Something that has probably never crossed your minds - and, perhaps, anyone's minds ever - is the amount of custom-design that must go into creating deep-sea diving outfits for distinctively-shaped comic or cartoon characters.
Consider this great page from TERRY-TOONS COMICS #65 (St. John Comics, Cover Date: February, 1948), so well drawn by Terrytoons animator Art Bartsch.
The tell-tale EARS at the top of their helmets give the game away!
MEEEEOOW!
And you probably DON'T NEED any dialogue, to figure out who's in THIS diving rig...
HINT: It's by Carl Barks - and from WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES #97 (1948)!
Th' "fitting" is enough ta gives ya "fits"!
From the POPEYE cartoon "Dizzy Divers" (1935)!
Still, I can't help but wonder what would have to be created for THIS GUY...
Expansion both forward AND sideways, I'd imagine!
He'd be better off just remaining on land!
11 comments:
A similar issue is the design of spacesuits for comics and cartoon characters. A hat is a distinguishing characteristic; do we put that hat inside the helmet or on top of it? How do we shape the helmet to accommodate the beak? What has always driven me crazy is when the artist just puts holes in the diving suit or the spacesuit for, say, Mickey's ears, or a character's tail. THIS IS NOT HOW SPACESUITS OR DIVING SUITS WORK!
Elaine:
We can always hope that, whatever character’s protrusions… er, um… (for lack of a different word) protrude outside of his or her protective suit, the suit is so perfectly molded to the character’s shape that the… protruding protrusions fit so snugly through each individual opening that a perfect seal is formed against cold, heat, water, cosmic rays, lack of breathable atmosphere, pressure, nitrogen bubbles, and those stubborn coughs and colds!
How characters’ exposed ears, tails, etc. fare while unprotected, just might end up being one of those mysteries for the ages. …If only Don Rosa would come out of retirement and explain it to us!
I was going to say that this subject has crossed my mind, not in connection with cartoon characters' diving outfits but in connection with their space suits.
But it looks like Elaine beat me to it.
So, I'll just post a link to a famous cover featuring one of these customized suits: https://www.comics.org/issue/566407/cover/4/
From the first time I saw it some six or seven years ago, I've been impressed with the design of Snowy's space suit and the fact that it even includes a ... er, um, protrusion for his tail.
Sergio:
I must say that is a very well-designed Tintin cover, with an equally well-designed space suit for Snowy!
Then again, what little I *do* know of Herge has shown him to be a superbly detailed draftsman, in a league with Carl Barks circa 1948-1953. So, not much of a surprise there.
To me, the biggest surprise was to find that the Tintin book you cite came out of Western Publishing – who, at the time, was turning out Dell Comics and, in two years or so, would initiate the Gold Key Comics line! THAT was something I never knew!
And, to digress, even someone like me, who has accumulated a literal lifetime of comics information, still regularly learns new things from GCD! This being just another of those “things”!
If there is one downside, it is that little information about the book, and no information on its contents, are present in the index. That is precisely WHY I joined GCD… to fill in so many of the missing pieces. I figure that, between GCD and this humble Blog, that accumulated knowledge of mine will find a way to somehow live on!
HERE is Sergio’s GCD link to that great Tintin cover! Enjoy!
I must say that the Moon duology ("Destination Moon" and "Explorers on the Moon") is one of my favorite Tintin stories. With "Tintin" being one of my favourite comic book series, this certainly means something! :) The books are a superb achievement. They were written long before the first trip to the Moon, and Hergé took a lot of effort and made copious research to determine how such an expedition could actually look. As a result, his albums are a thrilling and vivid read even today!
Hergé did pay plenty of attention to details and verisimilitude in his stories. He gathered tons of various reference materials: brochures, postcards, books, etc. Many vehicles, locations and objects seen in Tintin albums exist or existed in real life!
@Joe: If you are interested in the Western Publishing edition of "Tintin", Chris Owens wrote a very informative article on this subject. I'm sure that it can shine some light on the intrepid reporter's debut on the American soil :) Here's the link: https://www.tintinologist.org/articles/goldenpress.html
T.:
First my deepest apologies for letting these wonderful comments languish far longer than they should! Several straight days of extreme (grandkid) baby sitting and comics writing deadlines – all wall-to-wall – prevented me from getting to this until today!
THIS is EXACTLY WHY I maintain this humble Blog to this very day – going on FIFTEEN YEARS since its beginning, when so many others have abandoned theirs! The amazing things I (and our readers) learn from folks like you! I’d like to think that each and every post, no matter how inconsequential, has the same effect on the rest of you. They certainly do when they attract comments like this!
Everyone, go read T.’s informative link right now, and share in my awe and enthusiasm!
It never ceases to amaze me how many newly-discovered things continue to be unearthed about Western Publishing, now just short of FORTY YEARS since its demise as a comic book publisher! I’ve tried to share as many of them as possible via these posts, but this one is truly amazing – as well as being, heretofore, completely unknown to me!
All I could possibly add is that, when it comes to “translation and dialogue”, some things never change! Even as far back as 1959 (and, undoubtedly, further) challenges include the same ones I face every day… making humor and “technical parts” work across different languages, conforming your dialogue to the size of the balloon (…and having to sacrifice some great stuff due to space limitations), and, of course, making things that were “acceptable” in another time, or in another language, “acceptable” per our ever-changing American standards.
Ultimately, it’s a terrible shame that Western’s efforts at bringing Tintin to our shores were unsuccessful! Had things worked out, Tintin might have as large a part of my pop-culture life as Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, Batman, or Scooby-Doo – and a myriad of others!
