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S**L
For Completists Only
The first to be published of Casterman's monumental, 12-volume publication of the Hergé's complete comic strips plays things safe: three complete stories that would end up as four Tintin albums, plus the Jo, Zette & Jocko adventure La Vallée des Cobras, all printed in full colour as first published in the Journal Tintin.Although the entire adventure was originally called On A Marché Sur La Lune readers are used to this being the title only of the second half of Tintin's beloved sci-fi story; here, then, we get the entire tale, including that of the album known in English as Destination: Moon. The differences in layout are sometimes substantial between the version here and the later album, which was re-drawn and recoloured, although to be honest I prefer the colouring of the 1954 album than the one given here.Next up are L'Affaire Tournesol, which was recoloured but follows the later album publication very closely until the page format changes towards the end of the story, substituting an oblong page for the later, familiar portrait orientation. Again, the journal colouring is fairly clearly inferior to the later albums and the comparative absence of supplementary pages (such as cover illustrations) means that one really gets very little extra in this part of the book. Coke En Stock has even fewer changes, showing how closely Hergé had prepared his stories for republication as books by this late point in his career.Perhaps unsurprisingly, since I did not already know this story, I found La Vallée des Cobras more illuminating: a story which fits well with Tintin world and is seen well in the context of the other journal versions.The volume ends with beautifully-illustrated editorial material, although as so often with Casterman I feel that the text stays at the level of interesting factoids rather than diving very deep into the detail.As an individual volume, vol. 6 suffers in comparison with vol. 11 for two reasons: the Tintin tales are too close to the versions in which they are well-known, and there is less supplementary artwork in terms of covers etc. The Journal Tintin does not benefit from publication in this series as much as Le Petit Vingtième, and too often the strips here feel like printers' proofs awaiting correction for the album versions. Nevertheless, Hergé obsessives will want to be in this series for the full journey, and the price - for a large format hardback effectively containing five albums plus editorial material and supporting artwork - is really quite reasonable.
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