The Unknown Tintin !!

Just like the zillions of Tintin fans across the planet, I too have been frequently frustrated at the fact that Herge could create only 23 Tintin comics during his lifetime. Coupled with the fact that he did not want anyone to continue creating Tintin after his death, make Tintin comics an even rarer commodity. While there are hundreds and thousands of Phantom, Mandrake, Superman and Batman comics going around, each Tintin comic is worth it's weight in gold.

Here is a must browse site for all the die-hard Tintin fans across the world, containing wonderful nuggets of information about various deleted and unpublished parts of official Tintin comics, as well as some un-official Tintin comic books.

P.S.:-

1. Here is my previous pondering on Tintin.

2. I just invented a new phrase, "must browse".. :-)

The Great Indian Comic Project

One of the most popular blogs of all time, one which has entertained thousands of comic fans across the globe, and taken them back to their blissful childhood days, has just turned 100! Here’s wishing that TCP completes many more centuries in future!

To join comic fans across the world in congratulating TCP, click here.

Billions of billious barbecued blue blistering barnacles !!

Some of the sweetest memories of my childhood come from the time I spent reading Tintin comics. I was a die hard Tintin fan (and still am). I had painstakingly collected all the Tintin comics available in the market over a period of time. I must have read each Tintin comic dozens of times. The simple yet extraordinarily detailed sketches, the rib-tickling humor, and the wonderfully crafted storylines made for an intoxicating cock-tail. Every Tintin adventure was unique, from the treasure hunt in The Secret of Unicorn and Read Rackham’s Treasure, to Inca encounter in The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun, from UFOs in Flight 714 to Meteoroids in The Shooting Star. And yes, the grandest adventures of them all, Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon, when Tintin and co. landed on the moon a decade before Neil Armstrong did. The degree of detail present in the 2 Moon adventures just blew me away. I often wondered, why did Herge create so few (only 23) Tintin comics. I later realized that with the amount that went into the creation of each comic, Herge would have had to be super-human to create more than what he did.

As I grew up, I began to discover newer facets of each Tintin adventure. I realized that Tintin was not just about humor and action. Through, Tintin, Herge voiced his opinion on various salient issues facing the world of his time. Tintin comics, in subtle and humorous ways, made potent statements again international deceit and hypocrisy. From showing how imperialist Japan exploited China , in The Blue Lotus, and how capitalist Whites exploited the Red Indians in Tintin in America, to unraveling African slave trade in The Red Sea Sharks, and international oil politics in Land of Black Gold. While The Calculus Affair is story woven around the concept of Cold War arms race, The Ottokar Sceptre hints towards Nazi Germany's attempts to overtake neighbourhood nations. Herge even took a dig at dictators ruling their countries from ivory towers, while their country men suffered, in Tintin and Picaros. Did Herge spare India? No he did not. In Tintin in Tibet, Herge shows how superstitious Indian’s refuse to move a cow that had been blocking a road, saying that she is a sacred animal.

Perhaps it is this universal appeal of Tintin, which has made him one of the most popular global cartoon characters of all time, appreciated by people of all ages, across the world. Even the great Satyajit Ray was a great Tintin fan, and had shots of Tintin comics in some of his movies.

Unlike most other creators, Herge did not want anyone else to sketch Tintin after he died. Thus, Tintin retired from the comic world after the death of Herge. I guess it was quite apt too, as I doubt if any other illustrator could have matched the incandescent brilliance of the original.

“My only international rival is Tintin. We are both little people who are not afraid of big ones".- Charles de Gaulle

P.S.- Here is my previous post about comics and me.

Comic Relief

Comics have a special place in the childhoods of most people of my generation. For most of us, comics provided us with our first taste of fiction literature. Comics offer a most unique entertainment value proposition, not matched by any other literary medium, that of being able to see, as well as read the story unfold. The amount of effort that goes into the creation of a comic is also much greater than any other form of literature, of the same size.

I grew up on Tintin, Phantom, Mandrake and Asterix. My early childhood passed on a regular diet of Indrajaal Comics, with Phantom and Mandrake being my favorites. I was also an avid reader of the Phantom strips published in the daily news papers. Gripped by Phantomania, I even went to the extent of creating my own hand made Phantom comic collection, by clipping off the strips from the newspapers on a daily basis, coloring them, and pasting them in my notebook. But as far as storylines were concerned, I enjoyed the magical world of Mandrake, much more than the slam-bang stuff of Phantom.

The only Indian comic I was fond of, was Chacha Chaudhary (May be because we share the same surname :) ). None of the other Indian comic characters could capture my interest. Neither was I into reading about those famous American superheroes; Superman, Spiderman and Batman. It was largely because they were not that easily available, and coz. I did not like their gloomy way of story-telling.

Slowly, I graduated to reading another comic, one which was to become my all time favorite, Tintin. Tintin comics are a comic fan’s delight, with great sketches done with tremendous attention to detail, fantastically adventurous storylines, and rib-tickling comedy. No one who has read some of Captain Haddock’s outlandishly funny exclamations will ever forget them. But perhaps what attracts the greatest number of fans to Tintin is the fact that he is just another boy, without any superpower or mutation, who manages to navigate through his adventures by a mixture of common sense and logic. Tintin mania made me collect all the 23 Tintin comics, in an effort which stretched over a decade. I loved the Tintin sketches so much that I frequently tried to replicate them on my drawing book. Another one of my comic crazy activities was the creation of my own adventure comic. It was probably in those childhood days that the seeds of the creation of Arbit Choudhury were sown.

Just the other day, I hit upon a most unusual blog, called The Comic Project, created by a Phantomaniac like me, dedicated to publishing scans of those engrossing Indrajaal Comics editions of yesteryear. Reading through the strips, some of which I had first read 15-20 years back, felt like being teleported back to those blissful childhood days. Wish I had my Indrajaal Comic collection with me now, so that I too could contribute to this wonderful effort. If only mom had not heartlessly sold off all my comics to the “raddiwala”......

Now for some Tintin Trivia....

Question: What is the full name of Captain Haddock?

Answer: Archibald

(Refer “Tintin and the Picaros”)

"Why did Snoopy quit the comic strip? Because he was tired of working for peanuts"