Intrepid reporter
A few years ago, I posted that Dreamworks bought the rights to the Tintin movie. Today, they're announcing that they're moving forward with the project. No word yet on casting or the book, but I'm uber excited about the prospect.
When I was a kid, every time we went to Austin my parents used to take to the Co-Op in Austin on Guadalupe to buy books. We were each allowed to buy one book. It took us hours to pour through the shelves and decide which single book to get. It must have cost my parents a fortune, even for four kids books. Anyhow, at some point in pouring through the shelves, we found Asterix and Tintin. And for a few years, every single trip to the Co-Op bookstore we pooled, together our books so we could add to the series. We thought it was a great coup: using a loophole to buy comic books. My parents thought it was a great coup: though they were comic books, they were at a much higher reading level than anything else we would have picked up. At some point in the late 60s/early 70s, someone (I presume his best friend from Oxford, a medievalist who is now at the University of Virginia) gave my dad Asterix in Britian, and he thought it was one of the funniest things he ever read. He was wholly supportive of our comic book buying.
I didn't understand, the first time I read them, the puns involved with Asterix, Obelix, Dogmatix, Vitalstatistix and Getafix, but I thought the stories were wonderful and the imagery was funny. For years, everything I knew about the Roman Empire came from Asterix books. I didn't understand the international politics (or racial stereotypes) in the Tintin books; I just wanted to go on his adventures with him all over the world. There was also a sense of romance in his books. Lots of adventures and old cars and I guess the best way of putting it is style. There's a sort of old world sense in Tintin books that I liked, and they sort of reminded me of Indiana Jones, another serial character that I loved. (See below for more on that.) I liked the dogs in both series, Dogmatix and Snowy, and I read them over and over and over again.
A few years later, as we were getting ready to go to the Co-Op for books, an art gallery owner told my dad about Bookstop, on Burnet Road and Anderson Lane, and then we started buying our books there. Because Bookstop was so cheap, our allotment went up to three books in a trip to Austin. I'm not sure when we completed the collection, because the Asterix books were still coming out in the 80s (and I see that they're still coming out). The Tintin books finished their run in 1976 (though, again, I notice that a posthumous book was published.
The collections are now in the hands of Jose, and he brought a lot of the Tintin books with him to the ranch this winter while we were there for Christmas. I read Flight 714, Land of Black Gold, and Explorers on the Moon while I was there. The copies are battered and beat up and some of the pages are falling out, but hell, they were first in the hands of 7 and 8 year olds. The fact that they managed to survive this long is a testament to how much we revered those books.
Ordinarily, I'd be a little concerned that a treasured childhood memory is in the hands of Hollywood. That doesn't tend to generally go well, in my experience (Seuss books, for example). But I sort of have faith in Spielberg, mainly because of his love for Indiana Jones. Spielberg got the old serials when he made the Indy movies. I think that he'll get the ernest, young, intrepid reporter.
Though I suggest casting Crianza as Snowy. Yes, yes. I realize that she's black and Snowy is white, but I think that they exhibit a lot of the same qualities. And she'd absolutely shine on screen.
When I was a kid, every time we went to Austin my parents used to take to the Co-Op in Austin on Guadalupe to buy books. We were each allowed to buy one book. It took us hours to pour through the shelves and decide which single book to get. It must have cost my parents a fortune, even for four kids books. Anyhow, at some point in pouring through the shelves, we found Asterix and Tintin. And for a few years, every single trip to the Co-Op bookstore we pooled, together our books so we could add to the series. We thought it was a great coup: using a loophole to buy comic books. My parents thought it was a great coup: though they were comic books, they were at a much higher reading level than anything else we would have picked up. At some point in the late 60s/early 70s, someone (I presume his best friend from Oxford, a medievalist who is now at the University of Virginia) gave my dad Asterix in Britian, and he thought it was one of the funniest things he ever read. He was wholly supportive of our comic book buying.
I didn't understand, the first time I read them, the puns involved with Asterix, Obelix, Dogmatix, Vitalstatistix and Getafix, but I thought the stories were wonderful and the imagery was funny. For years, everything I knew about the Roman Empire came from Asterix books. I didn't understand the international politics (or racial stereotypes) in the Tintin books; I just wanted to go on his adventures with him all over the world. There was also a sense of romance in his books. Lots of adventures and old cars and I guess the best way of putting it is style. There's a sort of old world sense in Tintin books that I liked, and they sort of reminded me of Indiana Jones, another serial character that I loved. (See below for more on that.) I liked the dogs in both series, Dogmatix and Snowy, and I read them over and over and over again.
A few years later, as we were getting ready to go to the Co-Op for books, an art gallery owner told my dad about Bookstop, on Burnet Road and Anderson Lane, and then we started buying our books there. Because Bookstop was so cheap, our allotment went up to three books in a trip to Austin. I'm not sure when we completed the collection, because the Asterix books were still coming out in the 80s (and I see that they're still coming out). The Tintin books finished their run in 1976 (though, again, I notice that a posthumous book was published.
The collections are now in the hands of Jose, and he brought a lot of the Tintin books with him to the ranch this winter while we were there for Christmas. I read Flight 714, Land of Black Gold, and Explorers on the Moon while I was there. The copies are battered and beat up and some of the pages are falling out, but hell, they were first in the hands of 7 and 8 year olds. The fact that they managed to survive this long is a testament to how much we revered those books.
Ordinarily, I'd be a little concerned that a treasured childhood memory is in the hands of Hollywood. That doesn't tend to generally go well, in my experience (Seuss books, for example). But I sort of have faith in Spielberg, mainly because of his love for Indiana Jones. Spielberg got the old serials when he made the Indy movies. I think that he'll get the ernest, young, intrepid reporter.
Though I suggest casting Crianza as Snowy. Yes, yes. I realize that she's black and Snowy is white, but I think that they exhibit a lot of the same qualities. And she'd absolutely shine on screen.