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If you haven’t already heard through the thousands of ads being seen at this very moment, the Tintin movie opens today. For the handful of Americans who are actually fans of the Belgian hero, this is big news. But since Tintin never caught on in America like he did throughout the rest of the world, many people are purely interested to see if a Peter Jackson/Steven Spielberg crossover could possibly be as epic as the big names on the marquee would suggest.
That’s why we here at Neatorama wanted to share a little bit of history and trivia about the world-famous character. Even if you are already a fan of Tintin though, read on because there might just be a few tidbits you didn’t know about.
Image Via Dylan Parker [Flickr]
Tintin was created by Belgian artist Georges Rémi, who wrote under the pen name Herge. He was largely based on one of the author’s earlier characters, a chubby boy scout named Totor. While he was thinner and better dressed than Totor, Tintin maintained the earlier character’s high ideals and kindness, as well as his knack for getting into sticky situations.
The first Tintin strip was printed in the Belgian right wing newspaper, Le XXe Siècle (The 20th Century), on January 10, 1929. Going along with the paper’s right wing beliefs, the character’s first adventure, titled Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, featured him fighting against socialist leaders in the Soviet Union. After the comic proved to be a success, Herge went on to send Tintin on adventures throughout the world, both in real and imaginary locales.
While Herge started out with a right wing mindset, his opinion quickly changed as Hitler’s legions began to ramp up their occupation of other European countries. By 1939, Tintin began to fight off authority figures from the far right, even battling Musstler, the leader of the imaginary fascist state Borduria, in King Ottokar’s Sceptre. If you couldn’t tell by the name and the time period, Musstler was Herge’s take on a combination of Hitler and Mussolini.
Later that very year, Belgium was invaded by the Nazis, who quickly closed down the majority of the newspapers in the country. They did leave open the leading paper, Le Soir, under the condition that it be put under German management. After Le XXe Siècle, was closed, Herge was briefly unemployed, but soon was hired to work as an illustrator for Le Soir. Soon enough he started printing new Tintin stories in the paper’s children section, but under the repressive political atmosphere, he was forced to strip the comic of its political affiliations. In an effort to get around these limitations, Herge changed Tintin’s occupation from that of a reporter to an explorer, which allowed him a much more politically-neutral world in which to operate.
By 1949, Herge’s character was so popular that he was offered the opportunity to publish his own magazine exclusively dedicated to Tintin. He immediately left Le Soir and go to working on Le journal de Tintin. The character became a massive success and was adored in countries throughout the world, eventually having his adventures translated into more than 50 languages.
As for Herge, he continued working on new stories for the character all the way up until his death in 1983.
Image Via CoffeeGeek [Flickr]
At first glance, Tintin seems like a pretty straightforward guy. In fact, fans of the series often praise how uncomplicated the character is, as it makes him entirely relatable even when confronted by an array of bizarre and eccentric characters in fantastical cities. But when you look a little deeper, you soon realize that Tintin’s lack of complexities make him quite enigmatic.
For example, how old is Tintin? No one really knows. He’s old enough to not be concerned with school or family, to go to a pub and drink, to hold down a job and to live alone, but everyone still calls him a young boy. In 1979, Herges said that when he first started the comic, he thought of Tintin as being about 14 or 15, but by that point, he considered the character to be 17.
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Who knew that Super Mario and the X Men could go together so well? Apparently artist Casey Edwards did because she’s the one who came up with these clever mash ups.
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Kickstarter might be great for starting new projects, but I certainly support the idea of Kickstopper. Personally, I’d be happy to donate my support to stopping the new Akira movie.
Link Via The Mary Sue
I guess size doesn’t matter when it comes to messing with Tintin. Illustrator Mike Holmes created this piece for an exhibit called Toronto Draws Tintin, running from November 2-27 at the Beguling. These guys must have been talking trash about Tintin’s mother!
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Artist artist Julien Bazinet found himself wondering what would happen if The Peanuts gang were mixed in with the stories of H.P. Lovecraft. The resulting comics are funny and cute, particularly little Snoopy posing as Cthulhu.
