Rare vintage Tintin toys: Blistering Barnacles! These vintage sculptures and hat made a huge splash at our stores…

The Belgian Centre for Comic Strip Art is museum celebrating the huge success of Belgian comics such as Tintin and The Smurfs as well as less well known comics.

Recently Kostas from the German site Greek Geek visited the museum and sent us a video of what is inside the museum.

Watch the Video

I’ve been considering a trip to Brussels for a while and the museum is one of things I really want to see. So thank you Kostas, I’m now really keen to go.

The Tibetan New Year, Losar, started yesterday (25th) and continues until tomorrow (27th). In the Tibetan calendar, we are starting the Year of the Female Earth Ox or year 2136.

This year, celebrations are muted as many Tibetans forgo their usual celebrations and protest about the on-going civil rights abuses by the occupying Chinese government. A little less than a year ago, a number of protesters were killed during a period of civil unrest. Anyone speaking out for civil rights in the region faces arrest and long spells in prison.

Tintin in Tibet is one of Herge’s greatest works and in 2006 the Dali Lama presents the Light of Truth award to the Hergé Foundation in Brussels in recognition Herge’s significant contributions to the public understanding of Tibetan culture.

Found this image on Flickr of die cast Tintin toys for Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.

Source: Tin tin au pays des soviets

A few photos of Cheverny, the real life inspiration behind Marlinspike.

More: Cheverny– Le Chateau de TinTin

As a young Georges Remi sleeps, he dreams of Tintin.

Watch the Video

A first class blog post on Tintin and Literature:

Before I forget, let me just say that one of the things in that article that irritated me unduly was the repetition of the claim (which I have read elsewhere more than once) that in The Castafiore Emerald, ‘nothing whatsoever happens’. This is plainly false: plenty happens in the book; it’s just that no crime happens. Even in detective literature it is not uncommon for there to be an intrigue with all the appearance of a crime but which transpires to be nothing of the sort: see, for example, the Sherlock Holmes story The Man With The Twisted Lip, among others. In The Castafiore Emerald the story of the not-crime is managed expertly with suspense and irony (as you will remember, the magpie that turns out to have been the perpetrator of the theft is subtly drawn into the first frame and then again in the last); but stuff does happen. Still, it would have been nice to be able to say, as of Waiting for Godot where, famously, ‘nothing happens…twice’, that in The Castafiore Emerald, ‘nothing happens sixty-two times.’ Missed a trick there.

Read more: Saperlipopette

A couple of minutes of Simon Pegg talking brief about Tintin and his other projects: Simon Pegg talks Tintin and wingmen

In other Pegg news, Simon is to become a Daddy thanks to his wife Maureen: It’s Shaun of the dad – Simon Pegg reveals baby secret

Excellent news for the Tintin Movie. John Williams, 5 times Oscar winning composer will be doing the score for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

Williams has worked with Spielberg on Indiana Jones, Schindler’s List, Jurrasic park and Jaws. He also did the sound tracks to all the Star Wars films and all of the first three Harry Potter films. He has been nominated for an Oscar 45 times! In case you have forgotten how brilliant this man is, enjoy this medley of John Williams’ genius.

(more…)

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