a Belgian, it is always a surprise to see people from all
| around the world mention Tintin! I think a lot of us grew up with
| it as well as The Smurfs, Lucky Luke or "Spirou" and it's only
| when I was in my teens that I realized most of those were known
| internationally! Even though I'm in my twenties, I feel like this
| is one of the truly inter-generational piece of culture we share
| in a somewhat divided country.
| nborwankar wrote:
| I remember TinTin from high school in India in the 1970's.
| indus wrote:
| In order to not let the copy of Tintin deteriorate---I would
| get them bound---a few of them together. A faint memory
| recalls that they were in sequence eg. Explorers of the moon
| after Destination moon!
| indus wrote:
| I wish I still had them.
|
| All the treasure left behind when I moved to the United
| States.
| 8s2ngy wrote:
| Tintin was, and still is, immensely popular in my part of
| India. My parents were fond of Tintin while growing up, and
| they introduced me to it as a child in the mid-2000s. I loved
| reading the comic books; in fact, I read some of them many
| times over. One thing I found out later was that the names of
| the characters are changed across translations. For instance,
| in Bengali (the language I first read it in), Tintin's pet is
| called Kuttush, while in English it is Snowy. Anyways, it's
| interesting to think that one of the things I share in
| fondness with my parents is a comic book series from a
| country that is very far away from my own. Art can indeed
| transcend boundaries.
| agumonkey wrote:
| It's pretty cool, that these comics have been read so far and
| for so long. Being from a bit later, I had no idea they were
| already famous all the way to India.
| Arnavion wrote:
| I read them in India in the 90s and 2000s. IIRC the books
| were imported (price was printed in GBP) and made from very
| high quality paper, so they were too expensive for us to buy.
| But the book store owner was a school friend of my parents so
| he let me read them for free :D
| flashgordon wrote:
| Oh man this brings back memories. Internet was not a thing
| and I couldn't afford to buy them. So we had these makeshift
| "libraries" where you can "rent" books. Id pester the owner
| of the rental to get me particular Tintin/asterix books that
| my friends had read before me!!
| mcshicks wrote:
| I travelled to India and Nepal right after high school from
| Los Angeles in 1982. I bought a copy of Tintin in Tibet in
| India and it is still on my bookshelf all these years later.
| Really nice to read the backstory about Chang.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| I grew up reading Asterix and Tintin in the UK. Plus a lot of
| other French/Belgian comics which I've since forgotten. And of
| course British classics like Dandy and Beano.
|
| The thing with the French/Belgian comics is that the stories
| weren't just short skits but real stories. Self-contained in
| the case of Asterix and Tintin.
|
| As an adult I discovered manga and have never looked back. I've
| been reading one series for 20 years now (One Piece) and have
| finished countless others.
| hereonout2 wrote:
| Also British, and old to boot. I read Tintin extensively as a
| child and a bit of Asterix. Strangely I never really thought
| of them as comics before this discussion here, precisely
| because they were a single long form story per book. I
| actually remember most Tintins I read being proper hard back
| affairs loaned from the library.
|
| I read the Beano weekly which is my understanding of what a
| comic is, lots of two to three page skits as you say.
|
| I never really got into American comics such as Marvel, I
| guess they fit somewhere in the middle in terms of being a
| periodical but with a substantial storyline?
| meesles wrote:
| Hello fellow Belgian! It's always been tough to maintain the
| collecting overseas, what with expensive shipping costs. I've
| always found it peculiar that scanned francophone comics are
| not as prevalent as both American and Japanese comics.
|
| I feel like any graphic novel fan would eat up our classics
| like XIII
| murphyslaw wrote:
| And you too, fellow Belgian. But.. what are scans? You mean
| using a scanner instead of buying them?
| Moru wrote:
| The lacking scans might be because you can get them for free
| in most libraries round here. I borrowed loads of them at my
| local library in our tiny town, great comics! They were even
| translated to Swedish so I could start on them very early in
| life.
| andrepd wrote:
| It's one of the most translated series of books in the world!
| Certainly one of the most well-known BD/comics ever.
|
| I was at the Herge exhibition at the Gulbenkian Foundation a
| few months back and there was a wall with Tintin album covers
| in every language. It was quite a big wall!
