Post by profh0011 on Feb 18, 2020 10:31:37 GMT -5
TINTIN IN AMERICA
I had trouble falling asleep last night, so I wound up reading this entire book in one go.
The first thing that struck me was the back cover. Atlantic-Little, Brown had the list COMPLETELY at random. At least the James Bond books used to be listed alphabetically. And it said, this was the "twentieth volume". That's a big help!!! TINTIN may be the first series where I had to figure out on my own more-or-less what the order was. It was many years before I first ran across an actual chronological list, and the Copyrights in the books, unlike the Bond books, DIDN'T help much. (I assembled a complete set of Ian Fleming's 007 books around 1970, and over the next decade, slowly read thru them in the proper order, based entirely on the Copyright dates in the front.)
The loose "3-part" story structure no doubt works better in a newspaper serial, or a daytime soap-opera. What comes to mind is "DARK SHADOWS" famous "1897" sequence. It wasn't until I saw it in its entirely in the 1980s on PBS that I realized it actually went on for 9 whole months... and, in its way, broke down almost neatly into 3 main segments, like a genuine "trilogy". The first part dealt with Laura Collins (making her 2nd appearance on the show, but, chronologically, 69 years before her first appearance); then the "werewolf curse"; and finally, "Count Petoffi". Barnabas had-- rather accidentally-- found himself thrust back in time, trying to find out what caused Quentin to be a malevolent ghost, and possibly, how to put things right. As it worked out, his presence saved Quentin's life and changed history... but at the exact moment when the story hit the turning point, ironically, Barnabas was a prisoner in a chained coffin! But all he had done before had-- without his ever being sure what his actions might cause-- set things in motion. I agree with those who say "1897" was the best-ever era for the show, and it was a tragedy that producer Robert Costello left the show 2 WEEKS before the epic-length sequence came to an end. His successor started his run by almost TOTALLY screwing over the wrap-up, and then things got worse.
I could see Herge being nervous about portraying Capone. In 1932, some of Capone's boys paid a visit to Howard Hawks while he was filming "SCARFACE" with Paul Muni. He had to con them into believing the movie had nothing to do with Big Al, and was about a fictional gangster. YEAH, RIGHT. The film was a thinly-disguised bio-pic with all the names changed. But the only part of the film that was total fiction was the ending. Capone was still in power when it was made, and Hawks, who objected so much to films that glamorized the image of criminals, wanted to show the public his idea of what SHOULD happen to Capone. So he came up with the very-CONTRIVED sequence where Tony Montana kills his best friend, mistakenly thinking he was sleeping with Tony's sister... NOT realizing they'd gotten married while he was out of town, and wanted it to be a surprise. So... for THIS, the cops close in, and have a big shoot-out.
In the Brian DePalma remake with Al Pacino, after Tony kills his boss, there's an entirely-new sequence that goes on for 45 minutes, showing Tony on top, living it up... until problems begin to set it. His Colombian business partner orders him to murder a government witness, but Tony balks when he sees 2 little kids in the car, and instead, in a fit of rage, kills his partner's right-hand man. OOPS. So the Colombian guys sends his private ARMY to kill Tony. It was a real statement how in the 80s, the cops were helpless to do anything against these kinds of criminals. Along the way, Tony ALSO kills his best friend, as in the 1932 film... but it's just an incidental detail, not the lynchpin for the colossal shoot-out climax.
I found it a bit baffling that Tintin, entirely on his own, with no help from the police at all, should take it upon himself to pursue Bobby Smiles across the country! I was annoyed at how the Indians were fooled so easily by Bobby Smiles. And they kept after Tintin... until the accidental discovery of oil. I was fully expecting Tintin to turn the money from the oil companies over to the Indians, therefore finally "proving" to them he was a right guy. Instead, it almost seems they got some poetic justice tossed at them. ALMOST.
I've been watching "STATUS COUP", an independant online news show, run by Jordan Chariton, one of the only real in-the-field journalists with NO corporate ties whatsoever. He was at Standing Rock during the protests.
The sequence where the place is cleaned out, and a city is being built over the course of hours, not days, was of course totally absurd... the redrawn panel of the bank was even funnier, as it showed part of the bank being built on the left side of the panel, while a doorman is already standing in place on the right side of the SAME panel!!!
The panels of Tintin understanding Snowy bring to mind a few things... like "CALVIN AND HOBBES"... or the totally-whacked out sitcom, "UNHAPPILY EVER AFTER". In both cases, I remember it took me a while before I realized, the stuffed animal WASN'T really talking; it was just in the main character's mind. Almost a shame, I kinda would have preferred if it was a "real" fantasy, and the stuffed animal was somehow magical.
Funny enough, in one of my own stories, I names a gangster "Rastspopoulos", as a tribute to the TINTIN books. It was a situation where 2 rival gangs had decided to merge for business purposes, but the one boss never stopped holding his new right-hand man in contempt, which perpetuated the friction between them. (As with the way these things go, by the time it was over, BOTH guys wound up dead.)
