This Saturday and the next mark the 75th birthdays of two pop culture icons from the States and Europe. Being a fan of both of 'em, I figured a shout out was in order.
So, a tip of the pen and a can of spinach hoisted to Tintin (10 Jan 1929) and Popeye (17 Jan 1929) in honor of their diamond jubilees! Happy birthday, boys!
I shouldn’t be surprised at how long they’ve both been around – but I am. Some great things are still with us, I’m glad to see.
Just spotted this: a commemoration of Tintin via the NZ Herald.
I wish Tin Tin had a better English translator.
I can tell by the pacing of the story that the cartoonist has wonderful comedic timing, but the jokes are just flat and awful.
Still, the comics are charming (I borrowed some collections from the library just a week or two ago), and Snowy looks like the kind of dog I’d like to own.
Billions of blue blistering barnacles! 75 years? Well, blow me down…
Man, I remember reading Tintin a LONG time ago. That must have been when my brother was into them. I think I even read them in French a time or two. Alwyas very interesting storylines. 
Popeye is still around, eh? Pretty good stuff!
Living in the States now, I am really disapointed by the lack of “real”, hard-covered comic books in this country.
When I go back to France from time to time, I see all the choices, the new releases and I cry. “292 million people and just the marvel comics? For crying out loud!”. Yep. I cry loud.
From the classical Belgian “clear-line” (Tintin) to the lastests work of art, humour, SciFi, heroic fantasy, nothing! Or… maybe I missed something and somebody out there will direct me to a nice link or a store in Boston Metro?.. 
As for Tintin, I never had the chance to read it in English, but I read Asterix, and the translation is very British english/culture oriented. Some good jokes, but the high quality of the original text suffers a lot.
I miss my 500+ ‘Bandes Dessinées’ … sob
froggie, the way comics are published in France is extremely cool. No softcover serial-that-goes-on-forever nonsense.
Of course, the American way of doing it has it’s merits, too. Some of the American indepented comics are very good. It’s a different thing from the European ‘novel’-style of publishing, but if you want that, can’t you find a place that sells imported French and Belgian stuff?
What happened to your 500 BDs? Sounds like i could have a couple of days’ fun with those…
Don’t take me wrong, I like also the US style comics. But with a market this size, nobody has thought of creating / releasing european style comics yet? weird.
Hey I got a business idea! …know any VC? 
As for imports, I guess I’m just waiting for birthday/Xmas presents The only couple of places I was told to go were really Marvel subsidiaries ! 
And the 500 are awaiting me at my Mom’s, regularly mistreated by my brother (don’t stack them in a pile !!! Argh!!!)… bah…
What do they have in Denmark?
The market in Denmark seems to mainly consist of erotica and childrens’ (or comedic) classics. Tintin, Asterix, Lucky Luke, Gaston la Gaffe etc. Everything is generally soft-cover. Most people read English so these days the market for translated superheroes is not as big as it used to be. I think Spawn, Witchblade and Spiderman have monthly magazines in Danish. Oh, and Akira recently got published in about twenty volumes.
As for European serious/adult stuff, it seems that only the absolute top of the heap gets translated and published, and only in relatively small runs. Moebius, Manara, Loisel, Bourgeon, Pratt etc.
Then there are Danish comics, most notably, in terms of popularity, Valhalla. Think Asterix with the gods from Nordic mythology in stead of Gauls. But that series is really an exception. There’s not much money to be made from producing comics for the Danish market. (Valhalla survives because of huge popularity and being marketable in all Nordic countries. The Moomin Trolls is another series produced under license here, and sold worldwide.)
Then of course there’s a small indie scene that keeps putting out books and anthologies for the hell of it. They’re lucky if they break even on their printing costs. But that’s an advantage in my view; it gives them complete creative freedom and sometimes there’s fantastic stuff among the so-so autobiographical comics.
But if you want to read the best comics of any genre when they first come out, you have to get them as imports. Which is what I do.