Tintin

Thundering Typhoons, Tintin the intrepid reporter characterised by his quiff and faithful dog, Snowy has hit the news recently. The controversy focuses on the earlier Tintin adventures and the issue of racism. Herge, who created Tintin over 60 years ago has expressed his views on this in New Zealand's own elsewhere on-line magazine.

Matamata library has a whole collection of Tintin books and videos. They are well worth reading and as you journey through the adventures you'll meet the idiotic, bowler hatted detectives Thompson and Thomson, the short fused, dipsomaniac called Captain Haddock, the absent minded, short-sighted professor and lots of villans.

For those who are hooked on Tintin, and there is no age restriction, you might like to peruse two very important websites: Tintin and Tintinologist . Both have fantastic images and contain a wealth of information. It helps to be a bit 'nerdy'.

So as Captain Haddock would say, "Thundering Typhoons! Buccaneers! Filibusters!" Happy reading.

Graphic Novels

Welcome to October,

Today I will talk about our Graphic Novel collection.

We have all sorts of graphic books. Asterix and Tintin (I devoured Tintin as a kid, I read and reread them over and over), collections of newspaper strips (I include Garfield and Footrot Flats here as they were originally published daily in newspapers), DC and Marvel titles (Batman, Superman and Spiderman) and serious novels in graphic form.

If you are old enough you may remember Commando and Battle Library Weekly. These are war stories in comic form. They are now being reprinted in book form. Ah the memories.

A title I will mention as an example of a graphic novel which isn't just a novel in comic form but a serious piece of writing which has depth and entertainment is

Whatever happened to the World of Tomorrow? by Brian Fies

Two very important writers of this form are Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman.

Alan Moore has written superhero stories for DC but is best known for The Watchmen.

Neil Gaiman is a prolific writer. He has written picture books, childrens novels, adult novels and novels aimed at young adults (teens?) He usually includes magic and mythical beings or alternate worlds and there is a dark twist somewhere. He is probably best known for The Sandman series.

Coraline has recently been released as a movie and more people are now aware of his work.

View 30 Essential Graphic Novels here.

Enjoy

Nick