Red Rackham's Treasure - Differences Between Newspaper Strip and Comic Book

Differences Between Newspaper Strip and Comic Book

In order to fit into the 62-pages required by the book publishers, certain scenes of the original strip were edited out and some panels were cropped or made bigger.

The speech bubbles and the fonts were made smaller and there were some changes in the text which, in some cases, toned down the aggression of the characters: in the original strip, when confronting the so-called descendants of Red Rackham, Haddock announces that he fancies killing them all in combat and, once they have fled, Tintin expresses satisfaction. In the book Haddock's words are changed to his claiming to feel the boiling blood of his ancestor, Sir Francis, and Tintin makes no comment on his methods.

In the newspaper strip, the sailor caps worn by the Thomson and Thompson displayed the name "Redoutable" (French for "Ruthless"). These were taken out in the book version.

Scenes from the strip that did not appear in the book edition included:

• the shopkeeper warning Haddock that breaking the mirror is a bad omen and that he should give up his plans (in the book edition Haddock himself believes it to be a bad omen, while the shopkeeper merely demands to be paid for the broken mirror);

• In the port scene, Snowy's tail is hit by Haddock's match after the Captain's finger catches fire. Haddock then turns to Thomson and Thompson and makes his statement that he is afraid of nothing and that they sail at dawn;

• Haddock, examining one of the steel plates in the hold, comments that it wasn't a bomb after all when a sudden bang can be heard behind them. However it's just the door closing suddenly;

• When digging at the foot of the cross, Thomson and Thompson finds what they think is the treasure, a silver button, only for Haddock to tell him that it's just a button from Sir Francis' clothing and calling him a "freshwater sailor";

• Before dragging Calculus off to see Haddock about the Marlinspike parchment, Tintin calls the Captain who mutters: "Calculus?... that phenomenon can go westwards", a reference to the professor's insistence that the treasure is westwards, as per his pendulum.

Scenes that were drawn for the book edition included:

• Haddock being helped to his feet by Thomson and Thompson and Tintin after going through Calculus' clothes-brushing machine;
• Tintin commenting on the irony of finding the treasure in Marlinspike Hall "right under our very noses" after going halfway across the world to find it.

Some of the panels were redrawn for the book edition in order to cover half-a-page rather than a small panel. These included:

• The scene where Tintin, in his diving-gear, first approaches the Unicorn;
• The scene in the Maritime Gallery at Marlinspike, redrawn to include Snowy chewing a bone, an anchor and the three models of the Unicorn on a glass panel with a book and some of the parchments (the original panel only had a single model on a wooden case).