MondayLunchCrew

When I was young, living in Halifax, I would religiously go to and borrow books from the bookmobile every week. I simply loved the bookmobile. The librarian was nice. The location was close, and the books were just what I wanted to read. And it’s got the added advantage of essentially being a recommendation list in a trailer. I could and did attempt to read every book of my interest in the ‘mobile. It was here, that I discovered Hergé and his most famous creation: Tintin.

This is where I read just about every copy of Tintin [English] and Asterix [English] it owned on top of many others… collections of Fantastic Four, and some X-men. Let’s not yet discuss the actual novels I read.

Today I’m still a big fan of many of the books I discovered there, but Hergé with Tintin won a permanent place in my heart. I’ve been slowly trying to collect the French copies of Tintin over the years. They are pricey and takes up a lot of space, but I recently saw in the Yorkville location of La Maison de la Presse internationale that they are starting to publish the graphic novels in a smaller format. Perfect for me!

I have to say that the graphic novels are far from PC by today’s standards and are often filled with plenty of stereotypes and outright wrong information. It is a certain reflection of the times and narrow views of author (or perhaps it’s meant to be political? I personally don’t think so). I certainly don’t agree with a lot of what is represented, but I cannot resist the adventure in each story. They filled me with ideas of travel and fantasies of saving the world. But mostly I love that Tintin is a devoted friend and has a good moral compass. That’s enough to overcome some of the faults of the stories. The art of the drawings is, IMHO, timeless, and most importantly, there’s something there for you, no matter how old you are reading it.

This year, as I found out recently (isn’t the internet great?) marks what would be the 100th birthday of Hergé, who’s real name is George Remi (neé May 22, 1907). [Great article via.]

Too bad I didn’t get a chance to go to Paris for the exhibition at the Centre Pompidou.

Tintin fans unite.

For your DVD player, the Canada – France production of The Adventures of Tintin tv series.

• The Adventures of Tintin, Vols. 1-5
• The Adventures of Tintin, Vols. 6-10

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