On a marché sur la Lune: Inscribed by Hergé and signed by Buzz Aldrin !

Paris, Tournai, Casterman, [1954 and 1974]

1 vol. (230 x 300 mm) with 62 plates. Illustrated publisher's boards, red cloth spine, fourth plate type B (B11)

1 vol. (229 x 304 m), 62 plates. Illustrated publisher's paperback, green laminated spine, fourth board type B (B42)

Fine reunion of two albums:

• The original first edition from 1954 ;
• The last edition (1974) with type B variation: the album is here inscribed by Hergé and signed by "Buzz Aldrin (Apollo XI LMP)" - the second astronaut after Armstrong to set foot on the lunar surface, after the steps drawn fifteen years earlier by Tintin, Haddock, Dupont and Dupond, and of course Snowy, on the surface of the moon.

The ex-dono is signed "Buzz Aldrin, Apollo XI LMP" [ for Lunar Module Pilot: the manned missions of the Apollo program consisted of a crew of 3 astronauts, the Commander (CDR, Neil Armstrong), in charge of the crew; the Command Module Pilot (CMP, Michael Collins), who remained in orbit while his two crewmates were on the Moon, and the Lunar Module Pilot (Buzz Aldrin), in charge of the systems.

The seventeenth album in the Adventures of Tintin, On a marché sur la lune is one of the most emblematic and prophetically accurate - it was published fifteen years before Neil Armstrong and Aldrin took their first steps on the Moon.

The album continues the lunar adventure initiated in Objective Moon; the publication of the whole, at a rate of a weekly plate in Belgian "Tintin", takes place from March 30, 1950 to December 30, 1953, with, in total, 117 plates.

The episode will be divided for the publication in two albums of 62 plates partially reworked: Objectif lune and On a marché sur la lune; they are realized with the help of the new Studios Hergé, created on April 6, 1950, which will deliver modifications consisting in the addition of new unpublished plates, the enlargement - completely new - of the boxes, the modification of certain colors. Also, following pressure from Catholic circles and the publisher, Hergé was forced to modify Wolff's farewell letter into a more toned-down version of his suicide, in which he expressed the wish that "a miracle could save him". Later, Hergé regretted having given in and added this unrealistic detail, as the scientist had no chance of getting out alive. Wolff is, with Mitsuhirato in The Blue Lotus, one of the only two characters in the series who die by committing suicide.

The first edition appears in January 1954: the album is of the usual format, with a red lined spine, endpapers with the characters in white reserve on a dark blue background - this will be the standard until 1957, when light blue endpapers "with portraits" are used - and a type B spine(11). The original edition is Belgian, printed in Tournai for the account of Casterman. The French original will be strictly identical, except for the printer, Léonard Danel, in Loos - it is printed in July 1954, once the Belgian edition is exhausted.

A new version is published from 1964, with a green square back. The fourth plate is always of the type B (B42) and our copy is the one of the last variant, which will soon be extinguished with the publication of Flight 714 to Sydney: from the next album, in 1976 ("Tintin and the Picaros"), place to the type C, still in force today, which takes again the covers of the albums as "already published".

Neil Armstrong is the first to have put his foot on the lunar ground, it was on July 21, 1969, at 2 h 56 min UTC, during the Apollo 11 mission. Buzz Aldrin, 15 minutes later, will follow him. Both unveil a plaque with the following words: "Here, men from planet Earth first set foot on the Moon, July 1969 AD. We have come in a peaceful spirit on behalf of all mankind."

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