So part of the joy of bringing the old Tintin comics into science fiction has been re-imagining the world through the lens of written stories, rather than the visual medium of comics. For the most part this has been a joy, and a lot of the scenes in the TIntian novels “feel” very comic-inspired to me. I think I did a respectable (if not exceptional) job on the first novel, and the second one is even better, if you don’t mind me saying so.
I suspect the 15th, when I get around to writing it, will be fantastic. But this is the third novel I’m doing this with, and I continue to be happy with the process. Maybe someday I’ll write a sci-fi Asterix and Obelix, but until then, Tintian is a chunk of my childhood dreams made real.
But that’s not to say everything is necessarily easy. The biggest issue is one of length… trying to fill a novel worth of words with a comic that maybe has a thousand words across it is tricky. And in this particular case I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be better to collapse a two-part story into a single novel.
Specifically, “Tintin and the Mystery of the Unicorn” and “Tintin and Red Rackham’s Treasure” are 2 parts in the comics, and finish laying the fundamental groundwork for the rest of the Tintin comics in many ways. It introduces the last of the “major” characters in Professor Calculus (who I’ve already included in my 2nd novel, “Tintian and the Mysterious Meteor”) as well as the Captain’s ancestral home in Marlinspike Manor (which I am introducing in this novel). Other than the two major reoccurring villains in Tintin, that’s most of the fundamentals covered, really… and I’ve already built the foundations for one of those two villains in my work.
ANYway, what I’m saying is that the current novel is hovering around 35k words, and that’s just a bit shy of my usual novel length. Now Spielberg compressed the two (and added parts of “The Crab with the Golden Claws” to boot!) when he made the movie adaptation, so I’d be in rarefied air if I did the same… I just don’t know if it will make this novel too long if I do. But, all things considered, there’s not a tonne that happens in Red Rackham’s Treasure. A talkative parrot, some monkeys that steal a rifle, and a lot of submarine and diving suit action that makes good comics but I don’t know if would make a great novel.
Of course, one might say the same thing about the entire endeavour of writing works inspired by Herge in the first place, but that’s what I’m doing.
Anyway-anyway, I’ll decide in the next thousand words or so. I might even cut some of the stuff I’ve written so far, make sure the story doesn’t spiral away from me… we’ll see!
Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy!