The art of Hergé, inventor of Tintin /

Recent years have seen an abundance of books about the internationally beloved comics character Tintin and his creator, the Belgian cartoonist Hergé, but none have been as fascinating or attractive as this coffee-table collection focusing on the artist's surprisingly diverse output. The juvenilia that begins the volume is impressively accomplished. Hergé started drawing professionally when 15 and soon was working regularly for a Boy Scout magazine, where in 1926 he began a comic strip about the adventures of a scout patrol leader, presaging the direction of his later career. He concurrently worked for the Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siècle and then its weekly children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, where Tintin debuted in 1929. While the abundance of Tintin art is the main attraction here, fans will enjoy the generous assortment of other work sketchbook drawings, book illustrations, portraits, advertisements, even fashion drawings and political posters, most of it totally unrecognizable as coming from the hand that drew Tintin. Two further volumes will cover the remainder of Hergé's prolific career.--Flagg, Gordon Copyright 2008 Booklist

Verdict: Readers fascinated by the "adventures" will enjoy watching the evolution of HergE¡s art and his lovable hero. Recommended where interest warrants. [For years, the reviewer¡s French girlfriend called him Tintin because of the likeness she saw.--Ed.] Background: If HergE is relatively unknown to the general reading public, his classic creation, Tintin, the French boy hero of the middle of the last century, will be familiar to all French children and at least to many Americans who have studied French. This handsome volume by Goddin, an expert on HergE who has published several books on his subject, is being released now, according to the publisher, in anticipation of three films soon to be produced about the adventures of Tintin by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. The 147 color images and 233 black-and-white and line art are beautifully reproduced and often fill the page. (Some of the black-and-white originals have been tinted.) Each spread offers several photos, some of them heretofore unpublished, with accompanying text that functions more as captions to the artwork.--Edward Cone, New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.