Link Via Flavorwire
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Don’t worry, this comic and the link are both still SFW. It just shows us what sex would be like for us if we had the same mating rituals as giraffes. Be sure to visit the link to see what it would be like if we were split gill fungi or leopard slugs.
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This wouldn’t be nearly as sad if everyone who ever used YouTube couldn’t attest to the fact that it’s totally true.
Link Via Laughing Squid
This cartoon, that Geeks Are Sexy rightfully titled “You’re A Skywalker, Not A Street Walker,” just goes to show how everyone’s adolescent years are pretty much the same -even Princesses.
Link Via Geeks Are Sexy
Comments Off Did you know September 25 is National Comic Book Day? Did you know that the Comic Code Authority (the censorship code that ruled the comic’s industry for over 50 years) is now completely defunct? It’s a big year for comic books and to celebrate National Comic Book Day, let’s take a look at the rise and fall of the censorship code and the rise of comics in general.
If you’ve ever wondered why so many dramatic titles have all been lumped under the title of “comic books,” that’s because the whole medium started out as a way for publishers to put together compilations of their newspaper comic strips. While historians debate what defines an actual comic book, and thus, what the earliest comic book is, one of the earliest American contenders is 1842’s The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, which was a hardcover book featuring an array of chronological stories about M. Vieux Bois.
The earliest contender for a comic book in the format we recognize was The Yellow Kid in McFadden’s Flats, printed in 1897. The magazine was a reprint of the newspaper strip Hogan’s Alley, which starred the Yellow Kid. Hogan’s Alley was already one of the earliest weekly comic strips and when the black and white, 5×7 inch magazine was released on newsstands, it may have been the first real comic book as well and even featured the words “comic book” on the back cover.
The first monthly comic book was Comics Monthly, first printed in 1922. The magazine would reprint a variety of newspaper comic strips from that month and its success was short-lived, folding after only one year in print.
The first comic book printed in a format we’d recognize and on a monthly basis featuring some material created specifically for the magazine was 1933’s Famous Funnies, which many historians believe to be the first true comic book. The original Famous Funnies was distributed exclusively at Woolworths, but was later sold at news stands for the price of ten cents an issue.
With a number of publishers printing existing comic strips in magazine form, it was only a matter of time before someone started creating original material specifically for comic books instead of newspapers. The first comic book featuring all new material was New Fun, which was printed in 1935 by National Allied Publications, which would eventually evolve into a little company now known as DC Comics.
Once comic books got going, it wasn’t long before superheroes entered the picture. While there are tons of contenders for first comic book, practically everyone agrees that Superman, introduced in 1938’s Action Comics, was the first ever superhero. Interestingly, the character almost never made it into the public consciousness. The creators, Siegel and Shuster tried to pitch the idea to newspaper syndicates for years and had pretty much given up on it when DC editor Vin Sullivan dug their story out of a slush pile and decided to run it as a secondary story in the first issue of Action Comics. Despite the fact that he wasn’t even in the lead story, Superman was featured on the cover and he quickly outshined practically all the other comic books DC had published up until that time. In fact, the term “superhero” comes from Superman and before that, heroes were ordinarily called “mystery men” or “masked heroes.”
These days, Action Comics #1 is arguably the most valuable comic book on the market and of the four comics to ever be sold for over one million dollars, two of them were Action Comics #1 issues.
After Superman’s meteoric rise to fame, it wasn’t long before other superheroes entered the fray, including Wonder Woman, Batman, Captain America, Green Lantern and Aquaman. Of all these characters, Captain America was the first to be given his own book without being tested in other stories first. Strangely, while he’s one of the lesser-known of the classic heroes these days, Captain Marvel was actually the most popular character at the time, outselling even Superman.
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I’ve shared a few BuzzFeed fan art collections before and because they’re just so darn fun I couldn’t help but share another of these galleries with you. This particular gallery features this delightful WolverMickey.
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The following is an article from the book Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Salutes the Armed Forces.
Before World War II, cartoons with war themes attempted to use humor or satire to sway public opinion. The spread of military newspapers and the inclusion of cartoons as a feature designed to boost morale changed all that.