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I also really liked _Gaston Lagaffe_. I find it even more
| interesting now because of its 60s-70s world.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| You should checkout the Fantasio series also by Franquin.
| It's almost all in the 50s and 60s. It's great!
| Interestingly, internationally, Franquin's biggest success
| seems to have been the marsupilami. The art is amazing and
| he's fun. I just wish it had been Gaston. M'enfin!
| ambicapter wrote:
| Spirou & Fantasio was an instrumental part of my childhood
| :) They even went grimdark at a certain point
| (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_qui_r%C3%AAve)
| though that wasn't very well received. That and Le Petit
| Spirou.
| jacquesm wrote:
| And the little jokes in every signature.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| There was an animated series that ran on Nickelodeon, a popular
| US kids' channel in the 90's, so I'd imagine that many
| Americans (like myself) are familiar with it for that reason.
| It also got me to read the comics which then lead to some
| questions about why my local library didn't carry certain ones.
| areoform wrote:
| They were the first french books I'd read. I loved Snowy and
| wanted to have a pet dog just like him.
|
| Tintin is surprisingly portable across generations, cultures,
| and genres.
| firebirdn99 wrote:
| Growing up in India, I had been a huge fan of Tintin. Reading
| books, and buying them, you had to be at least middle class,
| it wasn't accessible as libraries in the West. But still, was
| popular as I recall amongst the well educated since at least
| the late 90's and early 00's (when I grew up) I think.
| contingencies wrote:
| I rank it equally with _Asterix le Gaulois_. They are part of a
| larger comic category, _Bande dessinee_.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bande_dessin%C3%A9e
| NeutralForest wrote:
| Indeed, Asterix is French though! Other recommendations I can
| make are "Les Tuniques Bleues" (the Bluecoats) or Melusine
| the Witch. For adult readers, "Largo Winch" or "XIII" are
| both excellent comics.
| forty wrote:
| I'm not sure the French/Belgium split is that relevant for
| several reasons (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm French and
| don't want to wrongly appropriate Belgium culture):
|
| - most if not all of those characters are french speaking
|
| - lots of collaboration on those characters by French and
| Belgium author. For example Goscinny worked on Lucky Luke
| with Morris, the character of Spirou was created by Rob-Vel
| who is French, then worked on by Jije and Franquin, etc
|
| - though many were published in "Spirou", there were
| "Pilote", "Pig Gadget" and all which are French.
|
| I think the whole concept is named "Bande dessinee Franco-
| belge" (at least here in France, maybe the point of view is
| different on your side of the frontier ^^)
| NeutralForest wrote:
| Culturally speaking I think there's very little
| difference and you're right. Historically speaking
| though, many people associate the French language with
| France and we get told all those cartoons/comics are
| French which ruffle our Belgian feathers! Not a big issue
| to be frank, mostly that old rivalry between neighbors
| where we are the little guy =)
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| In one book, there is a contest of potions that panoramix
| goes to and there is a Belgian Gaul whose potion gives
| him the ability to remove fries from hot oil with his
| hands
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Internationally they are mostly known as Franco-Belgian
| comics as far as I know. When people speak of
| specifically Belgian comics I tend to think more along
| the lines of Flemish Willy Vandersteen (Suske & Wiske).
| swores wrote:
| From your username I guess you're dutch? Which may be
| relevant context to why you / people you know refer to
| the non-Flemish Belgian comics (and perhaps things other
| than comics?) as 'Franco-Belgian' if using French
| language while assuming that 'Belgian' without the
| specifier means Dutch language?
|
| I.e. the same way we all, wherever we're from, add extra
| words to define stuff that's not our default expectation
| ("a new neighbour moved in" if they're someone from the
| same place as us vs. "a new dutch neighbour" moved in if
| they're from that other country; or buying cheese in the
| shop vs. buying french cheese), just as a (subconscious
| often) time saving measure that there's no need to give
| the adjective when it fits the normal expectation.
