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186 - HERGÉ The Adventures of Tintin The Blue Lotus Casterman, 193…
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Estimate €12,000 - €18,000
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Description
HERGÉ The Adventures of Tintin The Blue Lotus Casterman, 1937. Red spine, white 2nd plate, small pastedown image, dark blue endpapers, five colour hors-texte. Original 1936 edition, later bound. 1st and 2nd boards in excellent condition, small image with very beautiful shades of black and red. Spine in very good condition, corners slightly worn. Interior in excellent condition, without pagination, hors-texte with very beautiful colours. A superb and very rare copy, remarkably preserved. In his correspondence (October 1936), Hergé explained how enchanted he was by The Blue Lotus and the quality of Casterman's work: a luxurious comic album perfect in every way. The cover of this album is an exemplary success in terms of typography. Firstly, there is the title lettering, which has been used since Casterman became the publisher of the adventures of Tintin (the original edition of Cigars of the Pharaoh in 1934, and the 1935 reprint of Tintin in America were the first to benefit from it), in a slightly dark blue, combined with the "adventures of TINTIN" in the same colour and the red "reporter in the Far East" which precede it, the whole standing out perfectly against the yellow paper covering the cardboard. The central drawing, framed by thin red fillets (the outside being slightly thicker), is optimally highlighted - in bookshop windows, this ominous red dragon on a black background must have made a strong impression on the young readers of Le Petit Vingtième, who surely weren't expecting it. The illustrator's name did not yet appear on the cover; that would have to wait until 1939 and the publication of Ottokar's Sceptre. This remarkable edition of The Blue Lotus - a superb object in its own right - illustrates the successful alliance between Hergé's creativity and Casterman's technical mastery. HERGÉ
See original version (French)
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About the sale Comic strips
Auction location
Auction time 06/11/2026 at 1:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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