Tintin auction fetches $2.4m

Front page of the comic The adventures of Tintin - Tintin au Tibet signed by
the author Herge (R) and the Dalai Lama (R bottom).(AFP: Joel Saget)

A Paris auction of items related to Hergé's comic book reporter Tintin, whose adventures have been adapted for the big screen by Steven Spielberg, fetched more than 1.8 million euros ($2.4 million) on Saturday.

Auctioneers Arcturial said the sale, including costs, brought in far more than the one million euros they had expected.

The 856 lots up for grabs were equally divided between recent objects and older material, including some very rare items. In all, 85 per cent of the items sold in a packed hall.

One of the most sought-after objects was an original gouache and watercolour drawing of a battle scene from The Secret of the Unicorn; estimated at between 35,000 and 40,000 euros, it finally sold for 168,900 euros ($231,352).

Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin saw its worldwide premiere in Belgium in October and later in other parts of Europe to generally positive reviews and strong business. It opens in North America in December.

An original drawing for another Tintin adventure, Flight 714 to Sydney, fetched 90,100 euros ($123,415), about three times the initial estimate of between 25,000 and 35,000 euros.

A special edition of the adventure Explorers on the Moon, signed not just by Hergé but by six astronauts to have made the journey to the Moon, fetched 100,000 euros ($136,000) - around 10 times more than originally expected.

Even a handmade greeting card by Hergé, featuring a drawing of Tintin and his faithful dog Snowy perched on the famous red-and-white rocket from the moon adventures, fetched 40,000 euros ($54,000). It had been estimated at between 10,000 and 15,000 euros.

The Tintin adventures were written and illustrated from 1929 until his death in 1983 by Georges Prosper Remi, whose pen name Hergé is the French pronunciation of his initials reversed: RG.

Hergé memorabilia are among the most sought-after comic book items. A Paris auction of Tintin drawings and sculptures last year brought in just over one million euros.

A single illustration fetched 764,200 euros ($1.04 million) at another Paris auction in 2008, a world record in the field of comic books.

AFP (Agence France-Presse)

Published at ABC News, November 27, 2011

Mostly praise for Spielberg-Jackson Tintin film

Spielberg was a late convert to the adventures of Tintin and Captain Haddock.(Paramount Pictures)

Steven Spielberg's collaboration with Sir Peter Jackson to put cartoon classic Tintin on the big screen has received mostly glowing reviews.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn premieres this coming weekend in Brussels before its first international release next week - also in Belgium, home country of Tintin's creator Hergé.

Reviews from that country have so far been enthusiastic.

"Bull's eye" was the headline in the Dutch-language De Standaard newspaper, while the French language Le Soir called it "a pure jewel".

Film magazine Empire gave the movie four out of five stars, saying it was "action-packed, gorgeous and faithfully whimsical".

Empire said co-producer Jackson had "cajoled a joie de cinema" from Spielberg, noting that whereas Jackson had been a "Tintin geek" since boyhood, Spielberg was a late convert.

"In effect, Spielberg landed the goofball sidekick with whom to traverse the globe, without leaving the studio," the magazine said.

Spielberg directed the cast including Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis and Daniel Craig in a Los Angeles studio.

They wore bodysuits covered in spots and, exploiting motion capture technology, Wellington-based Weta Digital converted their movements and expressions into what is now an animated film.

But two British papers have faulted the animation.

The Guardian gave the film only two stars, saying the human details are sorely wanting.

"How curious that Hergé achieved more expression with his use of ink-spot eyes and humble line drawings than a bank of computers and an army of animators were able to achieve," the review said.

The Daily Telegraph gave it three stars and also panned the computer graphics for eliciting less expression than two dots from the Belgian cartoonist's pen.

"The difference, you see, is in the eyes. And in this first of three planned Tintin films by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, the eyes do not have it - it being that vital, twinkling difference that separates a character worth caring about from a dummy in a Debenhams shop window."

Entertainment rag Variety, however, differed.

"With immense sensitivity, the animators have translated Hergé's spare, elegant drawings into a multidimensional world that seems realistic," it said.

AAP (Agence France-Presse)

Published at ABC News, October 18, 2011

Obituary: William Hoffmann, music journalist

Vale Bill Hoffmann

by Helen Musa

August 22, 2011

Photo by Richard Briggs

One of the founding members of the Canberra Critics’ Circle, W.L. Hoffmann, OAM, died peacefully in his sleep at Ginninderra Gardens on Sunday August 21.

I had visited Bill the day before, but he was in a deep sleep from which he did not wake. He was 91.

Bill was, for a long time, Australia’s most senior music critic, travelling all over the country for The Canberra Times and filing reviews for nearly half a century. In his early days in Canberra, to which he came from Adelaide, he was the ACT Supervisor of Instrumental Music and director of the Canberra City Band, which he re-formed in 1947, after it had disbanded because of unemployment and lack of players in 1937. He was to run it for 30 years until 1976. 

Bill was the Canberra School of Music’s original executive officer and recorded its formative years in his 1990 book The Canberra School of Music: the first 25 years, 1965-1990. 

But it was for his Canberra Times critiques that he was best-known. Rain, hail or shine, Bill would always be there to review. He covered the first performances of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and the production of the (then) Australian Opera when it visited Canberra. He was, in the words of Canberra journalist Robert Macklin, “a man of almost magisterial forbearance” in his capacity to tolerate and review a wide variety of music, classical and popular. He also wrote about musical comedy for many years, a form that he and his wife Marge particularly enjoyed.

Until technological advances meant that Canberra Times reviewers began to file copy from home, Bill filed his reviews at the paper’s offices on several days a week and was a well-known figure in the editorial department. Sub-editors respected his ability to write “clean copy” which they rarely needed to edit. 

Bill would never have given up reviewing but for his faulty knees. Lucid until the end, he told fellow Critics’ Circle member Bill Stephens and me when we visited him several months ago: “I didn’t have an operation because I never thought I’d go on so long.”

Originally published in Canberra Critics Circle blog, August 22, 2011