UP FRONT
Arguably the most well-known of the World War II cartoonists, Bill Mauldin created the characters Willie and Joe, who were depicted as rank-and-file soldiers dealing with the realities of war without sugarcoating that some leaders, including General George S. Patton, would have preferred to see. Mauldin’s caricatures, which began in 1940 when he was an 18-year-old in the U.S. Army’s 45th Infantry Division, were initially published in the division’s newsletter and soon became hugely popular with the soldiers on the front lines. In 1943 Mauldin’s cartoon was picked up by Stars and Stripes and was then distributed domestically by United Features Syndicate as Up Front, thanks in part to the war correspondent Ernie Pyle, who helped bring the cartoons to the attention of the general public.
Bill Mauldin did not attempt to glorify the fighting in any manner; rather, he used wry humor to demonstrate the absurdities of war. For example, to make an exaggerated commentary on the practice of sending increasingly younger soldiers to the front lines, Mauldin showed Willie and Joe in a bunker, reading a notice handed to them by an adolescent dressed in a soldier’s uniform. One says to the other, “I guess it’s okay. The replacement center says he comes from a long line of infantrymen.”
SAD SACK
At the time that he was drafted in the U.S. Army in June 1941, George Baker was a struggling animator on the verge of losing his job with the Walt Disney Company in Los Angeles. Although the war in Europe had been raging for several years, the possibility of the United States entering the war seemed remote to many at the time. Baker and other soldiers went through the motions of their training with little sense of purpose, waiting for their one-year enlistment to be up so they could get on with their lives.
To break up the monotony of Army life, Baker began to create drawings on his own time, attempting to explain pictorially what life was like in the armed forces. After taking his drawings to several New York publishers and being rejected, a despondent Baker put his cartoons away and tried to forget about them. However, a few months later, the armed forces sponsored a cartoon contest for servicemen. Baker decided to enter one of his drawing into the contest -and won first prize. This caught the attention of the editor of the Army’s Yank magazine, Major Hartzell Spence, who secured Baker a position on the Yank’s staff. Baker worked for Yank for the duration of World War II, moving from one training camp to another as a salesman for the magazine while also being exposed to the many facets of Army life, which he then used for the basis of his cartoons.
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The Oatmeal has a hilarious collection of things we should have learned in school, but my favorite is the math lesson above. After all, we’ve all been in that frustrating situation before.
While those of you with kids might have gone to see the Smurfs movie, I’m assuming the rest of you haven’t. From what I’ve heard, you aren’t missing much if you haven’t seen it, but I can’t talk from first-hand experience because I haven’t gone either. Regardless of what you think of the new movie, it’s always nice to look back at the things that made The Smurfs so great in the first place.
Image via It’s Meng! [Flickr]
You may have wondered where the heck the word “smurf” came from and why the characters use it so often in the show, but as it turns out, the original characters weren’t “smurfs,” they were “schtroumpfs.” The whole thing started when the creator of the comics, Peyo, was at lunch with a fellow Belgian comic artist named André Franquin. If you’ve ever had a moment where you forgot the name of something, then you’ll understand Peyo’s frustration when he couldn’t remember the word “salt.” Being a goofy guy, he instead pointed at the salt and asked his friend to pass the schtroumpf. Franquin responded, “Here’s the schtroumpf — when you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back.” The rest of the meal, the two joked around using the word “schtroumpf” periodically throughout their conversation.
Now you know why the characters use their name so much in conversation, but suddenly, the question of how the comics became The Smurfs instead of The Schtroumpfs. Well, as I said, this all happened in Belgium, where the native language is French. The first language the comic was translated to was Dutch and while the name could have stayed the same (do you really need to translate an imaginary word?), Schtroumpfs didn’t quite sound right to Dutch speakers, so the name was instead changed to smurfen. When the comic was translated to English, the word “smurf” sounded good, so it was based on the Dutch version.