|
| Not that I'm an expert on the international nomenclature
| of bande dessinee comics - though anecdotally, as a Brit
| (England, not Brittany haha) who grew up reading Asterix
| and above all Tintin, I thought of them (and think my
| parents called them) separately as French and Belgian
| respectively.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| The great Belgian treasure is Peyo's Johan et Pirlouit, which
| of course gave us the Smurfs. It's sad only the latter ever
| achieved global notoriety, as the former is among the greatest
| heights of cartooning.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I loved Pirlouit, especially biquette.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Just be thankful they didn't get modernized and mangled like
| the Smurfs. They ought to smurf whoever is responsible for
| that.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Agreed, but the Smurfs were easier to adapt to various themes
| and that's what made the series live.
|
| Including some hilarious ones like the smurfstrijd/taalsmurf,
| a play on the Belgian issue of language.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| Peyo apparently struggled with the Smurfs adaptations,
| however, as Americans (in their typical fashion) tried to
| make every plot about money:
|
| > "One key problem," said Delporte, "was motive. The
| Americans might envision a Smurf inheriting money, which
| then filled the other Smurfs with envy. Or they would
| picture a Smurf finding some treasure and these riches
| causing problems in the village. Or... a Smurf would try
| and sell Papa Smurf's secret formula. Everything they
| proposed, every plot, revolved around money."
|
| Peyo tried explaining that, for his characters, gain and
| greed were not even concepts. But these explanations were
| received as unthinkable. Says Delporte, "All they did was
| mutter behind Peyo's back. The view was 'This is all so
| sweet it's giving me cavities.'"
|
| https://www.tcj.com/behind-the-blue-the-story-of-peyo/
| jacquesm wrote:
| Culture clash. The Smurfs were originally just a
| sideshow, much like the Minions today. What's interesting
| is that the Smurfs world is already quite rich in and of
| itself and all of the characters are super funny without
| bringing in more elements from our own world. It's clear
| that they live more than a few hundred years ago. The way
| they interact and the various story lines as Peyo put
| them out probably simply don't appeal all that much to an
| American audience. Just like the Marvel/DC Comics
| universes (and everything that gets dragged into it, it's
| like a black hole) don't appeal all that much to me.
| apelapan wrote:
| Both Tintin and Asterix are appreciated surprisingly much by
| younger kids. I find them a bit awkward for loud reading, since
| you have to do so much pointing and so many voices to keep it
| coherent, but it is a good burden to carry.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Don't forget Yoko Tsuno, Achille Talon (they were my dads I
| didn't understand them), Agent 212, les 4 as, Blake and
| Mortimer, le chat, and so many more. Most of these are ligne
| claire style and I think that's herge's influence.
| ambicapter wrote:
| Yoko Tsuno and Blake&Mortimer were amazing sci-fi for a kid
| like me. Definitely big imagination-boosters.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Definitely, as a little kid Yoko Tsuno was much more
| understandable. But even though Blake and Mortimer was
| tougher, the art itself is amazing.
| tralarpa wrote:
| > tougher
|
| So much text, more like an illustrated book :)
|
| Btw, did you know that Jacobs helped Herge redrawing the
| backgrounds of some of the Tintin comics after the war?
| And Leloup (Yoko Tsuno) also worked for Herge before
| starting his own series. There is an interview with him
| on youtube.
| shakow wrote:
| > So much text, more like an illustrated book :)
|
| Speaking of walls of text, remember the explanation of
| the inner workings of an atomic reactor in Destination
| Moon? That's how 5 y.o. me discovered nuclear physics :]
| tralarpa wrote:
| Just checked, you are right. Not only the explanations of
| the reactor, but from the moment they arrive at the
| secret research facilities, the dialogs become unusually
| long. I don't remember well that one, probably skipped
| the pages as a kid :)
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I did not! Thanks for the pointer, I'll check it out!
