A great fan video of Tintin, imagined in the style of the Bourne Identity / Casino Royal gritty action films.

It reminds me of this clip for Gandhi II from Weird Al Yonkovic’s film UHF.

Thanks to Inferior Design for spotting this.

Nothing to do with Tintin, other than it happened in Anterwerp, but I like flash mobs and this one is extremely well done.

It was done as a promotion stunt for a Belgian TV program / competition for the casting of The Sound of Music.

Tintin’s Rocket from Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon is one of the most iconic images from the comics. Not surprisingly it crops it in a lot of places such as the video below where someone is testing their CGI skills.

On a slightly more ambitious scale, this 3 minute film re-imagines the rockets launch and flight (with a nice twist at the end).

This final video is in Spanish (I think) Catalan and it appears to be a physics lecture about rockets and gravity using Tintin’s tip to the moon as an example.

A few odds and sods of Tintin news.

Garen Ewing, who’s book Rainbow Orchid we featured a couple of days ago, writes about having his artwork mistaken for Herge’s. Highly flattering for any Tintin fan / artist.

The Tintinologist forum picked up on a new book about Tintin coming out later this year. Herge: The Man Who Created Tintin will be out in the UK in October and in the US in November.

The Toronto Star has a reasonable piece about Herge & Tintin.

Nick Frost chats to the Birmingham Mail about Tintin (and his new film The Boat That Rocked).

Nick says of making The Adventures of Tintin: “It was amazing, as Spielberg is a real hero of mine. I vividly remember watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When you see him come out from behind his monitor, punching the air and doing a dance because you’ve done a good take, it’s like ‘oh my God, that’s Steven Spielberg!’.”

Full article: Upfront Nick has to bare his all

Herge’s legacy of boy’s own adventures and bold, colourful artwork lives on in Rainbow Orchid. Originally a web comic, the story is now being produced in three volumes by Egmont, but you can read all the full story online (start here).

Set in the 1920s or 30s, it follows Julius Chancer, in a convoluted plot to find the legendary Rainbow Orchid. Along the way the plot twists and turns, introducing a wide range of characters who both help and hinder the hero on his quest. Garen Ewing, the writer and artist, has produced a fantastic work in the Ligne Claire style. The colours are perfect for the web, bright & bold, and yet he still captures details and nuances, especially in the detailed backgrounds. I cannot wait to see how this translates in to print.

The book will be out on the 4th August and can be pre-ordered from Amazon UK. Hopefully there will be a US release later.

Simon Pegg has been interviewed in SFX Magazine about the new Star Trek movie, his new film Paul and, of course, Tintin.

You’re dressed in what looks like a bizarre scuba-diving outfit with a helmet on, with a camera and a light pointed at your face the whole time. And you’ve got dots all over your face! So me, Nick [Frost], Jamie Bell and Daniel Craig were all doing scenes together, taking it very seriously – although it’s a light-hearted adventure, you have to take it seriously – and we just looked ridiculous. We were in this massive grey space called The Volume that represents an area of the studio that can be rendered digitally. Once you enter The Volume you see yourself on the monitor as your character. ….


And Peter Jackson was directing us on iChat, from New Zealand, so Steven would come out and go “Great… Now try it this way” and then you’d hear this other voice go “Hello guys, it’s Peter!” And he’d be coming over the tannoy like God….


… It’s so funny to talk to [Spielberg] about that, and ET and Raiders… to have that level of access to someone of whom I’m such a huge fan is such a privilege. Nick and I left the room that day and jumped up and down in the corridor. We couldn’t believe that we’d had this talk.

Read the rest: Simon Pegg Exclusive

Definitely a comic for fans of Tintin. Blake & Mortimer was one of the first stories to appear in the Tintin Magazine after World War II and its style and adventure based story-lines have a lot in common with Herge’s work. This is not surprising as Edgar P. Jacobs, the creator was Belgian and met Herge whilst creating scenery for a stage adaptation of Cigars of the Pharaoh. The two became friends and Jacobs was hired to help Herge reformat his early work into a book friendly format.

The page above is taken from The Yellow “M” (La Marque Jaune). Set in a carefully and accurate depiction of London, complete with pea-souper fog.

Thanks to raphaelclancy on Twitter for reminding me of Blake & Mortimer.