Fica inegável a importância cultural, econômica e tecnológica da França, Estados Unidos e Japão e no entretanto são também os maiores mercados de historias em quadrinhos do mundo:
32% de tudo que se lê na Franca e quadrinhos com mais de 220 milhões de exemplares anuais. As duas maiores editorasamericanas a Marvel (Homem Aranha, X-Men) e DC (Superman e Batman) respondem por mais de 100 milhões de exemplares e os principais Mangas japoneses passam de 4 bilhões anuais (Vagabond, Dragon Ball Z).

As grandes cidades do mundo como Nova York, Londres, São Paulo e Berlin, que conheci em minhas viagens não tem um representante à altura do poder cultural no mundo dos quadrinhos, mas em Bruxelas conhecida por um dos mais importantes personagens das HQs, Tintin, tem um prédio imponente, importante e super bem desenhado para colocar os albuns europeus em destaque, o Museu da Banda Desenhada. Tintin (se pronuncia /tantan/) é produto da mente brilhante belga de Hergé.

Jag läser i Svd att Hergés dödsbo är upprörda över en "tolkning" av Tintin med en stor sexuell aptit och boken "Rosa lotus" ska därför dras tillbaka. Inte konstigt kanske, med tanke på Hergés tvivelaktiga politiska hemvist.

Min favorit är annars "Breaking Free" med Tintin som arbetslös knegare som får nog och börjar göra revolution, detta plagiat finns nu faktiskt tillgängligt på nätet så det är bara att läsa den.

Och här är såklart länken: Breaking Free

För en svensk serie som handlar om arbetsplatskamp rekommenderar jag Bromanders Chefen (automarxaren på sid 7 är så jävla kul!).

Tycker du att detta är intressant? Tryck då här så får fler läsa det

Läs också Postverkets Motståndsmanual.

Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om arbete, tintin, herge, serier, snusk, rosa lotus

Seperti layaknya anak-anak yang tumbuh di era 80an, saya berkenalan pertama kali dengan komik lewat majalah Eppo, majalah yang berisi cerita bersambung dari komik-komik Eropa sana, dan berkenalan dengan Storm, Roel Djikstra [yang nantinya mereka-mkereka ini muncul juga di majalah Hai], Agen 327, dan lain-lain...

Selain Eppo, tentunya Indira dengan Tintin-nya menyumbang jasa besar dalam menumbuhkan kecintaan saya akan komik. saya ingat sekali bagaimana rasanya ke Indira, yang kebetulan dekat sekali dengan rumah kakek saya, dibilangan Menteng, Jakarta Pusat, hanya jalan kaki sepuluh menit sampai, dan memutar-mutar rak komik yang terbuat dari besi layaknya gantungan baju berputar, di sebelah kanan dari pintu masuk Indira.>Kisah petualangan Tintin, begitulah judul aslinya, bercerita tentang seorang wartawan muda yang bernama Tintin, bersama anjingnya yang setia, Snowy. Komik buatan Hergé ini mengajak saya, si pembaca untuk berpetualang mengelilingi dunia, mengikuti kasus-kasus yang di pecahkan oleh si Tintin ini, reporter yang terkadang lebih seperti seorang detektif, mengalahkan Thompson dan Thomson, si kembar dektektif yang selalu sial. Untuk detail tentang Tintin, saya bahas dientry saya lainnya.

Mengapa saya suka Tintin?, walaupun secara detail pewajahan karakternya kurang detail, mata Tintin hanyalah sebuah titik, dan raut muka yang sangat sederhana...tetapi detail sekali untuk hal-hal lainya, penuh rasanya panelnya dengan detail-detail background yang luar biasa buat saya...

Selain itu Tintin juga tanpa sadar mengajari saya untuk cinta akan sejarah, karena dalam beberapa petualangnya, sangat terkait dengan peristiwa sejarah yang terjadi di era dimana Hergé membuat kisah-kisah Tintin tersebut...Coba saja lihat "Lotus Biru" misalnya, di sana, walaupun jujur saat pertama kali membacanya, saya harus ekstra kerjaan dengan bertanya ke Ibu saya, ataupun membuka ensiklopedia, saya belajar mengenai madat [opium], perang Boxer, walaupun secara eksplisit, dan yang terhebat adalah, mengajak saya pergi ke Cina pinggiran sana, dengan illustrasi komik yang nyaris detail suasana di Cina sana...walaupun Hergé sendiri dalam menggambarkan kisahnya bersenjatakan foto-foto orang dan hasil wawancara orang, tapi serasa Hergé sendiri yang kesana, baik Tibet, Cina, Mesir dan Indonesia.

Dari mana saya kenal Tintin? tentu saja dari Ibu saya, karena dia sendiri sudah mengenal Tintin dari zaman sebelum terbitan Indira, zaman terbitan asing, Belanda, dia lebih mengenal Kuifje tepatnya, Tintin dalam terbitan Belanda. Dan kemarin, sepulangnya dari mengajar di Depok sana, dia memamerkan saya akan komik Tintin edisi Gramedia yang baru dibelinya...

Selain Tintin, salah satu seri komik terbitan Indira lainnya yang menjadi kegemaran saya adalah Tanguy & Lavedure. Nah yang ini komik anak laki-laki banget, berbeda dengan Tintin yang segala umur dan gender bisa masuk, kalau Tanguy & Lavedure, sepertinya hanya yang suka militer, pesawat terbang dan sangat laki-laki saja yang suka membacanya, walaupun tidak ada aturan yang melarang mereka yang tidak suka hal-hal tersebut, untuk membacanya.

Tanguy & Lavedure sendiri bercerita tentang petualangan dua pilot pesawat tempur Mirage bernama, Tanguy dan kawan karibnya Lavedure. Walaupun cenderung serius, tetapi kisah perjalan mereka berdua di bumbui oleh humor-humor segar, ala Lavedure, yang berkarakter sedikit sok tahu, jahil, tetapi suka sial, berbeda dengan rekannya si Tanguy yang lebih dewasa, cool, dan terlihat lebih handal. Komik ini bercerita tentang kisah-kisah petualangan yang dialami Tanguy & Lavedure, dalam menjalankan misi-misi mereka di skuadron Bangau Terbang.