Thank you very much for your kind words, Joe; it's always a pleasure when I can share a nice story with people who find it interesting. I'm grateful that you made it possible to happen with your Blog! And thanks to frequent struggles with deadlines in my own work, I can understand your woes perfectly, so there is absolutely no need for apologies :)
With regard to Tintin's potential success in the US, sometimes such things are really a touch-and-go situation. From what I gather, when "Tintin" debuted in the UK, the future of the series was very much uncertain, just as in the US - but a raving review in the renowned "Times Literary Supplement" convinced hesitant British libraries to stock Hergé's albums, which ensured the popularity of the books among young readers and jumpstarted its future success. If not for that review, things might have turned out exactly as in the United States...
And, to get back to the original topic of our discussion here, I can say that there IS a gag in one of the "Tintin" albums, "Red Rackham's Treasure", which is based on the fact that the old-school diving suit used in the story actually LACKED any customised protrusions. As a result, when Captain Haddock dons the suit for the first time, he finds out the hard way that the helmet does not have enough space for his bushy beard, which gets painfully clamped between two sections of the suit. I bet Haddock would be very interested in that Popeye-personalised model you display in your post: that chin-space could be easily converted to beard-space, I believe!
Great snakes!
One of the many reasons this blog is the only blog I still follow regularly in 2023 is the invariably intelligent comments from its readers, along with the thoughtful responses from our gracious host.
But, even on this great blog, I’m occasionally blown away by a comment for all the right reasons. T.’s response to my passing Tintin reference was phenomenal.
I was vaguely aware that Tintin had been published in the United States during Hergé’s lifetime, and that there were some difficulties regarding racial issues. I think I may even have read somewhere once that Western Printing published Tintin books in the U.S., although I gave the matter such little thought at the time that I’m not 100% sure I did.
In any case, I’m sure glad I took the time to read the article T. shared. I had no idea that the stories were given an American English dialogue, as opposed to the distinctly European English dialogue that characterizes the boy reporter’s sojourns in the land of Uncle Sam to this day.
It’s unfortunate that Western’s efforts to popularize Tintin in the U.S.A weren’t successful.
While the timing wasn’t great, coming as it did in the immediate aftermath of the Four Color Scare, I think Western (and perhaps Casterman as well) may be at least partly to blame. They should have tried again in the 1970s, not using the series’s familiar hardcover format, but as just another title in its Gold Key comics line (possibly breaking up the stories into installments). I think if Western (and/or Casterman) had been willing to go this route, Tintin would have been a great success. Had that happened, who knows? Maybe even the Gold Key/Whitman comic line would have endured beyond the 1980s.
It was interesting, also, for me to learn that even in the 1960s and 1970s, Tintin was already viewed as something more than a regular comic book series (hence its being published in hardcover format).
Thank you, T., for sharing that great article!
T.:
Look no further than Sergio’s comment above to see the effect your contribution has had… besides teaching *this* old dog some new tricks, that is.
This is what I love most about the Blog, when contributors not only participate but do so in synergy! And that is what we clearly have here! You feed off Sergio’s comment, he feeds off your response, and I get the benefit of both!
And, with your Captain Haddock observation, you even bring the discussion full circle back to odd diving suit designs! WONDERFUL!
Despite being inexplicably busier now in retirement than when I worked at a full-time career, I will always make time to maintain this Blog. Why? Because you folks make it so rewarding!
Sergio:
You write: “One of the many reasons this blog is the only blog I still follow regularly in 2023 is the invariably intelligent comments from its readers, along with the thoughtful responses from our gracious host.”
Thank you for those VERY KIND words! I like to think that whatever success this Blog has had (and, hopefully, will *continue* to have) is primarily due to all of you making it such a fun place to visit, but also my own particular style of hosting.
Treating everyone as a friend (…not a “Facebook Friend”, but an *actual* friend) with kindness, openness, and most of all – respect! If you are kind enough, or interested enough, to leave a comment, you are entitled to a response in kind! Many of the Blogs that have been abandoned to the cyber-wayside, just let your comments “hang out there”, as if they don’t matter!
HERE, THEY MATTER! To me, they’re often the BEST PART! And, by making them matter, I reap the level of enthusiasm and participation that you see in this thread! The kind that makes everyone feel both welcome, and a part of this thing we do. The kind that has T. contributing such an insightful article providing much new information – at least for me – and the lively follow-up that ensues!
Like you, I wish that Western HAD tried out Tintin as a standard format, serialized 15-20-cent comic in the early 1970s. They WERE reaching out at the time, working with DePatie Freeleng for a long-running PINK PANTHER title, and a moderately-running INSPECTOR title, adding new Hanna-Barbera titles such as SCOOBY-DOO, FUN-IN (with Dastardly and Muttley, Penelope Pitstop, and others), THE HAIR BEAR BUNCH, etc. at the same time they were losing the classic H-B titles to Charlton, reviving a BULLWINKLE title which had not been published since 1963, and more.
Tintin would have fit right in with all of that and, as noted earlier, would have become a significant part of my pop-culture life as a young one, rather than a relative footnote of my upper adult years. More’s the pity!
An additional thought occurs to me as to why Western did not try Tintin as a standard format, serialized 15-20-cent comic in the early 1970s…
In later 1972, the Whitman three-pack bags (sold through toy and department stores) were instituted as an alternate means of distribution, to pick up an overall sagging of newsstand sales experienced by all publishers at the time. As these bags were released on their own scheduling, and often had three different titles per bag, running serialized stories became problematic.
This is why the Mickey Mouse serials, a Western comic book staple, since Gottfredson strip continuity reprints began in 1940, were ended in 1973 – presumably, once the backlog of them had all seen print. This would also have precluded any serialization of Herge’s Tintin for the same reason. …Regrettably!
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