This week on Totally Tintin, it’s life during wartime. Is it about the conflict between science and religion; is it a metaphor for war and life during occupation; an escapist fantasy; or is it all a dream? We don’t know either, but join us as we try to figure out The Shooting Star!
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I love the context, even when it hurts! Ack!
By the way, the sailor on page 15 is probably Belgian. While most navies wore some variation of the British Royal Navy uniform (it had been for over 100 years the worlds dominate naval force and amongst the first to issue their sailors uniforms) however the cap is distinctly French Navy in character, a style adopted by the Belgian navy pre-war (while the Belgian army adopted a mixture of British and French uniform styles). I have to wonder why Herge, after making all the scientists from Axis or Neutral (and whatever Vichy France was supposed to be) countries that they would sail off on a British ship. Has Haddocks nationality actually been made clear in the series up to this point? As a kid I assumed Herge wrote him as a Belgian who was then Anglised in translation.
I used to be very into constellations, so I can tell you that the Big Dipper is the tail end of Ursa Major! http://mail.colonial.net/~hkaiter/starweb0809/SECTION5/izzyweb5/izzyweb5_images/UrsaMajorMessier_sm.jpg
Cool, but was it all a dream or not?
It’s a comic book…
Can I add a footnote to Dave’s info that the RS Peary in The Shooting Star was based on Captain Scott’s real Antarctic icebreaker RRS Discovery? The original Discovery has been restored and is now dry docked as a tourist attraction in its home city of Dundee in Scotland. What’s maybe a little weirder is that Dundee is also home to one other historic ship. It’s a 19th century Royal Navy frigate, called… HMS Unicorn!
Hey guys, I am listening to the Totally Tintin podcast regularly and wanted to share something about the “Bohlwinkel” character.
Aware of the controversy surrounding the anti-Semitic depiction of Blumenstein, he renamed the character “Bohlwinkel”, adopting this name from bollewinkel, a Brussels dialect term for a confectionery store. He later discovered that, by coincidence, Bohlwinkel was also a Jewish name.
Thanks for the info, Yawar!
I just shared this info with you because you mentioned in your podcast that if it weren’t for this character Bohlwinkel, the Shooting Star would have been an amazing book. I am a huge Tintin fan since childhood. I wanted you to know that Herge was not anti semetic and the published book you were reading did not potray “Bohlwinkel”, as a jewish banker as was the case in earlier publication. He was supposed to be from Sao Rico. So now you can safely say The Shooting Star is an amazing book. Like the rest of Tintin books. 🙂