Komikus/illustratornya sendiri untuk komik petualangan Tanguy & Lavedure ini, terbagi dalam kedua era, era Albert Uderzo dan era Jijé, dengan naskah /ide cerita dari Jean-Michel Charlier. Uderzo sendiri akhirnya sibuk dengan serialnya yang terkenal, Asterix bersama dengan René Goscinny. Perbedaan antara versi Uderzo dengan versi Jijé terlihat dalam cara pengambarannya, Uderzo lebih terlihat komikal, dan terkadang ceritanay lebih banyak bumbu humornya. Sedangkan versi Jijé, cenderung realistik, dan serius isinya. Tetapi saya kok lebih suka versi Jijé rasanya. Lebih menegangkan.

Seperti halnya seri petualangan Tintin, saya juga banyak mendapatkan pelajaran dari Tanguy & Lavedure ini. walaupun rasanya jauh lebih berat daripada Tintin, lebih serius paling tidak, tetapi saya dahulu suka sekali dengan komik ini. Dari Tanguy & Lavedure saya bisa merasakan dan tahu sedikit tentang bangsa Arab modern, yang penuh dengan revolusi, penggulingan kekuasaan [lihat "Letnan Double Bang"], hingga perlombaan senjata/penjualan pesawat terbang, anatara Mirage dan Mig, serta kecangihan pesawat tempur Harrier milik Inggris. Dan itu semua belajar dari komik, media yang terkadang dianggap sampah dan dipandang sebelah mata di mata dunia literatur dahulu.

Nah terakhir dari komik-komik Eropa favorit saya dahulu, adalah kisah petulanagn Asterix dan sahabatnya Obelix, dua orang prajurit Galia. Yang berasal dari sebuah desa Galia, yang merupakan satu-satunya desa di Galia, yang belum jatuh ketangan kekaisaran Romawi. Dan tentunya membuat gila sang kaisar Romawi, Julius Caesar.

Asterix, Obelix dan Idefix, anjing Obelix, sering melakukan petualangan, menjelajah ke penjuru dunia, mulai dari ke timur tengah, ke Mesir, keliling Eropa, hingga ke benua Amerika. Dan hebatnya duo Uderzo & Goscinny ini, berhasil membuat karakter yang berbeda-beda, tidak hanya secara visual tetapi juga dari cara berbicara, yang juga secara visual/teks keluar dari jenis font yang dipakai, untuk bangsa Jerman misalnya, teks dalam balon suara menggunakan jenis huruf Gothic, serta nama-nama mereka, yang berbeda sesuai suku bangsa mereka. Seru yah!

Banyaknya karakter ini lah yang membuat saya suka dengan kisah perajurit Galia ini. Contoh lagi bajak laut yang selalu berpapasan dengan mereka jika Asterix dan Obelix melakukan perjalanan dengan kapal/perahu. Dalam satu kapal terdapat banyak karakter disana, mulai dari sang kepala bajak laut, yang terlihat paling bengis tetapi takutnya setengah mati, kalau melihat Asterix dan Obelix, takut kapalnya di tenggelamkan oleh mereka, hinga menengelamkan kapalnya sendiri, sang asisten kapten kapal, pelaut tua berkaki kayu, yang selalu mengoceh dalam bahasa Latin, hingga sang juru lihat di atas tiang sana, yang besar, berkulit hitam legam, tetapi gagu...gila kan...!

Walaupun komikal, tetapi petualangan Asterix ini sangatlah kaya akan detail, coba lihat kisah mereka dengan Cleopatra, lihatlah baju yang dipakai orang-orang mesir itu dan segala alat regalia-nya Cleopatra, wah dahsyat! Dan bodohnya serial Asterix ini sering terdapat penampakan-penampakan [cameo], mulai dari Spartakusnya Kirk Douglas, The Beatles [lihat Asterix di Inggris], Laurel & Hardy, Manneken pis hingga si Michelin Man! Dan semakin saya dewasa, sejalan dengan bertambahnya pengetahuan saya yang saya miliki, semakin banyak hal-hal tersembunyi ang saya temukan di kisah Asterix ini...Seperti karakter bangsa Arab yang sibuk berkelahi satu sama lainnya, seperti yang bisa kita lihat dalam "Asterix dan Putri Rahazade".

Jadi mengerti dong mengapa saya suka Asterix...demi Toutatis!

Publikasi komik-komik Eropa ini, selain ketiga komik diatas, tumbuh subur di Indonesia pada era paruh 70an, selama era 80an dan berhenti di awal tahun 90an, dimana Indira sudah sekarat, Sinar Harapan, penerbit Asterix disini sudah separuh nafas, Erlangga, Aya Media Pustaka mulai gelagapan, dan Misurid mulai hilang, tenggelam. Gramedia? mereka banting setir dari komik Eropa yang cenderung semakin mahal pembuatannya, karena berwarna, dan harga hak ciptanya mahal, lari ke Manga Jepang dan Manhua Cina.

Mulai lah toko buku dibanjiri oleh terbitan Elex Media, anak perusahan Gramedia pada akhir era 80an, mulai dari serial Candy-Candy, yang tidak asing lagi, karena pernah ditayangkan oleh TVRI kartunya [Anime], berbarengan dengan Doraemon, disusul dengan Kung Fu Boy dan Dragon Ball dengan kisah perjalanan Son Goku mencari bola naga, keseluruh penjuru dunia. Selain Elex, Rajawai Press, menerbitkan City Hunter, yang genrenya rada-rada dewasa, penuh sensoran.

Dan mulailah dominasi Manga dan Manhua menjajah Indonesia...kalaupun terkadang masih diselingi dengan terbitnya Asterix, dan komik-komik Amerika...Secara cerita, sebenarnya kalau kita mau mengikuti komik Manga, terlebih lagi versi penerbit kecil, bawah tanah, yang cenderung sangat dewasa, kalau tidak bisa dibilang porno, cerita-cerita mereka lebih beragam lagi, lebih sinting lagi, dibandingkan komik Eropa yang cenderung bercerita tentang kehidupan biasa yang normal. Mulai dari kisah seorang ahli kung fu yang berkelana, kisah seorang agen penyelidik asuransi, kisah kehidupan masa depan, hingga kisah seorang pembuat film porno!

