Two new photos from the filming of Tintin have surfaced.

This shot (reportedly) shows Jamie Bell with another, unidentified actor and members of the crew. Snowy is simply a piece of cardboard on the end of a broomstick and just there so that the actors have something to react to when filming the scene.

Actually, that should be capturing, not filming, the scenes. There is no film or even video involved in this process.

The strange, wet-suit style, costumes the actors are wearing are covered with markers. These markers are tracked by sensors placed all over the room and their location are precisely recorded hundreds of times a second and stored to a computer. This data is then used in the CGI animation process allowing the director to create any style of image they want but based on the real movement of actors.

There is a second photo over at As Aventuras De Tintim, a Brazilian Tintin blog: EXCLUSIVO: Novas imagens do set de Tintim. I cannot find these images anywhere in the mainstream yet so this is a real scoop for them.

(c) Richard Wainman

This beautiful but presumably unauthorized christmas image is by artist Richard Wainman. He has several other Tintin related images on his deviantArt gallery, including two Tintin christmas images (Card No 1. and a card for 2006), Thompson, no Thomson, Tintin and Haddock on the Moon and Sir Francis Haddock.

Have a merry christmas everyone.

This example of unauthorised Tintin comes from a 1990 comic called Inferno by Watson Portello.

I can find nothing about the artist or the comic or why Tintin and Captain Haddock appear to be pilots so please just enjoy this example of Herge’s impact on popular culture.

Source: Royal Boiler

Win a Copy of Herge: The Man Who Created Tintin

I have three copies of the new biography Herge: The Man Who Created Tintin to give away in a very simple competition:

If Herge was still writing today, what would his next Tintin book be called?

The best suggestions for 21st Century Tintin titles will get a free copy of the biography. They can be silly or serious, I don’t mind. The winners will simply whichever ones I think are best.

To enter, you can put your suggestion in a comment below or send it via Twitter. Just use the hash tag #21cTintin. If you are a winner, I will contact you via a Twitter or email to get your postal address.

A special thanks to Emily at Oxford University Press for supplying the books.

The competition starts now and will run until the end of the week. So plenty of time to get thinking that ultimate 21st Century Tintin title.

EDIT: Copyright Concerns

We have had some wonderful entries and many of you have written plot summaries to go with the titles. Thank you everyone for your imagination and hard work.

However this puts Tintinology in a dangerous place regarding copyright. The plot outlines can be considered derivative works and are not covered by fair usage. To avoid having the 800 pound gorilla of Moulinsart legal team jumping on my head, I have edited out everything except the titles.

Thank you for everyone who has gone over and above the call of duty to write these wonderful and amusing plot outlines but we have to respect the law of copyright.

Nick Frost, who is playing Thomson against Simon Pegg’s Thompson, has been talking about filming Tintin. No major revaluations but some interesting comment.

Peter kind of re-wrote the scripts most evenings because he was in New Zealand, and so you would go in, in the morning with three or four pages of new dialogue and they were like “we are shooting this in 30 minutes, so GET READY!”

… [We] all had those terrible tight fitting black motion capture suits. Which is fine if you’re Daniel Craig, cause I’m sure his was handmade and looked beautiful but I looked like a big Tyrannosaurus Rex’s egg.

… I went out to W.H. Smiths and bought all the books and I was surprised at how adult they were. I read one where Tintin and Haddock were on a plane and Haddock gets drunk and hits Tintin on the head with the bottle…

Snowy was an odd little thing on set, because he was just a wire frame dog with a broomstick sticking out of him and someone would follow us around, moving him on set.

Source: Nick Frost Talks Tintin Effects and Directing Duo

This week it was a Congolese accountant suing Moulinsart over the racist images in Tintin in the Congo. Last week it was Brooklyn Library’s decision to lock the book up. Before that is was the British Commission for Racial Equality who attacked the book.

With a high profile film on the way, Moulinsart must be wondering what to do about this never ending stream of bad publicity. There is a very real danger that Herge’s name and reputation will become tarnished by this 80 year old comic but their options are limited and none of them are ideal.

Publish and be Dammed

Ignoring the fuss and sticking to the line that Tintin Au Congo is a work of a young writer living in a very different time is certainly the most honest and intellectually sound idea but it all to easily could look like they are condoning racism.

The investors in the movie will be nervous about how this will play in America. At the moment, Tintin is almost unknown so no one really cares but in 18 months time, it will be a different story. Images of black protestors outside of cinemas would critically damage the film in the race conscious USA. With a reported $130 million invested we can be sure that the studios executives will be on the phone to the head of Moulinsart, Nick Rodwell, demanding that something is done.

