sort of on matters tintin (but not)
i've been sick all week with the sinuses from hell. and i really do mean sinuses *from hell* - i was off for the first couple of days, went back to work on wednesday... and dear god was that a mistake. thankfully everyone at work seems to be similarly suffering so it doesn't reflect too badly on me...
but anyway...
i've received two books in the post today that i ordered through amazon. the first is the awesome "vern and lettuce" by sarah mcintyre which is everything - and MORE! - that i had hoped it would be. the second is "the yellow m" by edgar p jacobs. i kind of knew about jacobs for some time, from my reading of biographies of herge. he was his assistant and did a lot of work particularly on the redraw editions of things like "the black island", doing background scenery work. and considering how exquisite those backgrounds are - i am not one of those people who think the first version of "the black island" is necessarily better than the redo - i really wish i'd chased up jacobs' work before now. i decided to order this last week after the blake and mortimer stories were mentioned in "hicksville" by dylan horrocks and boy! what a brilliant thing this is. i mean it's weird - there's two brilliant things about this book. one, it's a great old fashioned thriller drawn beautifully in a sort of more detailed herge manner and secondly... it really demonstrates how extraordinarily brilliant herge is as a writer and artist. for all the wonders in this book, there is nothing of the equal of calculus, haddock, jolyon wagg... even the broader tintin books contain moments of brilliant humour that just isn't here. it's not a bad thing - because the merits of the book are enough to justify its existence, and besides it's a very different kind of beast and probably was intended to be. but it just reminds you how much invention and wit and - yes! - genius is present in every tintin book. so yes, a great book in itself but more importantly a wonderful reminder of just how wonderful one of my heroes really is...
but anyway...
i've received two books in the post today that i ordered through amazon. the first is the awesome "vern and lettuce" by sarah mcintyre which is everything - and MORE! - that i had hoped it would be. the second is "the yellow m" by edgar p jacobs. i kind of knew about jacobs for some time, from my reading of biographies of herge. he was his assistant and did a lot of work particularly on the redraw editions of things like "the black island", doing background scenery work. and considering how exquisite those backgrounds are - i am not one of those people who think the first version of "the black island" is necessarily better than the redo - i really wish i'd chased up jacobs' work before now. i decided to order this last week after the blake and mortimer stories were mentioned in "hicksville" by dylan horrocks and boy! what a brilliant thing this is. i mean it's weird - there's two brilliant things about this book. one, it's a great old fashioned thriller drawn beautifully in a sort of more detailed herge manner and secondly... it really demonstrates how extraordinarily brilliant herge is as a writer and artist. for all the wonders in this book, there is nothing of the equal of calculus, haddock, jolyon wagg... even the broader tintin books contain moments of brilliant humour that just isn't here. it's not a bad thing - because the merits of the book are enough to justify its existence, and besides it's a very different kind of beast and probably was intended to be. but it just reminds you how much invention and wit and - yes! - genius is present in every tintin book. so yes, a great book in itself but more importantly a wonderful reminder of just how wonderful one of my heroes really is...