Terlepas dari isinya yang beragam, yang sangat menarik saya, ada satu hal yang membuat saya miris melihat dominasi komik Manga ini. Karena dominasi ini, anak-anak pembaca komik sekarang, dalam dua dekade lewat ini, hanya tahu komik yang berasal dari negeri Sakura ini dan Manhua yang berasal dari Cina, kalaupun ada komik diluar komik Asia ini, harganya terasa sangat mahal, sebagai perbandingan, komik Manga Indonesia: Rp. 16.000,- komik Tintin baru: Rp. 45.000,-, kasarnya harag satu komik Eropa bisa membeli tiga komik Manga. Tetapi bukan hanya ini saja masalahnya, yang lebih parah lagi kalau kita melihat anak-anak sekarang menggambar, mereka sangat terpengaruh dengn gaya gambar ala Manga, sehingga sulit rasanya menemukan gaya gambar yang orisinal, khas Indonesia, ditahun-tahun yang akan datang. Tidak salah memang, tetapi efeknya rada mengerikan memang melihat gambar manusia bermata besar seperti layaknya karakter Manga...

Soal tentang Manga favorit saya? nanti saya tulis kapan-kapan yah...

Ces adaptations de trois albums de Tintin mêleront prises de vues réelles et captures de mouvements.

Tout ce qu'on espère de ce juif fondamentaliste de Spielberg, c'est qu'il restera fidèle à l'esprit de la bande dessinée et qu'il ne salira pas le personnage. Pas de leçons droitsdel'hommesques, pas d'antifascisme maladif, pas de sexe ni d'allusions éventuelles à l'homosexualité par pitié ! On connait malheureusement le gaillard ...

Tintin est un personnage bien trop précieux de la bande-dessinée européenne que pour être manipulé par les griffes acérées de certains intégristes ... Spielberg est une bonne référence sur le plan technique du mode de réalisation, mais pas des meilleures sur le plan moral et politique. Espérons qu'il ne dénaturera pas notre intrépide reporter ...

Mais pourquoi en faire tout en plat sur le site des intransigeants ? La réponse est simple, elle se trouve dans le livre "Tintin mon copain" de Léon Degrelle, le combattant belge spirituellement catholique et politiquement révolutionnaire. Hergé, auteur de Tintin et ancien collaborateur durant l' "occupation" via le journal Le soir de l'époque, fut un grand ami de Léon Degrelle. Ils se rencontrèrent tous les deux dans le cadre de la rédaction du journal Le vingtième siècle dans les années 20, un journal catholique considéré comme "très à droite". Hergé collaborera d'ailleurs à toute une série d'initiatives politiques proposées par Léon Degrelle (couvertures de brochures, affiches, caricatures ...).

L'amitié entre le dessinateur et Degrelle alla très loin ... Au point que, d'après ce que nous rapporte Degrelle et même des antifascistes, les personnages de Tintin et Milou auraient des origines bien curieuses ...

D'abord Milou. Voici ce que Degrelle rapporte dans son livre (interdit à la vente) :

"En fait, j'ai presque peur de le révéler. Georges [Hergé] et moi avions déniché, absolument par hasard, sur une vieille photo datant des tranchées de la Première Guerre Mondiale, un gentil quadrupède à l'allure pré-milounesque. Hergé, qui cherchait pour ses B.D. un petit chien ou l'autre parmi des millions d'autres chiens blancs et futés, fut frappé par cette image imprévue. Le petit chien blanc de la photo dressait son nez fureteur aux pieds de quelques soldats allemands, plutôt dépenaillés. C'est à cause d'un de ces soldats que ladite photo avait été publiée, dix ans après, par l'hebdomadaire que nous feuilletions.

Quel soldat me direz-vous ?

J'ose à peine vous répondre car vous allez faire explosion ! Je me contenterai de vous dire que le nom du soldat commençait par un H... Adolf H., si vous insistez trop ! Regardez la vieille photo, vous comprendrez vite.

Le brave Hergé, questionné à ce sujet après 1945, se contentait de répondre évasivement: "Milou? Je ne me souviens vraiment plus d'où il est sorti." C'était plus sage !"

La bande dessinée européenne est née au Mexique, grâce à Léon Degrelle, à l'époque journaliste. Il était venu rejoindre, non sans difficultés, les guerriers catholiques "Los Cristeros" dans leur combat contre le gouvernement communiste. Dans son Monde d'Hergé, Benoit Peeters révèle ceci : "Par l'intermédiaire de journaux mexicains envoyés à Bruxelles par un correspondant du 'Vingtième Siècle", Hergé vient de prendre connaissance de la bande dessinée américaine (...). La série qu'on va lancer ne sera plus un simple texte mis en images; il s'agira cette fois d'une véritable bande dessinée où les deux éléments viendront se fondre l'un dans l'autre."

Hergé aura lui-même le courage de déclarer ceci dans une interview accordée à la Libre Belgique du 30 décembre 1975, malgré les haines de l'après-guerre : "J'ai découvert la bande dessinée grâce à... Léon Degrelle ! Celui-ci, en effet, était parti comme journaliste au Mexique et il envoyait au "Vingtième Siècle", non seulement des chroniques personnelles, mais aussi des journaux locaux (pour situer l'atmosphère) dans lesquels paraissaient des bandes dessinées américaines. J'ai découvert ainsi mes premiers comics".

Mais attendez le meilleur ...

Degrelle, qui n'avait pas beaucoup de moyens, avait économisé un beau jour pour s'offrir un vêtement orginal : une culotte de golf ! Il raconte que quand il se présenta à Hergé, ce dernier fut "éblouis par un tel luxe". Pour les scouts qu'ils étaient, c'était pour eux "le symbole de l'intrépidité". Degrelle se mit alors à dessiner un petit personnage avec une culotte de golf. Dans son livre, Degrelle déclare que "J'étais, dans notre petit cercle amical, le seul modèle à sa portée: ou bien arpentant dans ma culotte de golf les routes ardennaises, un peu plus tard, portant ma fillette Chantal dans mes bras à Bruxelles."

Autre caractéristique incontournable de Tintin : La houpette enroulée en arrière. Où Hergé est-il donc allé chercher une telle originalité ? Observez ces deux images prisent en 1927 et 1928 ... Observez aussi la bouille toute ronde, imbarbe et juvénile de Degrelle à l'époque, ça en dit long.

En dehors de l'aspect physique et de la profession (journaliste), Degrelle incarnait aussi les ambitions aventureuses du personnage : "Je vivrais, je lutterais, je risquerais ma peau pour conquérir le coeur et l'esprit de mon peuple, pour en faire une double communauté ordonnée, pour forger ensuite, dans les grands combats contre le bolchévisme, une Europe unie, capable de faire face à la poussée puissante des grandes unités hypercapitalistes qui surgissaient en force à travers l'univers - de Tokyo à New York - et qui feraient le XXIème siècle."