Bury It

The simplest option is for Moulinsart to make an announcement saying that the book is out-dated and to stop publishing the book, removing all traces of it from their product line. Rather like the victim of a Stalinist purge, Tintin Au Congo will be airbrushed out of the official history, leaving behind an idealised image of Herge and his creation for public consumption. Certainly, real Tintin fans would know about the book and rumours would circulate in the general public but the charges of racism would be effectively blunted.

To an extent this has been done already, with its withdrawal from the US market but in order silence the critics, they need to withdraw it all languages and all editions, including the facsimile editions. This approach is the easiest option and will cost the company relatively little in lost sales.

The Sacred Cow

Herge left strict instructions that no one else should write or draw Tintin after his death and Moulinsart have devoutly stuck to this. The temptation of the millions a new Tintin book could make has been suppressed by the overwhelming desire to protect Herge’s legacy and honour his life work. But can this commitment stand up to the pressure of public opinion and the demands of studio executives? Would Moulinsart release a modified, updated version of Tintin in the Congo?

This would be a major step for Moulinsart and one that may open the floodgates to new Tintin material but it would have a number of advantages. It tackles the accusation of racism without creating the skeleton in the closet that simply burying the book might create. It would be profitable as well as millions of Tintin fans buy the new edition and it generates a huge amount of positive publicity.

No Right Answer

Each of these potential solutions create their own problems and picking between them is no easy task but it seem unlikely that doing nothing is a viable option. A constant stream of Tintin is Racist headlines will damage Herge’s reputation and the prospects for the film.

Personally I think they should publish and be dammed. Herge’ life story is complex but overall it is a positive one. Trying to hide or deny Europe’s colonial and racist past helps nobody in the long run. Tintin exemplified the boy scout idea of being honest and doing the right thing. Let’s be honest about Tintin’s past.

Found on the Flickr Tintin: Boy Reporter stream.

Peter Jackson was at the San Diego Comic Convention, talking about a lot of things including Tintin.

Jackson’s work on Tintin is still in early stages but he insists that the films are being made by people who are true Tintin fans. He also said that the design of the film was intended to be as true to creator Herge’s original designs as possible but with added textures. Otherwise, he indicated that they might as well just do a live-action version, which neither he nor Steven Spielberg (who is directing the first film) wanted.

Source: SDCC: Peter Jackson, James Cameron Fight For Cinema’s Future

Different blogs have picked up different comment from the event. Chud is reporting:

Jackson said that he was still trying to figure out which book he wanted to adapt, and that he would probably be rereading the entire Tintin series to make his decision.



That said, Jackson mentioned that he was currently leaning towards either The Seven Crystal Balls or Prisoners of the Sun. It’s likely that he would actually adapt both, as Prisoners of the Sun is the sequel to The Seven Crystal Balls. The story involves an Incan curse brought on by the discovery of a Peruvian mummy.

Source: COMIC CON 09: PETER JACKSON HASN’T STARTED WORK ON HIS TINTIN

As the first film will combine The Crab with the Golden Claws and The Secret of the Unicorn into one story, would Jackson really do anything other than Red Rackham’s Treasure? Failing to do so would miss the opportunity to introduce the character of Professor Calculus whose first appearance is in Red Rackham’s Treasure. It would also beg the question ‘What is the Secret of the Unicorn?’ if it is not a map for Tintin & Haddock to follow? Are they going to skip the whole adventure to the Caribbean and have Tintin solve the puzzle whilst imprisoned in Marlinspike’s cellar?

However, if Jackson is doing Red Rackham’s Treasure he had better get a move on. With multi-part films (Lord of the Rings, for example) the release dates of the films need to be relatively close, no more than a year apart, other audiences will lose interest in the project. With Secret of the Unicorn coming out in late 2011, a release date of summer or late 2012 for the second film is logical. This means the script needs to be written and the cast scheduled for motion capture.

UPDATE: More information and quotes.

As for the second movie, he reveals that production is pencilled in for the second half of 2010, a year before the first one’s release. “I’ve got to get through The Hobbit first, then we’ll move onto that. At the moment we’re keeping our options open, but I am very partial to The Seven Crystal Balls/ Prisoners Of The Sun. I’m going to read them all again before deciding which to have a go at.”



The EW interview quoted above adds some details. The first Tintin film, directed by Steven Spielberg, is currently at the first-cut stage. It will take two years to do all the animation and rendering needed for the final product. (The film has to be edited first because no one wants to pay for expensive rendering on shots that won’t end up in the final cut.) Peter drops the remark that he hasn’t decided which Tintin books to include in the second film, and that he and Spielberg would like to do a longer series if the first films succeed.

Source: Comic-Con news, and why there’s still no casting for The Hobbit

I snagged this wonderful mash-up of Magritte imagery and Herge’s Thom(p)son from the ever excellent The Ephemerist. See When Giants Meet for more information .

Found on Flickr: “Esclave de Tintin”

Oddly, it is not the only picture of Tintin with a cat o’ nine tails.