Ok, I've just been thinking about restarting my collection of Tintin (as well as Asterix and those books). I'd like to get the best versions available for the price. HC if available, but not necessarily.

I'm looking at Amazon, and apparently they have english language HCs for "Tintin in the Soviet Union" (never read) and "Tintin in the Congo" (only seen in French) for about $14 from a publisher I've never heard of: Last Gasp of San Francisco. I've checked out the site for Last Gasp, but they don't really have any information on their versions. Anyone have any opinions about versions? I'm not really in the mood to pay $35/pc. for the other HC versions on Amazon's site, but then Last Gasp has only released HCs for the first 2 books -- apparently they were supposed to release a version (b&w???) of "Tintin in America" in May, but it's not in stock at Amazon yet.

Would I be better off just sticking with the classic PB versions -- which I can get for $10 almost anywhere? I'd love to build a complete set, but I'd also kinda like them to match.

thanks.

I'm no Tintin expert, but my understanding is that Little Brown is the exclusive U.S. Tintin publisher. They publish single issue paperback albums and smaller hardback collections with 3 or 4 adventures in each one.

Two of the three stories you mention -- the Congo and the Soviets -- are not available from Little Brown for various reasons. Congo was poorly researched (it was Herge's first or second), and is basically a group of offensive stereotypes. Soviets is in a similar position (although, obviously, stereotypes about communists are less offensive than stereotypes about Africans).

America is a weird case. It was another early, poorly researched Herge effort, and it had to be seriously edited for release in the U.S. Little Brown has had the edited version in print for years, but I think someone else just republished the original in black & white.

Take all of the above with a grain of salt -- it's been a few years since I was up on my Tintin, and I'm sure I've mixed up or forgotten many of the details (although, oddly, I did pull out Cigars of the Pharaoh the other day to look somehting up for someone. I think I'll reread some of my Tintin albums).

I know about the lack of release by Little & Brown for those first 2 books, but since they have been released in the US by the other publisher I mentioned -- "Last Gasp of San Francisco" -- I was just wondering if anyone had seen them and knew about the quality.

With that in mind, I might as well just pick up the standard paperback versions of all the later ones (including Tintin in America) and keep my eyes open for the special printings of the first 3 -- about $13.95 at amazon. The reviews seem pretty good for them -- I'd like to get them at least for the chance to have read every single Tintin adventure.

I've read pretty much every adventure already except for those 2, but I've never owned my own copies.

Incidentally on tintin.com they were mentioning that Tintin and the (Land Of?) Black Gold has been edited and re-edited a number of times depending on the political situation due to it's prewar political statements. Pretty interesting. I need to start reading them a LOT more carefully.

I am not an expert on this, but have recently read some articles about Herge and an old interview with him in the COMICS JOURNAL. When Herge started drawing and writing Tintin, he was around his early 20s. Tintin was a serial, published, I believe weekly, in a Belgian boys magazine Le Petit Vientieme (or something like that). The 1st three stories, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in the Congo, and Tintin in America were written very fast and Herge was often unaware of where the story was leading. He literally created each next installment to be as exciting as possible, but this made for erratic stories. Also marring these stories is a crudity of style and the stereotypical use of minorities. With the coming of the next Tintin story, Tintin and the Blue Lotus, Herge recieved a letter from a priest associated with a religious school. Some or all of his students were Asian and they loved Tintin. He implored Herge to treat the Asian characters as more than caricatures, so that Herge's audience would not be hurt. This galvanized Herge to research the next project and started a lifelong trend of careful research for each of his preceeding projects. For the rest of his life, Herge had mixed feelings about his original stories. This plays into the multiple story versions. Some time around the 1950s to early 1960s, Herge had established his name and had solidified his style. Herge was a perfectionist and was unhappy with much of the early work. I believe the first few stories were originally produced in black and white. Herge and his staff revisted many of these earlier stories, redraw them partially and often completely. They also re-colored them. Oftentimes, he redid them several times (I believe there are 3 versions of Tintin and the Black Island). He never redid Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, because he considered it too flawed, too crude. I think he might have redone Tintin in the Congo and he definately redid Tintin in America. The versions available from Little, Brown are the last redrawn editions. Lasp Gasp has been releasing the original editions of the books in facsimile editions starting with Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. They have also released a guide to the Tintin stories.

I have the big Last Gasp black and white albums of "Soviets" and "Congo." I like them, but they're nowhere near as polished as the later albums which I also own. Herge never redid either of these two, like he did "Tintin in America." "Congo" is pretty raw today, it's not maliciously offensive but it's definitely out of sync with today's views. "Soviets" is pretty awful unless you're a Tintin nut -- the art is so primitive compared to his later efforts it's hard to believe it's the same man. I enjoy having both of these because I'm a completist, but really the "good" Tintin starts with "Blue Lotus" or the redrawn version of "Tintin in America." There's a new book out called the "Tintin Companion" I believe which I haven't gotten yet but which has the entire skinny on the whole series...

Oh forgot to add, those seven hardback collections of the series by Little Brown are great IMHO -- they're smaller than the big albums, true, but they're a bargain in price because they each collect three albums AND they last a lot longer than the paperback albums. I had several of those when I was younger and they tended to fall to pieces. The hardbacks are really sturdy and look great.

I've been wondering about it for awhile -- Blue Lotus seems like it was written and released earlier -- but plotwise it comes after Cigars of Pharaoh. Anyone seen a real thing about this?

Tintin in the Congo, I have the french version, its hilarious, some monkey keeps stealing his gun so Tintin kills another and goes to beat the monkey. He also shoots around 20 antilopes in addition to the monkey, where else could you get that kind of violence at 7-8 years of age!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=16135

That is the version I read and I believe is still at my parents place.

I have also seen Tintin Et L'Alph Art which was the last Tintin which Herge was working on when he died. Unfortunately I haven't seen it in English though.