Si le Degrelle en chair et en os n'aura pas atteint tous les coeurs du fait qu'il a perdu la guerre, il aura au moins atteint les coeurs au travers du personnage de Tintin. Le souvenir du plus grand héros belge de l'Histoire du 20ème siècle perdure ainsi dans les B.D., les dessins-animés, les cartables, les plumiers, les t-shirts, les porte-feuilles, les figurines, les sculptures en bois, les fêtes, les émissions, le cinéma ... Merci Hergé.

On raconte que quelques dessins animés très réussis de Degr... heu ... Tintin (pardon), se trouveraient sur Dailymotion.com . La diffusion de ce genre de dessin-animé est illégale, nous n'irons donc pas vérifier.

Autre chose : Le talentueux artiste Goldofaf a fait une très belle chanson sur Leon Degrelle, probablement sa meilleure. Nous attendons un éventuel clip avec impatience.

There are too many people in this world who simply don't understand the fascination of bandes dessinées (otherwise known as graphic novels). Monsieur and I are not among these people. We still read Tintin, raced madly through a series called XIII (Treize, as in 'thirteen') which gripped us with political intrigue and Kennedy-esque family, spent last year's French holiday addicted to another series called Largo Winch about a billionaire playboy - this meant we made frequent trips to FNAC or roadside supermarkets in search of the next instalment... we even watch documentaries about the life of Tintin's creator, Hergé. We love it all!

We'd been thinking about having a bandes dessinées weekend for some time now, so finally we stopped talking and started doing. Besides, a bit of distraction was required - Monsieur had spent months with his head in books for professional exams which were finally over and I was stressed out with various other things, so off we went to Paris and Brussels.

In Paris, we stayed near the Gare Lazare in a Hotel Mercure (part of the Accor group of hotels). The room was small but comfortable and had recently been decorated, so there was a whiff of paint in the air. Never mind. The mini bar was incredible. No, it wasn't stocked with jars of peanuts for £10.00 a pop, or mini bottles of champagne costing as much as a magnum on the street. It was filled with non-alcoholic beverages and they were all free. What a brilliant idea! No more waking up parched from fierce hotel air-con in the middle of the night and reaching for a bottle of evian, only to find in the morning that you'd just consumed a weeny 250ml of water at £6.50 a go.

It was in Paris that we kicked off our BD adventure by going to Parc Astérix, the theme park of the Astérix world. Monsieur had been once as a child but couldn't remember much about it. Besides, I was keen to see life-size Astérix and Obelix characters walking around Gaul villages. Let's just say we're very much in touch with our inner children.

Reader, please note: Monsieur and I rarely travel without some sort of adventure happening along the way. By 'adventure', we mean hiccup or problem or minor disaster. Our adventure of this particular weekend would prove to be getting to Parc Astérix.

How NOT to travel to Parc Astérix from central Paris

As we'd booked our entry tickets online at the Parc website, we had also printed their detailed instructions on how to get to Parc Astérix from central Paris. We followed them to the letter.

First, we had to get up at 7am (which translates into 6am UK time) - an ungodly hour when travelling for relaxation. We somehow managed breakfast in 15 minutes. (That's pretty miraculous for us, especially considering the need to coordinate. We're really not great in the morning; the lights are on but nobody's home until about 10am.) Then, unsure of how long it would take to walk, we grabbed a taxi to 99, rue Rivoli, as per the Official Directions. 10 Euros later, we were standing outside the Carrousel du Louvre, at number 99, with a group of Astérix fans, happily waiting for the navette (shuttle). It should have been there at 8.45am. It didn't come.

"Don't worry, darling. You French are always fashionably late!" I said, optimistically.

"No, we're not." Monsieur was adamant "This isn't right."

I didn't believe him. After all, we were in the midst of a group of day-trippers; kids with backpacks covered in images of toys of the moment all around. We couldn't all be wrong, could we? Nah, of course not. At 9.20am, no navette in sight, one of the women waiting with us picked up her mobile to call the Parc and find out why we hadn't been collected yet. Apparently, we'd been waiting in the wrong place. Cue group groan. So much for the Official Directions. Mobile Phone Woman was now ranting. There was a bus park in the Louvre courtyard behind 99 rue Rivoli where the navette had already been, and gone. No, it couldn't come back for us because it was already full with visitors who'd waited in the right place. How ever did they know? Farts. There was only one morning navette from Paris to the Parc and we'd missed it. Now what?

Pulling out the Official Directions, we found an alternate route, via métro, train and bus. This was going to be far less direct. We took the métro from Carrousel to the Gare du Nord, then jumped on a train to the airport (yes, the airport), from where we could pick up a navette to the Parc. It seemed straightforward enough. Oh, how wrong we were. The metro was fine. The train was fine. The queue for the navette was NOT fine.

Given that we were (misguidedly) visiting Parc Astérix on a French holiday and there was only one navette per half-hour leaving from the airport train station, the queue of a couple of hundred teenagers in front of us meant that we wouldn't make it to the Parc until closing time. We stood in line pondering the options, shuffling forward a few inches every few minutes. Then we gave up, took a monorail to the airport terminal, walked straight into a taxi and paid yet more Euros to drive down the motorway to the blooming theme park filled with fake Gauls and enough hysterical adolescents with piercings to put you off them for life. And breathe. Why on earth had we thought this would be a good idea? The icing on the cake was the traffic jam on the off ramp leading to the park. Oh joy. Blessedly, that was the last of the problems. This time.

Here's a life lesson for you: when visiting theme parks, always do so in the morning of a weekday during term time. Why? No queues. We love no queues.

On the way back, Monsieur and I forewent trying out a new ride in order to jump on an early navette back to the airport station. We didn't want to risk waiting until park closing time to wrestle our way onto a bus out of Gaul. The bus was filled with French chav teenagers, wearing naff tracksuits, the crotches of which hung down to their knees, and those baseball caps which perch on top of the cranium, adding several inches to their height. Isn't it reassuring to know that there are kids like this everywhere, even if they don't wear fake Burberry or say "innit"?

