LeTinTinMovie.com is reporting that Kirsten Myburgh has been cast as Tintin but Market Saw 3D is reporting inside information saying Myburgh has not been confirmed. He is just another casting call.

Never heard of Kirsten Myburgh? Its not surprising as, to be brutally honest, he is currently a nobody. His only role on IMDB is in a film called Garden Party where he plays ‘Friend with money’. If he does get the lead part in the Tintin Movie then he will go from nobody to somebody very quickly.

Digging around on Kirsten Myburgh official site I found a photo that might be connected to his potential role as Tintin. The plus-fours and jumper are very Tintin but the hat isn’t. Maybe he couldn’t get his hair into a quiff?

Nice piece on the French/European approach to comic from the BBC.

If you look further you will see that the BD section – pronounced Bay-Day – is in fact sub-divided into several categories. There will be classics – Asterix, Tintin, Lucky Luke, the cowboy who shoots faster than his shadow – plus many that never made it out of Franco-Belgium, like Rahan – l’enfant des ages farouches or child of the age of savagery – about a Tarzan-like figure from prehistoric times. There will be the latest best-sellers. Top of the book lists this month – beating Harry Potter and the latest on President Nicolas Sarkozy’s love life – has been the last in a long-running adventure series called Thirteen about a man trying to rediscover his identity after losing his memory.

France takes its comics very seriously

A quick hello to everyone who is linking to Tintin Movie. Including the Art / Design blog Lout Shelter, the map mad folks at Google Maps Mania, Maktaaq andSmall Thoughts.

Rather than doing any proper work I’ve been browsing Flickr for Tintin related photos. My favourite is this composite of Château de Cheverny, the real world inspiration for Marlinspike, and Herge’s vision of it. Check on the Tintin Map for Marlinspike’s real location.

I was also taken by this “Tintin in a blender” shot” and the knitted Tintin rocket.

Still want more. Try these
Tintin fire escape; Fantastic Tintin halloween lantern; Desktop Destination Moon ; Milou .

When Tintin and Snowy are cast a drift in sarcophagi during Cigars of the Pharaoh they are rescued by a passing arms dealer. That man was based on Henry de Monfreid, a french drug smuggler who became famous after the publication of the autobiographic Hashish: A Smuggler’s Tale and Secrets of the Red Sea.

Monfreid first went to the Red Sea in 1911 with the intent of trading in coffee but spent the next thirty years smuggling guns, hashish and diving for pearls. He also spent a fair amount in prison because of this. Following the outbreak of World War II he worked for the Italians until captured by the British. When the war was over he retired to France and continued to write. Over the next 30 years he wrote about 70 books. When money got tight he mortgaged the family collection of Gauguin. After his death these paintings were found to be fake.

Hashish: A Smuggler’s Tale was published in the early thirties just when Herge was writing Cigars of the Pharaoh. It seems odd that the conservative, strait-laced Herge should put a character like Monfreid in his book but one can imagine the exotic, devil-may-care, existence of the smuggler would appeal to the shy Belgium who had never left his country. Though possible it was Monfreid attitude to Germans that appeal. On seeing the Pyramids he couldn’t wait to leave. Saying “The only thing that one might possibly admire is the stupendous effort it took to build them, and this admiration demands the mentality of a German tourist.”

Herge’s art style, Ligne claire or Clear Line, was highly distinctive but has been used by a number of European artists. Amounst the best current practitioners is Eric Heuvel. An ex-history teacher and long time comics creator who has recently created a book on the Holocaust, The Search. It is the fictional story of Daniel, who after seeking information on the Holocaust on the internet, hears a first hand account from his grandmother Esther, who as a young Jewish girl saw her parents deported to their death in Auschwitz. The Search has recently been translated to German and is being used as a teaching aid to help German school children understand those terrible events.

Peter Jackson may drop the idea of directing The Hobbit to concentrate on finishing his current project The Lovely Bones and preparing for Tintin. Meanwhile, Andy Serkis (Gollum in Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy) has been talking to Empire Magazine about the Tintin movie. He recently spent a week on the sound stage for Avatar, James Cameron’s latest blockbuster, along with Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg. Avatar is using Cameron’s Reality Camera System to film in 3-D and is likely to be part of the technology used in the Tintin films.

Tintin featured in the Simpsons’ episode Husbands and Knives. Like with most Simpsons guest appearances it was nicely done their own unique style. Here is the first half of the episode from You Tube. The Tintin part appears at 3:48.