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This "have you seen" post is, more or less, a note to myself to put Katherine Marsh's The Night Tourist on my list of books to read. Of late, I'm finding/learning about several books that are set in New York City and have Native content--in the form of ghosts or Indians-of-the-past.

The Night Tourist came to my attention as I read an article in the March 27 edition of The Washington Post. Written by Katherine Marsh (author of The Night Tourist), the photograph at the top of her article is what caught my eye. Here's a screen cap:

That soldier, with machine gun, standing in front of a book display is, of course, chilling. As my eyes moved to the books on the shelves, I realized the soldier is standing in front of a wall of Tintin books. The one on the top shelf, 3rd from the left, is Tintin in America. It is one of the much loved Tintin books have stereotypical, racist, derogatory content.

As I started looking into Tintin articles to link to in this post, I found an article in Salon: Tintin's racist history: Symbol of Brussels solidarity is uncomfortably divisive. In it is a link to an article in Vox: How Tintin became the symbol of solidarity in the Brussels attacks. The Vox article is mostly a series of tweets of Tintin crying.

I don't know if Marsh chose the photo that was used with her article. She doesn't mention the Tintin books. My guess is that someone in the editorial department at the Post has read the Vox article and thought it a good choice, given that Marsh writes children's books. The image did something else for me: it caught my eye and led me to look at Marsh's first book, which (as noted above) has Native content of the no-longer-around kind, but it also captures the importance of children's books.

Far too many people look down on children and the books created for them, but they're important. They shape the ways we view the world. How they do that is something that needs more attention. When I read Marsh's book, what will I find? Does that book add to the misinformation that Native peoples no longer exist? If/when I read her book, I'll be back. If you've read it, let me know what you noticed when you read it.

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• In my current job I’ve become somewhat fascinated with what could easily be considered the key tool in a librarian’s toolbelt: Reader’s Advisory.  Patron asks you to recommend a book based on a set of preferences and you knock it out of the park.  That’s our job and we do it well.  Booksellers do it too, don’t get me wrong, but we have the advantage of an extensive backlist of out-of-print titles at our fingertips.  It’s taken a little while, but recently I noticed that a LOT of folks are getting in on the Reader’s Advisory game.  Companies like Bookish, Zoobean, SelectReads, certainly, and now?  An actual publishing company itself.  The Penguin Hotline is pretty much what it sounds like: A publishing house doing RA.  Says their site, “Tell us as much as you’d like about the reader you’re buying for this holiday season and our expert staffers will find you just the right books. You’ll get personalized recommendations from real Penguins! Every request is handled individually by one of our in-house editors, marketers, designers, salespeople, publicists, and more.”  And they actually do.  What all this says to me is that libraries need to double down on their RA skills.  Take some tips from Multnomah County’s My Librarian site for starters.  That idea is crazy good.  We could all learn a thing or two from it.

• Monday, January 11th.  It’s almost a month away.  The happiest day of the year.  The day when they announce the Youth Media Awards, better known to the rest of the world as Newbery/Caldecott Day (and by “rest of the world” I mean “my brain”).  In preparation, I was pleased to see Monica Edinger’s thoughtful appraisal of the Newbery itself in the piece Thoughts on Newbery: The Nature of Distinguished.  In it, Monica talks quite a bit about Laura Amy Schlitz’s The Hired Girl, a book which (coincidentally) also showed up on Marjorie Ingall’s fantabulous Best Jewish Books 2015.  Seriously, if you need Hanukkah gifts for any kid of any age, your prayers have been answers.  For the rest of you, her voice is just so good.  Downright sublime, some might say.  Miss it and you’re missing out. (She also has stellar taste)

• I’m not the first, second, third, or forty-fifth children’s literature enthusiast to link to this, but nonetheless I think the Atlas Obscura article C.S. Lewis’ Greatest Fiction: Convincing American Kids That They Would Like Turkish Delight is dead on.  I grew up thinking it would be akin to sugar powdered squares of chocolatey confectionary delight.  Then I went to London for foreign study and I and each of my classmates individually had to make the discovery that the stuff ain’t worth betraying much of anyone, let alone your blood kin.  Edmund should have held out for fudge.  Thanks to mom for the link.

• Love and adore this.  From 100 Scope Notes: Everything You Need to Know About Reading Levels in One Image.  Nuff said.

• Bookish (mentioned earlier) had a rather delightful encapsulation of fantastic literary-themed Christmas tree ornaments, just in case you’re scrambling to get something for that reader in your life.  My personal favorite (aside from the library lion a.k.a. Patience which I MUST have):

• In other news, Yahoo News recently announced that a Tintin expert was just named as an official “professor of graphic fiction and comic art.”  Wouldn’t mind having one of these stateside as well.  Perhaps an expert in Pogo.  A gal can dream.