On the train, there were more chavs, only older, and a number of dodgy guys wearing enough gold chain to start a market stall. Monsieur nudged me "we're travelling through one of the roughest areas in Paris," he whispered. Hmm. Looking around me, I could see what he meant, but it only made me more interested in where we were, who got on or off the train, and how much man-jewellery the guys were wearing. Sadly, there's not much else to report that would be different from a suburban train trip anywhere else, but I have to admit I was pleased we were travelling in daylight.

At the Gare du Nord we got stuck trying to reach the right platform on the EM métro line that would take us back to the hotel. First, we found the right line but the trains were heading in the wrong direction, so we took the escalator up to a level that bridged all the platforms but had no down escalators. We then had to return to the entrance to the line (two more escalators going up) and finally found the level (two more escalators going down) from which you could take yet another down escalator to the right platform going in the right direction. Man, could this day be any more of a transportation hell?

When Monsieur and I got off at the Gare St Lazare, we were barely talking with the stress of it all. After a rest at the relatively peaceful hotel with a free minibar filled with cool drinks, it was time to go out again, only this time, we'd walk.

Summary of transport to get to and from Parc Astérix from central Paris:

1. 2 taxis
2. 2 métros
3. 2 trains
4. 1 navette

The moral of this story is: drive.

Le 26 septembre 1946 parût le premier numéro du Journal Tintin, hebdomadaire haut de gamme destiné à la jeunesse -plutôt aisée- d'Outre-Quiévrain. A l'origine de cette heureuse initiative, le jeune éditeur Raymond Leblanc (1915-2008), qui après avoir convancu Hergé (1907-1983) de la pertinence de l'entreprise artistique et économique, lui demanda de composer la toute première équipe de dessinateurs afin d'alimenter les pages de ce nouvel illustré. Le père de Tintin et Milou choisit alors de s'entourer tout logiquement de ses collaborateurs du moment : Edgar Pierre Jacobs (1904-1987) et Jacques Van Melkebeke (1904-1983). Ce trio magique fut complété par Jacques Laudy (1907-1993) et un jeune illustrateur virtuose Paul Cuvelier (1923-1978).

Passionné d'Histoire, Jacobs songa dans un premier temps à un projet de BD se déroulant au Moyen-Âge. Cependant, son ami Jacques Laudy avec La légende des quatres fils Aymon et le benjamin Paul Cuvelier avec Les extraordinaires aventures de Corentin Feldoé, déjà positionnés sur le genre historique, contraignirent Jacobs à se rabattre sur la science-fiction et le fantastique.

Aidé par son ami d'enfance, le trop méconnu Jacques Van Melkebeke -qui discrètement collabora très étroitement à l'élaboration des albums de Blake et Mortimer-, Jacobs débuta Le Secret de l'Espadon avec un synospsis a priori très sommaire. Néanmoins, 'histoire et les dessins ne cessèrent de s'améliorer au fil des planches. Une publication en album(s) n'étant alors pas du tout envisagée à cette époque, Jacobs eut en plus toute liberté pour développer et conclure son récit sans contrainte de pagination.

Si les codes de la BD ne furent pas tous assimilées d'emblée (découpage, position des phylactères, rendu graphique), le souffle du récit fut suffisant pour compser ces lacunes initiales et enthousiasma immédiatement les lecteurs. Par la suite, les fulgurants progrès réalisés dans la première année par les deux compères permirent à la seconde partie de la saga de l'Espadon d'atteindre des sommets artistiques. Ils livrèrent alors des séquences flirtant avec la perfection, tenant plus que jamais en haleine des fans chaque jour plus nombreux.

Le succès rencontré par le Le Secret de l'Espadon donna à Jacobs le statut de vedette du Journal Tintin, au grand désespoir d'un Hergé déjà installé, qui se vit bruquement éclipser par son ex-assistant. Bien qu'exerçant ses talents dans la BD sans l'avoir souhaité, Jacobs devint le principal acteur du Journal Tintin. Il le resta pendant près de 15 ans, période devenue avec le recul l'âge d'or du Neuvième Art.

Devant la réussite -un peu inattendue- de Blake et Mortimer, Raymond Leblanc se décida à proposer les exploits des deux héros britanniques sous forme d'albums. Le Secret de l'Espadon fut donc la première histoire du Journal Tintin à être éditée aux Editions du Lombard. Cela se fit en deux temps : en 1950 pour La Poursuite Fantastique (tome1) puis seulement en 1953 pour SX-1 contre-attaque (tome 2).

Aujourd'hui, ce tout premier opus de Blake et Mortimer comprend trois volumes avec en prime 18 couvertures supplémentaires du Journal Tintin. Malheureusement, lors de cette refonte datant du milieu des années 80, les mises en couleurs réalisées par le Maître furent remplacées par celle d'un autre coloriste moins "inspiré". Cette hérésie artistique, curieusement voulue par Jacobs lui-même, justifie aussi l'acquisition d'une version antèrieure à 1984 pour pleinement apprécier cette fresque fabuleuse.

Lien : Les Aventures de Blake et Mortimer

Let's face it, Brussels has been painted as a stuffy sort of town. I've always whizzed through the Belgium capital en route to somewhere ostensibly more interesting. But recently I had been given a whole day to explore the city and I was thoroughly impressed with the place, not least the excellent working-class district of Marolles where I came across this fabulous art trail of mural paintings (above) by the city's famous comic book artists. There's apparently about 30 of them dotted around the city (there's a semi-useful map here) , including work by Hergé, the inventor of Tin Tin. This kind of alternative art trail is an inspired way of encouraging you to explore the city's lesser-known quarters. In seeking them out, you see that Brussels is far from the stuffy place you're often led to imagine.

 Snowy, a white Fox terrier, is Tintin's four-legged companion. They regularly save each other from perilous situations. Snowy frequently "speaks" to the reader through his thoughts (often displaying a dry sense of humour), which are supposedly not heard by the characters in the story except in Tintin in America where he explains Tintin about his absence for a period of time in the book.

Like Captain Haddock, Snowy is fond of the Loch Lomond brand of whisky, and his occasional bouts of drinking tend to get him into trouble, as does his raging arachnophobia.