Image via Stephen and Claire Farnsworth [Flickr]
The first introduction of the Smurf characters started in Peyo’s earlier comic, Johan and Pirlouit. This strip took place in the Middle Ages and incorporated elements of sorcery and sword fights. In 1958, Peyo started a new series of the strip, which revolved around the characters searching for a magic flute. At one point in the story, the characters run into a number of schtroumpfs, small creatures with blue skin and human-like features. The smurf characters were a smashing success, so Peyo wrote them their own strip that first appeared in 1959. Although the smurfs would periodically interact with Johan and Pirlouit, the spin off was largely based on their own stories.
Technically there are two girls, Smurfette, who everyone is familiar with, and Sassette, who first appeared in the fifth season of the cartoon. According to the smurf back story though, there are actually no smurf females. Smurfette was actually created by Gargamel in part of an evil plan to cause jealousy amongst the smurfs and Sassette was created by the smurfs using the same magic formula they stole from Gargamel. Sassette was intended to provide Smurfette with a female friend, but because Sassette was a pretty big tom boy, the two didn’t get along at first. If you’re wondering why Sassette is so much smaller than the adult smurfs if she’s not supposed to be a baby, it’s because all adult smurfs stand 3 crab apples tall, but they only had two crab apples worth of clay when they created her.
Strangely, after making sure the two female characters were both made from clay and magic spells, season 8 featured another female, Nanny Smurf, with no background story explaining her creation. Nanny Smurf was Grandpa Smurf’s gal, but she disappeared in a haunted house for 500 years before the smurfs rescued her. She only lasted one season and appeared in one episode in season 9 before disappearing forever again.
If you’ve been itching for more female characters in the comic, Peyo’s son who is the current writer of the French comics has promised that he will be introducing more females in upcoming years.
Image via Scottobear [Flickr]
Most people seem to think that smurf berries aren’t real, but as it turns out, they are really supposed to be the berries from the sarsaparilla tree. Interestingly, in the comics, the smurfs don’t eat smurf berries, but instead gorge on the leaves of the plant.
If you’ve ever watched the cartoon and thought that Papa Smurf or Gargamel’s voices sounded familiar, you’re right, you probably have heard them somewhere else. Papa Smurf was voiced by legendary cartoon voice actor Don Messick who also did the voices of Boo Boob Bear, Ranger Smith, Astro, Muttley, Scooby Doo, Scrappy Doo and Droopy. As for Gargamel, his voice was performed by Paul Winchell, a professional ventriloquist who became a voice actor later in life. Some of Winchell’s more famous roles included Dick Dastardly (that’s right, he and Mesick worked together before) and everyone’s favorite spring-tailed predator, Tigger.
Image via DNNYA17 [Flickr]
Do you guys dig The Smurfs? What about the movie, if you’ve seen it, what did you think?
Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, Smurfs Wiki #1, #2, #3
Anyone who has ever owned a cat knows all they really want is a place to nap, food, a nice scratch post, things to play with and an occassional petting session (that had better be on their terms). That’s why this comic is just so dead on.
Jill Harness is getting ready to cover Comic Con this week in San Diego. I hope she brings back lots of pictures! As a preview, she’s posted a roundup of quite a few products that will be officially unveiled at, or exclusive to, the convention, like this awesome limited edition Nerd Domo. See the rest at Rue the Day. Link
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Jim asked Julie to marry him by creating a website with comics drawn of their lives together. This may sound like something you’ve seen before, but there are parts along the way that will draw you in and make you wish them happiness forever. A video of her reaction has been added at the end. Link -via the Presurfer
These dorky comics by Adam McCauley are great for anyone who loves puns, particularly those that involve classic sci fi jokes. There are more at the link, including a few Star Wars ones as well.
The X-Men series gave us a whole slew of mutant “super heroes,” many of whom had “powers” that were honestly useless in the fight for truth and justice. That usually meant these characters had a limited run, because how many plots can you write around a hero whose talent is limited to extra skin or translating languages? Take, for example, Kylun, whose mutations meant he could imitate any sound and looked like a lion.
He became increasingly feral as time went on just for something to do, despite that being the exact opposite of what happens when you hang around with people all the time. His one glorious moment came when a squad of “Warpies” assumed his sound-mimicking powers were no threat because they’d never seen Police Academy. His character was such an unemployable failure even in the X-community that his “happy ending” was finding and moving back in with his parents.