• The resident 4-year-old is on a picture book biography kick right now, so on Saturday we went to the library’s bio section to find some new fare.  We ended up in the Lincoln section and lo and behold her eyes alit on that old d’Aulaire’s Caldecott Award version of the life of Abraham Lincoln.  I steered her clear, knowing its contents very well indeed.  I never thought of it as the d’Aulaires’ best work, and we took home the Judith St. George/Matt Faulkner Stand Tall, Abe Lincoln instead.  The d’Aulaire version had already been on my mind because of a recent PW announcement that a small publisher is bring the book back to the world.  Mind you, “they made minor modifications to the original art and text to reflect contemporary views about race politics and to reflect historical accuracy.”  Guess I’ll have to reserve judgement until I see it for myself.

• Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: Now with more indelible images that will haunt your nightmares until doomsday!  Don’t try to unsee it.  Don’t even bother.

• Daily Image: 

This week in our popular series Children’s Books from 1907, we take a look at a little number that just makes me inordinately happy.

I think you get the gist.  You may read the book in its entirety here.  Thanks to Mara Rockliff for the link.

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In a shocking court reveal over the fate of one of the world’s most beloved and influential comics characters, a Dutch court has ruled that Moulinsart, the company that runs the publishing and licensing business of Tintin, does not own all the rights.

The stunning result came about during a court case in which Moulinsart sued a Dutch Tintin fanclub over using images of George “Hergé” Remi’s beloved boy reporter. Moulinsart is known for pursuing any and all outside uses of the character, even benign ones such as fanzines.

During the case, a legal document from 1942 was produced showing that Hergé had assigned the rights to the character to his publisher, Casterman.

The Hergé estate is currently run by the man who married Hergé’s widow, and he’s quite unpopular with fans and industry watchers, for running the estate with an iron fist, including such things as suing fanclubs over use. That this stunning document showed up in just such a case is a twist that you’d find incredulous in a film. But it really happened.

It’s kind of hard to give context to this, but it’s like, let’s say sometime in the future Prince George is about to ascend to the throne of England, and someone suddenly produces a paper saying Queen Elizabeth was actually from New Jersey and was never queen.

“It appears from a 1942 document… that Herge gave publishing rights for the books of the adventures of Tintin to publisher Casterman so Moulinsart is not the one to decide who can use material from the books,” said the Hague court’s ruling, seen by AFP on Monday.

The document came from a Herge expert who wishes to remain anonymous and its validity has not been contested by Moulinsart or the author’s family.

“The big question is to know whether they (other fanclubs) have to continue paying Moulinsart,” said Herge Society secretary Stijn Verbeek.

So yeah, some Tintin fan was sitting there going “Suffering succotash!” while sitting on an explosive document that would affect the ownership of the character considered the most influential in the history of Franco-Belgian comics. And to think that perhaps people at Casterman or even the Hergé family themselves knew of it…and kept this secret for years. Like I said, it’s an amazing storyline.

Tom Spurgeon has a lot more background on this including comments from euro-comics expert Bart Beaty:

“Reaction in my social media has been a mixture of pure shock — my own first reaction — and a good deal of joy. It is important to bear in mind that Nick Rodwell, who runs Moulinsart, is one of the most disliked people in European comics amongst fans. The husband of Hergé’s second wife, he has taken hold of the Tintin empire and consistently reined over it in a way that antagonizes fans and scholars (Moulinsart is relentless in the protection of the Tintin copyrights even to the point of discouraging academic study of the Tintin books). More than a few people feel that Casterman would be better stewards of the Hergé legacy than the man who married his widow.

Here’s some more from a 2010 newspaper piece that documents growing unease with Rodwell’s running of the estate:

Hergé himself had given little thought to the business of merchandising. “He was involved only in his creation, in his works,” Vlamynck told a French television interviewer last year. He had all but forgone any ­oversight of ­Tintin merchandising as part of a deal to restore his ­reputation in 1945. Hergé had produced comic strips for Le Soir newspaper throughout the war, even after it came under the control of the occupying ­Germans. His perceived collaboration barred him from newspaper work at the end of the war. Raymond Leblanc, a prominent Belgian resistance ­figure, offered him a solution: Leblanc lent Hergé some of his anti-Nazi credentials by going into partnership with him; in exchange, Hergé licensed his hero’s image for use as a marketing tool. Forever conscious of the favour, he never broke off the deal; the Tintin-branded mustard pots and more were the result.

Under Rodwell, this began to change. Moulinsart terminated all but a few of its long-running licensing contracts. It was not that the group wanted to curb Tintin’s appearances totally but Rodwell hoped to control the brand more effectively and apply more consistent standards by developing products in-house. What emerged over time was a centralised ­merchandising policy that pushed the brand relentlessly upmarket. The number of retailers authorised to sell the goods was reduced, creating a scarcity that had not existed before. It reflected the new ambitions: ­Rodwell began speaking of Tintin as the “Rolls-Royce” of comics, unworthy of being associated with cheap trinkets and give-aways.