From Wikipedia

Herge, Adventures of Tintin vol 1 and 2. These two lovely little hardbacks comprise the stories from Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (first published 1929-30) to The Blue Lotus (first published 1934-5). I'd never read the stories before The Blue Lotus before, and while it's interesting to watch the gradual appearance of various pieces of the Tintin universe -- Thomson and Thompson, Rastapopoulos, a professor who's clearly a dry-run for Calculus -- they were eye-opening in several ways. One is, obviously, the politics. I knew the reputation of Tintin in the Congo, and it lives up (or down) to it -- both the images and the actions of Africans are stereotypical at best and racist at worst, while the cavalier attitude to wildlife is hard to take -- but Tintin in the Land of the Soviets is even more transparent and broad-brush propaganda (if against what many would I suspect consider a slightly more acceptable target), in which Tintin discovers, for instance, the secret basement where Stalin has been hiding the wealth of the people, plus a plot to blow up the capitals of Europe with dynamite. Tintin in America is only marginally less stereotypical in its depiction of Chicago Gangsters and Native Americans (even while taking the Native Americans' side), and even The Blue Lotus, while dramatically more nuanced in its portrayal of the Chinese characters, lapses into caricature when it comes to the Japanese. Overall, though, the development of the books in terms of their political complexity is quite staggering, considering they were originally written over about five years. The development in artwork is equally dramatic -- the more cartoonish elements remain throughout, but early on are evident in such incidents as a train crashing into Tintin's car, leading to Tintin and Snowy spreadeagled on the front of the engine, whereas later they get transferred mostly to Thomson and Thompson -- as is the sophistication of the plotting. Cigars of the Pharaoh, which sees the start of the drug-smuggling plotline, is the first book that can really be described as having a plot rather than being composed of a sequence of events, athough the Tintin formula of action and secret passages and such is still very much in evidence; but it pales in comparison with The Blue Lotus, which is full of intricately conflicting agendas and counter-agendas, and set against a real historical backdrop (specifically around the Mukden Incident). Most of the books contain pages that were later redrawn, which has at least one weird consequence: at one point in Cigars of the Pharaoh, Tintin is captured, only to discover, when he reveals his identity, that said captor is actually pleased to see him, saying he's been reading of Tintin's exploits for years. But the book that he displays as evidence of this clearly has the cover of Destination Moon, which wasn't published until 1950 ...

William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954). Somehow I made it through my privileged British education without reading this story of privileged British schoolboys going feral on a desert island. Reading it now for the first time, I find that (a) I'm not sure I believe that life on a desert island could be like that, (b) I'm not sure that children and adolescents would really act like that, and (c) it's not nearly as brutal as I'd been led to believe; but I still think it largely deserves its reputation. I'm uneasy with some of the language used to describe Jack's tribe of savages (as though their hunter-gatherer ways are in themselves a cause for concern, rather than the violence and callousness with which they are enacted), and I think the ending severely weakens the whole (hey, if your civilization collapses it'll be ok, because some paternal figure will be along to rescue you eventually! Though I do love the way the hunters are suddenly boys again when the Navy man arrives. I was hoping the boys would kill the first adult they see; it wouldn't have stopped them being rescued, but it would at least have carried the logic of the rest of the novel through to a conclusion), but the intensity and clarity of the best passages is something to marvel at. I do love a well-executed omniscient perspective, and Golding knows exactly how to use his (for instance, the well judged pull-back to an image of tides being pulled from "somewhere over the darkened curve of the world"). He is also extremely good at place, both in terms of constructing the geography of the island in his readers' minds, and in terms of describing that geography in precise, striking terms. If some of the plotting is a bit artificial -- that the fire goes out just when the only boat they've seen passes by, for instance -- it's forgivable for the sake of the near-mythic potency of the novel's overall trajectory. I read it in a 1984 Faber omnibus which could have used another proofread, but I hope to make time for the other two novels -- Pincher Martin and Rites of Passage -- sooner rather than later.

David Edgerton, The Shock of the Old (2006). This is a "use-centred history of technology since 1900", and fascinating stuff. I have pages and pages of notes, and because I tend to read non-fiction quite slowly -- a chapter here, a chapter there -- it's a book that's been lurking in my thoughts for the past few months. I suspect that any attempt by me to summarise it now would end up essentially rewriting the whole thing. It's tempting just to quote the book's conclusion, to give you a flavour of Edgerton's argument:

It is a measure of the importance of technology to the twentieth century, and to our understanding of it, that to rethink the history of technology is necessarily to rethink the history of the world. For example, we should no longer assume that there was ineluctable globalisation thanks to new technology; on the contrary the world went through a process of de-globalisation in which technologies of self-sufficiency and empire had a powerful role. Culture has not lagged behind technology, rather the reverse; the idea that culture has lagged behind technology is itself very old and has existed under many different technological regimes. Technology has not generally been a revolutionary force; it has been responsible for keeping things the same as much as changing them. The place of technology in the undoubted increase in productivity in the twentieth century remains mysterious; but we are not entering a weightless, demarterialised information world. War changed in the twentieth century, but not according to the rhythms of conventional technological timelines.

But I should say a little bit more. The bulk of the book, as you'd expect, is taken up with fleshing out these central arguments, with chapters built around themes in technological history, including persistence (important technologies last); production (not important in the ways you think); maintenance (the longest and most significant stage of any technology's life); and the role of nations and war in developing technology (not as central, according to Edgerton, as tradition would have it). I'm not in a position to check Edgerton's sources, but the list of examples is exhaustive, to the point at which sometimes the book doesn't quite escape the academic idioms of its conception, and though there's plenty to argue with, he is largely convincing. Of course, you could also say he's stating the obvious -- once you remind people that "technology" means bicycles as well as computers, much of what he says follows. The future's not evenly distributed, after all. But the value of the book, I think, lies in the way he traces the connections between his examples, follows their implications, and points out the way that "future-oriented rhetoric" can damage the way we think about now by, for example, obscuring the fact that imitation is usually much more important than innovation, or the fact that we could do things differently with the technology we have now. One result is that it's a very political book. Edgerton very bluntly uses the term "poor world", and repeatedly argues that the narratives we tend to apply to the history of technology marginalise such countries, and their contributions to technology. There's also obvious relevance to the way sf imagines the future (or, more often, doesn't) -- something Edgerton is somewhat aware of, although his range of examples is from my perspective rather limited -- which from my point of view adds another, and useful, level to the book.

Tintin & Snowy by Enki Bilal

In the earlier episodes Snowy is shown to speak ... but later on this part of his character is absent although the reader can see him thinking in human words (Herge used the bubble speech technique founded in America). 