| murphyslaw wrote:
| Yes!! Yoko Tsuno is my all time favourite, plus De
| Minimensjes (Les Petits Hommes)
| lencastre wrote:
| Shout out to Bric-a-Brac series from Gotlib
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubrique-%C3%A0-Brac?wprov=sft...
| and an American one called The Spirit from Will Eisner
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_(comics_character)?wpro...
| bazoom42 wrote:
| Several Tintin stories were re-drawn and updated by Herge to be
| more modern, some of them multiple times.
|
| The article mention Tintin in Congo, one of the earliest stories.
| It was later redrawn to tone down the "white mans burden"-vibe,
| but the redrawn version is still pretty racist by modern
| standards. And Tintin blows up a rhinocerus with dynamite.
|
| In "The Black Gold", Tintin travels to British Palestine and gets
| kidnapper by zionist terrorists. In the updated version, it is
| changed to a fictional Arab country, and there are no Jews
| involved.
|
| The article suggest Chang cured Herge of racism, but this is
| simplistic. A later album, The Shooting Star, drawn during the
| Nazi occupation of Belgium, contains some strongly antisemitic
| stereotypes (obviously removed in the re-drawn version, which
| also changes the evil Americans into a fictional country).
|
| Herge worked for a newspaper friendly to the Nazis, and this was
| close to destroying his career after the war.
|
| Tintin is a brilliant series and I find it fascinating how the
| changing values and politics are reflected in it.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Redrawing means erasing the racist history, little by little.
| Just like they've started to rewrite novels (see the recent
| Penguin controversy for example). Over time, without the
| majority noticing, this becomes reality:
|
| >Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has
| been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue
| and street and building has been renamed, every date has been
| altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute
| by minute.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| You can still get the original versions. The market for
| Tintin completionist is big enough that you can purcase
| basically every iteration of the Tintin albums.
|
| Btw the redrawing were much more than just toning down
| racism. Eg in The Black Island all backgrounds were redrawn
| based on careful research to be more realistic and detailed,
| and cars and trains redrawn to more contemporary models. This
| was part of Herges evolution from an initially more
| cartoonish style to the detailed "ligne claire"-style. (Fans
| debate which version is best)
|
| The earlier stories were initially published as newspaper
| strips, but was later colorized and edited to fit in album
| format.
|
| Note that all edits and redrawings were done by Herge, or by
| his assistants under his oversigt. After the death of Herge
| no modifications have been made. Herge didn't want anyone to
| continue Tintin ater his death, and amazingly the estate have
| respected this.
| culopatin wrote:
| My mom would read these to me when I was a kid in Argentina. I'm
| surprised to see it here. It was something I had almost forgotten
| about. Now I'm curious about how my mom got to Tintin in the
| first place.
| aaron695 wrote:
| What else is there?
|
| The Phantom is more male orientated. Asterix was kinda comical.
| Marvel and DC to be frank are garbage with no coherent story
| line. Disney have proven that.
|
| Since Tintin was syndicated in newspapers that might be an
| entry point. But it's huge world wide, it had to be translated
| from French to English so the system to translate was already
| set-up. The Tintin store in Singapore is cool.
|
| The full set, minus Tintin in the Congo which has to be bought
| separately, is on Amazon etc - https://www.amazon.com/Tintin-
| Paperback-Boxed-Set-titles/dp/...
| bombcar wrote:
| The closest adventure stories were the "good duck artist"
| Scrooge McDuck comics - Carl Barks. Followed by Don Rosa's
| which may actually be better adventure stories sometimes.
| grandiego wrote:
| A friend of my mother in Peru had those books. I'm fond of my
| memories about Milu (the dog, not sure about the spelling), the
| captain, the scientific, the silly detectives, and Tintin.
| Specially the book about the travel to the moon (in those years
| the moon was a hot topic.)
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Snowy is the name of the dog, in English at least.
| EinguterTag wrote:
| It's Milou in the original French.
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