The Tintin books by Herge are things that, I suspect, a large number of western European children grow up with. I can't speak for the rest of the world, though God knows the works have been translated into almost as many languages as there are languages. Certainly I read those that were translated into Welsh, and all of the English-language ones ( Read more... )

Good, I've now booked (as long as the confirmations come through), all my hotels, flights etc. to Japan, in just over a week and a half, so I hopefully shouldn't have to worry too much now. OK, so I did leave myself some suspense as I chose not to book the one night's stay in a capsule hotel in Osaka (somewhere in the bottom half of Japan), as a) I ( Read more... )

I'd heard of this before, but I've now found out they're going to make the 2007 film of Beowulf, starring Anthony Hopkins and Brendan Gleeson, into an animation. Presumably CGI and whatnot. Can't tell yet whether or not I think this is a good idea. At least they can forget about the "how will we find an actor that looks like Beowulf should?" ( Read more... )