I had trouble falling asleep last night, so I wound up reading this entire book in one go.
The first thing that struck me was the back cover. Atlantic-Little, Brown had the list COMPLETELY at random. At least the James Bond books used to be listed alphabetically. And it said, this was the "twentieth volume". That's a big help!!! TINTIN may be the first series where I had to figure out on my own more-or-less what the order was. It was many years before I first ran across an actual chronological list, and the Copyrights in the books, unlike the Bond books, DIDN'T help much. (I assembled a complete set of Ian Fleming's 007 books around 1970, and over the next decade, slowly read thru them in the proper order, based entirely on the Copyright dates in the front.)
The loose "3-part" story structure no doubt works better in a newspaper serial, or a daytime soap-opera. What comes to mind is "DARK SHADOWS" famous "1897" sequence. It wasn't until I saw it in its entirely in the 1980s on PBS that I realized it actually went on for 9 whole months... and, in its way, broke down almost neatly into 3 main segments, like a genuine "trilogy". The first part dealt with Laura Collins (making her 2nd appearance on the show, but, chronologically, 69 years before her first appearance); then the "werewolf curse"; and finally, "Count Petoffi". Barnabas had-- rather accidentally-- found himself thrust back in time, trying to find out what caused Quentin to be a malevolent ghost, and possibly, how to put things right. As it worked out, his presence saved Quentin's life and changed history... but at the exact moment when the story hit the turning point, ironically, Barnabas was a prisoner in a chained coffin! But all he had done before had-- without his ever being sure what his actions might cause-- set things in motion. I agree with those who say "1897" was the best-ever era for the show, and it was a tragedy that producer Robert Costello left the show 2 WEEKS before the epic-length sequence came to an end. His successor started his run by almost TOTALLY screwing over the wrap-up, and then things got worse.
I could see Herge being nervous about portraying Capone. In 1932, some of Capone's boys paid a visit to Howard Hawks while he was filming "SCARFACE" with Paul Muni. He had to con them into believing the movie had nothing to do with Big Al, and was about a fictional gangster. YEAH, RIGHT. The film was a thinly-disguised bio-pic with all the names changed. But the only part of the film that was total fiction was the ending. Capone was still in power when it was made, and Hawks, who objected so much to films that glamorized the image of criminals, wanted to show the public his idea of what SHOULD happen to Capone. So he came up with the very-CONTRIVED sequence where Tony Montana kills his best friend, mistakenly thinking he was sleeping with Tony's sister... NOT realizing they'd gotten married while he was out of town, and wanted it to be a surprise. So... for THIS, the cops close in, and have a big shoot-out.
In the Brian DePalma remake with Al Pacino, after Tony kills his boss, there's an entirely-new sequence that goes on for 45 minutes, showing Tony on top, living it up... until problems begin to set it. His Colombian business partner orders him to murder a government witness, but Tony balks when he sees 2 little kids in the car, and instead, in a fit of rage, kills his partner's right-hand man. OOPS. So the Colombian guys sends his private ARMY to kill Tony. It was a real statement how in the 80s, the cops were helpless to do anything against these kinds of criminals. Along the way, Tony ALSO kills his best friend, as in the 1932 film... but it's just an incidental detail, not the lynchpin for the colossal shoot-out climax.
I found it a bit baffling that Tintin, entirely on his own, with no help from the police at all, should take it upon himself to pursue Bobby Smiles across the country! I was annoyed at how the Indians were fooled so easily by Bobby Smiles. And they kept after Tintin... until the accidental discovery of oil. I was fully expecting Tintin to turn the money from the oil companies over to the Indians, therefore finally "proving" to them he was a right guy. Instead, it almost seems they got some poetic justice tossed at them. ALMOST.
I've been watching "STATUS COUP", an independant online news show, run by Jordan Chariton, one of the only real in-the-field journalists with NO corporate ties whatsoever. He was at Standing Rock during the protests.
The sequence where the place is cleaned out, and a city is being built over the course of hours, not days, was of course totally absurd... the redrawn panel of the bank was even funnier, as it showed part of the bank being built on the left side of the panel, while a doorman is already standing in place on the right side of the SAME panel!!!
The panels of Tintin understanding Snowy bring to mind a few things... like "CALVIN AND HOBBES"... or the totally-whacked out sitcom, "UNHAPPILY EVER AFTER". In both cases, I remember it took me a while before I realized, the stuffed animal WASN'T really talking; it was just in the main character's mind. Almost a shame, I kinda would have preferred if it was a "real" fantasy, and the stuffed animal was somehow magical.
Funny enough, in one of my own stories, I names a gangster "Rastspopoulos", as a tribute to the TINTIN books. It was a situation where 2 rival gangs had decided to merge for business purposes, but the one boss never stopped holding his new right-hand man in contempt, which perpetuated the friction between them. (As with the way these things go, by the time it was over, BOTH guys wound up dead.)