Herge was attempting to make Snowy more "dog-like". This obstacle doesn't however stop Snowy from being able to communicate with Tintin. Snowy character is written in such a way as to interest the reader. Snowy is the only one for instance in Flight 714 to remember being abducted by aliens. Snowy the wire terrier is seen to save Tintin a numerous times over the years (often by gnawing through restraints or seeking help) or has managed to get them out of convoluted conditions by biting or distracting a villain.

Snowy does have his weaknesses that only serve to make him loved by Tintin fans. Snowy like the irrepressible Captain Haddock has a taste for Loch Lomond brand Scotch whisky and also aversion to spiders as the dog suffers from arachnophobia.

From Letintinmovie.com

Planche n°12 de L’Affaire Tournesol © Hergé - Moulinsart, 2008


Portrait de Fanny Rodwell © Hergé - Moulinsart, 2008

À l’occasion de l’hommage rendu par le Centre Pompidou à Hergé pour le centenaire de sa naissance, Madame Fanny Rodwell, présidente des Studios Hergé, a offert au Musée national d’art moderne/Centre de création industrielle une planche originale de L’Affaire Tournesol.
Cette donation exceptionnelle permet aux collections conservées par le Musée de s’ouvrir à un nouveau champ de la création, la bande dessinée.

La planche 12 de L’Affaire Tournesol a été publiée dans le n° 10 de l’hebdomadaire Tintin, paru le 16 mars 1955. L’album a été publié chez Casterman en 1956. Cette planche est exemplaire à plus d’un titre.

Entièrement dessinée de la main d’Hergé, elle témoigne incontestablement de la maîtrise totale qu’il détenait, dans la plénitude de son talent, de tous les éléments qui constituent la «ligne claire». Son style est parvenu ici au stade dit «classique».

le site du Centre Pompidou

]]> http://jlutes.wordpress.com/?p=81 Wed, 07 May 2008 04:56:21 +0000 Jason Lutes http://jlutes.wordpress.com/?p=81

One of the great tools at the disposal of the cartoonist is the ability to imply much by showing little. A few marks under characters' feet suggest pavement; throw a jagged black shape in the background of a panel, and voilà -- cityscape. The thing I like about suggesting something over showing it in detail is that it invites the reader to complete the picture. The same effect occurs across all media, really, with comics toward the cooler end of the McLuhan thermometer and movies toward the hotter end. All visual information demands a basic degree of interactivity, but some asks for more than others, and in the continuum that runs from a person's actual physical experience (where all senses are engaged in maximum detail by the real world) to the open invitation of a blank page (where nothing is provided), the imagination is stimulated more by suggestion and less by exacting description.

Generally speaking, as a work of art "heats up" and provides more sensory stimuli, at least two things begin to diminish: 1) the inventiveness of the medium's practitioners, who have fewer constraints to work within; and 2) the degree of imaginative interaction the work invites from its audience. For instance, as sound and color were introduced into film, certain previously necessary devices (broad physical acting, intertitles) became obsolete, and viewers no longer needed to imagine what Gloria Swanson's voice sounded like.

With every step "forward" in any area of human endeavor, something is gained, and with rare exception there is a concomitant loss. I feel this keenly in video game design, as the cutting edge of graphics slices into the future, opening up new and ever hotter arteries of experience for the player, but leaving imagination dead in its wake. Consider an informal visual chronology of computer game graphics:

Left to right, top to bottom: Colossal Cave Adventure (1976), Rogue (1980), Lords of Midnight (1984), Master of Magic (1993), Age of Wonders 2 (2002), Battle for Middle-Earth (2004).

The earliest text adventures used words alone to suggest the game world, allowing the player's imagination to fill in all of the details. Later, the ideogrammatic use of ASCII characters made possible things like the dungeon floorplans of Rogue to be clearly delineated, but that "*" that represented a pile of gold was still something to conjure with. With each step in the progression from limited-palette, low-resolution graphics to high-res 3D models and particle effects -- with each step toward a more photorealistic rendering of the game environment -- the player has to do that much less creative work, that much less imaginative interaction.

I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad progression. The trade-off is that we get games that are more immediately, actively immersive, as opposed to ones in which we have to work to immerse ourselves. Something is lost, but something else is certainly gained. Even as better and better graphics technology is erasing the need for an active imagination in playing video games, increasingly sophisticated game design has made possible a range of consequential (as opposed to imaginative) interactivity that is unparalleled in any other medium. Plus, I'd hazard that most people who play video games don't want to use their imaginations -- they just want a fun ride¹. The more bells and whistles the better.

Each of us probably have our own sweet spot between abstraction and representation, a point where our imagination is fired up by the power of suggestion, but would be extinguished by too much more information. In video games, that sweet spot for me is best exemplified by Steve Barcia's classic Master of Magic, specifically on the tactical combat screen:

The average "figure" or unit graphic in MoM is 12 pixels high by 7 pixels wide, and the potential of that tiny canvas (+256 possible colors) is maximized to artfully evoke specific details of each of the 86 unit types available in the game². In the above screenshot, the lizardman shamans carry staves and wear some sort of broad golden collar, but the player can still read a lot into those combinations of a few colored squares. When I play MoM, my imagination fills in the details and I find myself picturing the collars as having a sort of Aztec design.

By comparison, the units in Battle for Middle Earth leave little to the mind's eye:

Nothing about these units is suggested -- everything is described. Beyond rounding off the occasional sharp-edged polygon, the player's imagination just has to sit back and relax.

In comics, my sweet spot is probably best exemplified by the work of Hergé or Chester Brown:

The level of detail that both of these artists bring to their work is just right for me. They draw characters and environments with enough specificity to create a believable, grounded world, but leave enough open for a sense of mobility and life to be triggered by the reader's participation. Generally speaking, too little visual information in a comic makes me believe less in the world of that story. And too much (something I struggle against in my own work) can rob a comic of whatever vitality it might otherwise possess.

Bringing this questionable ramble back to film, last year it was announced that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson will be turning the adventures of Tintin into at least three new motion pictures. In the cinematic equivalent of the graphic progression noted above, these films will be created using motion-capture and state-of-the-art CGI.

Jackson said WETA will stay true to Remi's original designs in bringing the cast of Tintin to life, but that the characters won't look cartoonish.

"Instead," Jackson said, "we're making them look photorealistic; the fibers of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people — but real Herge people!"