Lots more background in that link.

This stunning result will doubtless have major implications for the Tintin books going forward—a publishing series that has already been published in more than 70 languages and sold more than 200 million copies. Back royalties? Refunded rights? Oh boy…developing.

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Inspired by the Sketch Dailies topic today, and how much I loved using ink yesterday I created this! I know how nice it is to snuggle with your best friend, especially if it is sort of smelly, but happy with a tail.

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Well, we are getting down to a) the bare bones of emerging facts and b) the huge, blossoming never ending until they find the black box* range of speculation over what the hell actually happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. And here is Brad Meltzer, occasional comics writer and host of History Channel’s Decoded to speculate on bizarre non Tintin related theories about the disappearance of a jumbo jet off the radar’s of the world.

I am definitely holding out for inspiration from Tintin on this.

* If the flight did go on for seven hours after losing contact with Malaysian air traffic control, AND even if the black box is actually found, we might still never know what happened: the black box only records the last two hours of flight information.

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TweetHello and welcome! We are starting a weekly art thingy and have -rather thoughtfully- set it for Friday, that interminable day where the weekend is within touching distance and yet you still have to be at work. Hence, pretty and cool stuff that will help tide you over- forget words, just feast your eyes. This [...]

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Tweet The opening titles of The Adventures of Tintin, while not technically part of the screenplay, offer a jaunty, tongue-in-cheek symposium on the action-adventure  genre.  Or, that is to say, on the films of Steven Spielberg.  There’s a boy, he’s got a companion, in this case a dog, and there is danger and bad guys and [...]

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Not only do I read banned books, but I buy them as well. Let me start with a story. At the end of August, on my final evening of a lovely trip to Cape Cod, I was checking out Herridge Books in Wellfleet. Herridge Books is a used book store tucked in a corner not far from Mayo Beach and Wellfleet Center. I was looking for Church Mice books, while my daughter wanted ghost stories. You could have

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Cartoonist and Comics Journal columnist Frank Santoro is about to start the second of his correspondence courses, with a deadline for applications of May 30th. Complete details here. You might know Frank from his books Cold Heat and Storeyville, or more recent turns in Sammy Harkham’s anthology series Kramer’s Ergot. Frank’s approach to comics-making is one of the more unique ones I’ve seen, rooted in old school printing techniques and renaissance-era “golden ratio” -type harmonic compositions, and increasingly based less on black lines and more on building colors in layers.

It’s fascinating stuff, even though I only understand about a third of it, and am only half convinced of even that (another ratio!). But if I had the time and cheddar, I’d take his course in a hot minute. I’m probably not the only one out there who could stand to look at his own approach to drawing and mark-making and composition from a whole new angle (I’m looking at you, Everyone). For more on Frank, I recommend his series of Layout Workbook posts on tcj.com, which go through a lot of his ideas about grids and the harmonic points in compositions. 

Also hello! This is my first post as a Drawn! contributor; first-time caller, long-time listener. If you don’t like it, I suggest you blame… Frank Santoro. 

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If only the new mo-cap Tintin movie had half the charm of this film, the first Tintin animated feature – a stop-mo adaptation of the The Crab With Golden Claws. Animated by Claude Misonne in 1947 with puppets, the film (embed below, in French no subtitles) closely follows the original story by Hergé.

(Thanks Johane Matte via Cartoon Brew’s Facebook page)

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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Claude Misonne, Tintin

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Yep.  A good old-fashioned bit of library/musical theater parody.  Joyce Valenza got some students to explain curation things Broadway style.  They do a good job.  I was trying to think up other Fiddler-inspired MLIS songs but it’s tough.  20 points if you can come up with another.

I like to say that writing a really good picture book can be far more difficult than writing a YA novel at times.  But seriously, why choose?

It really doesn’t matter what movie I watch sometimes.  Whatever it might be, there’s always a children’s literature connection lurking in the shadows.  Last night the resident husband and I watched Nobody’s Fool (1994) starring Paul Newman.  At one point Newman’s grandson is seen reading the Tintin adventure The Blue Lotus, which is timely.  After all, we’ve got a Tintin movie on the horizon so librarians everywhere?  Stock your shelves!!!  Little Brown has put out some great kid-friendly versions of his stories (now with less racism!) that you’ll probably want to get your hands on before the film comes out (though their smaller print size is unfortunate).  Here, British author/illustrator John Fardell (The 7 Professors of the Far North) discusses Hergé’s style, why we like it so much, and how it has influenced his own art.

For this next book trailer . . . paging, Vivian Alcott.  Alcott, party of one?

When lessons are taught on quality cheap book trailers, I hope this is used as an example.  Thanks to Playing By the Book for the link.

Entertainment Weekly, of all places, had a really top notch interview with The Pigeon Man the other day.  Along the way they showed off his Don’t Let the Pigeon Run this App app.  Durn.  I may actually have to shell something out and get this one.