Read more about Kylun and seven other strange X-men at Cracked. Link -via Rue The Day
While there’s nothing wrong with giving your gal a glass of champagne before getting down on one knee to propose, some people prefer to go a less traditional and more personalized route. Of course, if the potential bride and groom both happen to be a bit geeky, then it follows that a customized wedding proposal might just have a bit of a nerd-twist to it as well. Here is a small sampling of some of the geekiest wedding proposals ever.
Be warned, if you tend to cry after watching emotionally-charged moments, this article (particularly the videos) might have you spraying your computer with tears. I know I was misty-eyed while writing it.
I have to admit, this just might be my favorite wedding proposal ever. Ben and his girlfriend, Tora, were both seriously addicted to the popular Gearbox RPG shooter Borderlands. That’s why when Ben decided to ask Tora to marry him, he decided to ask Gearbox for help popping the question. The company’s response was more positive than Ben ever could have hoped for, as they spent a week working on a special Borderlands-themed wedding proposal video for the couple. It even featured a few hilarious quips from the robot character, Claptrap.
Ben got all of Tora’s friends and family members together under the guise of throwing her a birthday party and unveiled the video by saying he got a hold of a new Borderlands trailer. Needless to say, after watching the video, Tora’s response was a big fat “yes,” although she did later admitted that she was a little upset that Ben got to go to the Gearbox studio without her.
This guy and his girlfriend both seriously love Mario (if you couldn’t tell already by looking at the room) so in order to ask his girlfriend to marry him, he set up a functional Mario question mark box that would drop the ring when she hit it with her head. While the set up is exactly as geeky as you might expect, it’s surprisingly emotionally touching when she tries to hold back her tears as she jumps to hit the box.
Video link
If your girlfriend loves the game Bejeweled and you happen to be a software programmer, you can do something above and beyond if you’re so inclined. Or at least, that’s what Bernie Peng did when he decided to propose, using his programming skills to create a custom Bejeweled game. Once the score got high enough, the regular screen would clear out and a ring would appear on the DS screen. Bernie then dropped to one knee and presented her with a pink ring that looked like it belonged in the game.
As if the story weren’t great enough on its own, the company that makes Bejeweled was so impressed by Bernie’s proposal that they offered to pay for the couple’s honeymoon and they volunteered to supply all of the wedding guests with a free version of Bejeweled. Now that’s a great way to capitalize on the publicity of the wedding proposal!
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I have a slightly-more-than-passing interest in comics, which is to say that I find them interesting and have a couple of favorite artists, but remain unfamiliar with most of the esoteric details that actual fans are aware of. That said, I’ve always thought Catwoman was one of those lesser Batman foes, without any kind of historical intrigue. Today, Dr. Von Fangirl proved me wrong. Sorry, Catwoman.
The history compiled in Dr. Von Fangirl’s post goes beyond common knowledge and delves deep into out-of-print minutiae regarding Selina Kyle’s turn to our favorite pleather-wearing bad girl.
If you were to wander into a comic shop and ask the clerk behind the counter why Selina became Catwoman, chances are they wouldn’t be able to tell you in great detail. Not because she doesn’t have a detailed history, but because most of the comics that touch on her origin stories are out of print–and have been for a long, long time. In fact, this problem isn’t limited to just the clerk in the comic shop; so little information is available online regarding Selina’s origins that there is no way to get a complete picture of who she is from any source.
About eighty percent of Catwoman’s post-crisis comics appearances remain uncollected, including all of her 90‘s solo-series (except four issues in ‘The Cat File‘–which is out of print). This means the only way you’ll find them is by scouring back issue bins–and even then, you might not know what to look for. If you ever want to read Selina’s complete origin story, it’d take forever to track everything down and piece it together.
Thus, after nearly nine months of preparation, searching, research and hard work, I have compiled the most complete post-crisis Catwoman origin in history. Since I own about four hundred of Selina’s four hundred-sixty comics appearances published since the crisis–indeed, I own EVERY appearance from 1986 to 1999 as well as her 1989, 1993 and 2002 series and am slowly filling in what few gaps are left–I was able to comb through every appearance, looking for mentions of her origin so that nothing would be left out.