I will of course reserve judgment until we see the final results, but I couldn't help but shudder when I read this bit of news. Although some Tintinologists might delight in the prospect, When I can count the threads in Captain Haddock's sweater, some small part of me will die.

NOTES

¹ There are, of course, innumerable scattered subcultural pockets wherein "antiquated" forms of electronic gaming continue to thrive and grow, encompassing everything from interactive fiction to roguelikes to abandonware.

² Incidentally, the art director of Master of Magic, and several other Simtex games, was Jeff Dee, who will be familiar to any fan of tabletop RPGs from the late 70s and early 80s.

Tintin di Tanah Sovyet adalah komik Tintin pertama yang dibuat oleh Hergé. Gambarnya masih hitam putih, detail karakter dan latar belakangnya masih terlihat kasar. Dari segi cerita, dibandingkan dengan cerita Tintin di seri-seri berikutnya, Tintin Di Tanah Sovyet banyak memuat kejadian-kejadian konyol khas kartun jaman ayeuna. Kekonyolan yang memancing tawa para pembacanya. Dan sepertinya Milo terlalu pintar untuk seekor anjing :P .

Di seri awal ini sinisme dan kritikan Hergé terhadap komunisme sangat terlihat jelas. Sepanjang cerita, kepalsuan dan kekejaman pemerintah komunis Soviet digambarkan dalam ilustrasi dan dialog —yang menurut saya— malah terlihat lucu :mrgreen: . Contohnya ketika Tintin mendapati pabrik di Soviet ternyata palsu. Di dalamnya hanya ada orang sedang membakar jerami untuk membuat asap keluar dari cerobong dan yang lain sedang memukul-mukul seng dan besi agar terdengar seperti mesin yang sedang berproduksi.

Satu hal yang membuat saya menggemari komik Tintin adalah kepiawaian Hergé dalam mengilustrasikan tempat-tempat di berbagai belahan dunia yang dikunjungi Tintin sesuai dengan keadaan geografis, budaya, dan politik yang sedang terjadi saat itu. Mungkin itu juga sebabnya Tintin bukan hanya digemari oleh anak-anak tapi juga orang dewasa di berbagai negara.

Adaptación en dibujos animados de la inmortal obra de Miguel de Cervantes, que relata las aventuras del hidalgo Don Quijote y su fiel escudero Sancho Panza.

(Idioma: Neerlandés)

Pinche aquí para acceder al catálogo:

Las aventuras de Tintín.

Eterno adolescente sin familia conocida, Tintín es reportero de oficio, aunque en realidad actúa más como aventurero o detective. Su principal ocupación es viajar por todo el mundo acompañado de su inseparable perro Milú con el propósito de enfrentarse a las fuerzas del mal para proteger a los débiles y a los oprimidos y saciar su inagotable sed de aventuras. A su lado cuenta con un colorido reparto de personajes tan pintorescos como inolvidables: el irascible Capitán Haddock, los inefables Hernández y Fernández, el despistado Profesor Tornasol o la celebérrima Castafiore entre muchos otros. La creación de Hergé es sin lugar a dudas uno de los personajes de ficción más conocidos y queridos en todo el mundo y hoy en día continúa inspirando a cada nueva generación con su audacia, su ingenio y los valores universales que representa.

Capítulos disponibles en la bilioteca: El cetro de Ottokar, El cangrejo de las pinzas de oro, Los cigarros del faraón, La isla negra, El loto azul, la Oreja rota.

(Fuente: FilmAffinity)

Tintin has always shown himself capable of handling a gun, fist fighting drug smugglers and dealing with the Captain's benders. But what will he face in L.A.? Will he be able to resist the siren call of the 21st century, the fickle attentions of the ever-hungry blockbuster machine, the translation from static clean lines with a global trajectory to the narcissistic orbits and eye candy of L.A.? He's entertained generations of fans in print, survived spies, sneak attacks, henchmen, gorillas, trips to the moon and the bottom of the sea. With any luck he'll manage in L.A. A trilogy though? Played by a kid?

--Thanks to p.f. magic for helping me figuring out how to lose the baseball cap

Jag är av någon anledning barnsligt förtjust i saker som är relaterat till Tintin, jag har filmerna, ljudböckerna, serietidningarna och jag har en liten miniatyr av Tintin och Haddock då dem sitter i taxin från Tintin i Tibet, det är någonting med Tintin som bara gör att man älskar det, och ja, jag skulle också kunna tänka mig att hänga upp den där lilla tavlan på väggen. Tänkte bara pricka in de 7 nummer jag valt till veckans omgång av LOTTO, som om de skulle hända : ).

Källa: Alafista 

Andra åsikter om Tintin, serie, tavla, Konst, herge, film, ljud, bok, ljudbok

Si por un momento estableciéramos un paralelismo entre el mundo del coleccionismo de cómics y el del arte, un original de Tintín podría corresponder tal vez a un Van Gogh o un Picasso. Al menos, a juzgar por el precio que ha alcanzado una acuarela original de Hergé, el dibujante belga de cuya pluma salieron las aventuras del famoso reportero, que batió ayer todos los récords al ser subastada por 780.000 euros en París.

 .

Artcurial justificaba el alto valor del dibujo en la rareza de las portadas en pintura 'guache' dentro de la obra de Hergé, técnica que sólo empleo en cinco historietas: 'Tintín en el país de los soviets', 'Tintín en América', Tintín en el Congo', 'Los cigarros del faraón' y 'El loto azul'.

A pesar de la exclusividad del dibujo, la puja ha superado todas las expectativas, ya que la casa de subastas estimaba en 280.000 euros el precio de la ilustración. Los 780.000 euros sobrepasan con creces los 177.000 euros que el año pasado se pagaron por un dibujo de Enki Bilal de 'Sangre Azul', que hasta ahora ostentaba el récord.

La subasta, en la que se pusieron a la venta alrededor de 650 obras y en la que se recaudaron más de tres millones de euros, incluía otras obras maestras del cómic de autores como Bilal, Rosinski, Moebius (cuyas planchas del Teniente Blueberry también suelen alcanzar cifras astronómicas), Tardi o Druillet entre otros. Además, también se ha pujado por un ejemplar de 'Tintín en América' en un formato pequeño y blanco y negro de 1934, otra joya para los amantes del reportero.

Ilustración: El dibujo de Hergé ha sido subastado por 764.200 euros.