The idea of giving more space to polychromy in the albums of Tintin dates back to 1936. Faced with competition, Charles Lesne, Hergé's correspondent at Casterman, wrote to him that for The Blue Lotus, "a full-colour cover would be more in keeping with the times".. It also offers three options for the interior: either all the plates in two-colour process, or five or six pages in four-colour process, or the insertion of hors-texte.

Hergé preferred to keep the "little picture" formula to distinguish himself from other children's books (Zig et Puce, Mickeyetc.). Hence the use of cream paper for the cover, to compensate for the small surface area occupied by the drawings. As for the plates, Hergé felt that they did not lend themselves to colouring. He therefore opted to add hors-texte, although he was aware that this would require additional work.

In February 1942, Louis Casterman welcomed Hergé to his offices in Tournai. It was wartime and paper was rationed. It was now more than ever time to market albums in full colour, with the aim of conquering foreign markets when times were better. Coming off the offset presses of the Tournai printer, The Mysterious Star was the first volume to adopt the new 62-plate format. Hergé also had to rework the previous volumes of the Adventures of Tintin so that they can conform to this mould. The Broken Ear will be the first to be reformatted; the colour edition of Cigars of the Pharaoh was not published until 1955. As for Tintin in the land of the SovietsIt was never reduced to 62 pages, nor colourised during Hergé's lifetime.

But in 1942, Casterman knew that it would take some time to recast the old Tintin stories. In the meantime, to meet the demand from booksellers and the public, the publisher printed the eight albums of Tintin in Congo at Crab with golden claws. But the cream paper used for the covers was in short supply. Charles Lesne therefore asked Hergé to make "full drawing blanketsThese were full-bleed illustrations printed on white paper. It was these editions that collectors would later call "grandes images". At the height of the Occupation, these eight titles were sold only in Belgium.

Hergé will keep the "large image" covers of the albums The Broken Ear, The Black Island, The Crab with the Golden Claws, Tintin in America, Tintin in Congo and The Blue Lotus when they were reissued in colour between 1943 and 1946. He did, however, design a new cover for Ottokar's Sceptre (1947), the story's costumes and sets having evolved in the meantime. The same goes for Cigars of the Pharaoh (1955), which has also been updated, but perhaps also for reasons of readability. Finally, the album The Black Island will get a new look for its 1966 remake.

A reference work

In addition to the famous BDM and the work of Philippe Goddin, there is a book that every collector of the first nine albums must have permanently on his bedside table. It's called Tintin in black and white by Marcel Wilmet, subtitled The adventure of adventures. Published by Casterman in 2004 and reissued in 2011, it is now unfortunately out of print. The essential catalogue Tintin, bibliography of a myth by Olivier Roche and Dominique Cerbelaud (Les Impressions nouvelles, 2014) tells us that"Between the two editions, minor changes have been made, some fifteen errors have disappeared, four incorrect editions have been deleted and replaced by five "new" ones discovered in the meantime"..