It’s a long post, but worth it if you like knowing things other people don’t–it’s full of those. Read more at Well, What’s the Matter? Link
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The folks over at ComicsAlliance see a lot of great art, especially of the superhero variety. They run across so many great artists and designers that a few months ago, they started a weekly column called “The Best Art Ever (This Week)”. This week’s installment is pretty great, with subject matter ranging from Superman (of course) to the Power Puff Girls in styles from hyper-realistic to black-and-white abstractions. Click through to see all the images!
Link | Featured image: Paul Sizer
Artist Lucy Knisley has recreated the series (up through Order of the Phoenix) in comic book form, making it much easier to read for people who maybe just want to skim the plot lines instead of reading all seven books word-for-word. And for those of us who loved reading all seven books word-for-word, repeatedly, the comics are just plain funny. “Snakey talky” and “Yur Krumbelievable” are my favorites.
Sorcerer’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire
Link via Flavorwire
I’m not big into comic books, necessarily, but I love artist Fabian Gonzalez’s graphic representation of some of the most beloved superheroes of all time. I think Zorro is my favorite. The print is available in various sizes.
Link via Flavorwire
Please allow me to introduce you to team PROBLEM SOLVERZ, created by artist Ben Jones and Eric Kaplan, one of The Big Bang Theory writers. If this doesn’t blow your mind, nothing will. (Hat tip to Dave Goetsch!)
Allie at Hyperbole and a Half relates four tales of something she did that turned out completely different from what she expected. At her expense. You can imagine they are all hilarious. Link
Your piggies will look Marvel-ous if you can find a geek pedicurist to reproduce this comic book look. On second thought most of these look easy enough to DIY.
Link – Via Geekologie
Comic Con is one of my favorite things to cover on all the blogs I write for because I love going any way and everyone is incredibly nice. Some of the best things to cover are the outrageous and amazing costumes worn by all the fans. This year was no exception, and I am thrilled to bring you 30 great cosplay pics from Comic Con 2010.
If you like these, be sure to scroll to the bottom for links to all sorts of other great Comic Con coverage from this year and previous years. Now, on to the costumes!
All images by Jill Harness (Hey, that’s me!), and Zeon Santos.
Now this is Sparta!
This Xena has incredible leather-working skills. She made the whole costume herself.
Normally I try to leave myself out of these things, but I could resist a photo opp with White Gold.
Mad Max costumes are always pretty cool.
After 69 years Wonder Woman has decided to wear a less revealing costume.
The new look — with an understated “W” insignia, a midnight blue jacket and a flinty fusion of black tights and boots — is darker than the famed swimsuit-style outfit, and aims to be contemporary, functional and, as Tim Gunn of “Project Runway” might say, less costumey.
Given the hope that the character will one day have her own international film franchise (a feature has long been gestating at Warner Entertainment, DC’s parent company), one test of the design was to imagine how it would look standing next to, say, Batman’s politically neutral ensemble. “The original costume was the American flag brought to life,” Mr. Lee said. “This one is a little more universal.”
The Bayeux Tapestry {wiki} illustrated the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The Historic Tale Construction Kit allows anyone to use pictures from the original tapestry to illustrate other things. Many panels have been made to illustrate pop culture and internet memes, and you can see in two collections. Link one and link two -via The Litter Box
If you’re a fan of the longest-running comedy in television history, you probably already know Bill Morrison’s name. Guess what? We’ve got an exclusive interview with him and will be giving away more copies of the new hardcover book The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis. More details on the giveaway contest soon, but first we want to know if you’ve got a question to put to Bill.
Anything you’ve ever wondered about Simpson’s Comics, Radioactive Man, Bartman, Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror, Roswell – Little Green Man, or Futurama, etc. etc, etc.? Now’s your chance to ask the main principal writer and artist/editor. (Also the editor of this new book!)
So go ahead and leave your question in the comments below and we’ll select some to put in front of Bill!
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