Charles Burns, one of the most disturbing comic artists / illustrators has a portfolio of work out by United Dead Artists that includes this familiar image:

For comparison I thought I would put up the original image and I was amazed at how close Charles Burns’ version is to the original. Try comparing the locations of the rocks. I then noticed something about The Shooting Star. The cover is a redrawn version of one of the panels.

The Shooting Star Cover Art Work

Final Panel of Page 51

It makes sense for the artwork to be redrawn for the cover but my surprise is a naiveté left over from my childhood when I would look through the books finding the frame they had used for the cover. One more precious childhood memory destroyed by the bitter reality of adulthood.

Belgian prime minister Yves Leterme, famous for his quiffed hair and Tintinesque earnestness (and lack of humor), is on adventure in South-America. – Vincent Rif via The Ephemerist.

Nice to see that the iconic Tintin is still a strong cultural reference in Belgium. I wonder if this cartoonist will get sued like Bill Leak did for his image of Aussie premier Kevin Rudd as Tintin (below)

Check out Gazpachot’s blog for surreal imagery including this Tintin / Titanic comparison.

Meanwhile, On Jon’s Random Acts of Geekery, he has a a guide to drawing Tintin.

Two of my favourite characters going face to face.

This fantastic image was created by Malcolm McClinton who does a lot of fantasy and SF based art.

Kate Beaton is a comics creator with a very odd sense of humor and style. Check out her web site for lots more comics but this one jumped out.

Thanks to the Repartee in the LJ Boy Reporter community for spotting this.

Tom McCarthy’s 2006 book, Tintin and the Secret of Literature is reviewed in the Los Angeles Times.

In France in particular, Tintin became a cottage industry, his exploits fodder for philosophers, psychoanalysts and literary critics, all of whom McCarthy leans on in asking, “Is ‘Tintin’ literature?” He notes the “huge irony . . . that the ‘Tintin’ books remain both unrivaled in their complexity and depth and so simple, even after more than half a century, that a child can read them with the same involvement as an adult.” But the question of whether they’re literature is not as interesting now, given the ascendance of pop culture. McCarthy seems to admit as much when he tweaks his query slightly: “As soon as we ask if ‘Tintin’ should be treated as literature, we raise another question: what is literature?”

From: ‘Tintin and the Secret of Literature’ by Tom McCarthy

Alexis Peskine, a Parisian artist of Afro-Brazilian and Lithuanian Jewish background has done some very interesting work exploring the contradictions in French society. Especially the racism and prejudice against immigrants from former colonies. Inevitably he has tackled Tintin.

The work is called “Tintin and your Kids” and depicts Tintin as skinhead. In the background a Congolese flag lies barely visible on a large stack of tires.

Peskine’s inspiration is drawn from what he regards as an overarching paradox in French society that symbolically awards French identity to all those who accept its norms while at the same time harboring prejudice toward immigrants from France’s former colonies. “It is illegal in France to perform a census that collects ethnic information,” Peskine said during an interview in his studio in Hoboken, N.J. “This idea came from long before immigrants ever arrived in France. There is a denial that there is ethnicity and race within Frenchness.”

From: French-Bred

I found these painted metal 28mm(?) miniatures on Monday Night Adventures, a blog on war games and miniatures.

They are produced by Copplestone Castings who lists them as 1920′s Characters – GN9 Sleuths and describes them as Boy Detective and dog.

AFP have a interesting story on how Herge’s original paintings for the Tintin strips are becoming highly collectable works of art.

A 1932 oil painted for by the Belgian author Herge for the cover of “Tintin in America” is the star item at a one-off sale of 650 comic originals Saturday in Paris, with a starting price of 280,000 euros (440,000 dollars).

“A museum piece. Sublime,” writes the Artcurial gallery and auction house, which is organising the sale, in its catalogue.

Source: Comic book originals break into art market

Tintin publisher Raymond Leblanc died over the weekend. Comics Reporter have a good obituary.

A civil servant turned member of the French Resistance in World War II, the Longlier native partnered with two friends to create a small publishing company on Rue du Lombard in Brussels. Their big coup came in 1945 when they convinced Herge to bring his Tintin into the fold of a weekly publication devoted to kids to share the feature’s name. The cartoonist, already a success with a dozen albums to his credit but battered personally and professionally by the limited publishing opportunities during the war in a way that would drive criticism his way for the remainder of his days, accepted their offer. He recruited three friends — Paul Cuvelier, Edgard P. Jacobs, Jacques Laudy — to help him form the core of the magazine. They and their successors would take aim at the successful Spirou and forge a successful legacy for themselves at the same time.

Full Obituary