Asterix and Tintin are such an integral part of (continental?) European childhoods it feels so strange to me when I meet North Americans who grew up without them. Then again, I never read Nancy Drew, for example...

Asterix was an afterthought - there were a few floating around among friends, but they were definitely secondary to the Tintins. Tintin, much, like Monty Python (and the Prisoner) was something I stumbled on at much a younger age (that is to say, grade school going into junior high) than in retrospect I would have expected - at least growing up in Maine. The funny thing was, other than the Prisoner (which was my personal PBS discovery, or at least it felt that way) is that so many other kids I knew, some friends I still have to this day, some kids I'd loved to have locked in Holland Manners' wine cellar, were also into Tintin, Python, etc. I've gotta assume college town has some part to play in this (since most of the kids in question had connections either as faculty kids or alumni of Bowdoin college).

I still have incredibly beat up (Little, Brown did not build the paperbacks to last) copies of 75-85% of the Tintin books in my stacks.

The funny thing was, other than the Prisoner (which was my personal PBS discovery, or at least it felt that way)

The funny thing about that is that the original showing of the Prisoner in the US was on CBS.

The funny thing about that is that the original showing of the Prisoner in the US was on CBS.

Wow, talk about a strange landing ground for that. I found it as one of those random shows PBS revived on Saturday afternoons (we never got Dr. Who up in Maine that I know of for instance, despite it being a big PBS staple in the NH/MA area - I know either WGBH in Boston or the NH station revived the Prisoner when I was in college, which is when I got a bunch of friends hooked on it then).

Wow, talk about a strange landing ground for that.

Not as much as you might think. A number of British series showed up on the networks in the sixties. Secret Agent (aka Danger Man) had already shown over here (in syndication, though, I think), and the Avengers was already on ABC.

I also first saw the Prisoner on PBS in NYC in the 70's

If anyone's reading them in French, I'd love to hear if they, like me, (almost) prefer the English translation! Especially where names are concerned, after the in-built jokes of the English versions, which refer to the actual characteristics of the personnage, the French ones are so often dull and uninventive.

Compare the druid--Getafix vs. Panoramix, the bard--Cacofonix vs. Assurancetourix, the village chief--Vitalstatistix vs. Abraracourcix, his wife--Impedimenta vs. Bonemine, the fishmonger--Unhygenix vs. Ordralfabétix, the fishmonger's wife--Bacteria vs. Iélosubmarine, and many, many others. In Asterix at the Olympic Games, the Roman champion's name is Claudius Cornedurus in the French original, and Gluteus Maximus in the English translation. No contest!

I can't believe you're talking about Astérix and Tintin! This is why I love the Buffistas (and Tom Scola for pointing me to Jossverse).

I've never read Asterix in English so I can't really speak to the translations but I love figuring out the French expressions that they use like "a bras raccourcis" (which is how you hold your arms when you set upon somebody for a fight) for the chief. And how do they translate "idée fixe" for Obélix's dog who only cares about bones? That is one of the most perfect names.

You can kill characters. You can fuck with continuity. But when you do both at the same time you piss people off.

I don't so much mind the continuity rewrite—there've been a few stealth rewrites and one overt one since Crisis, and this one made a lot more sense than Zero Hour. (Not to mention this will no doubt result in Legion of Super Heroes reboot v6.0 or v7.0... I forget what number we're on by now...) It's that they felt the need to drag the Golden Age Superman and Lois Lane out of their storybook ending to make them misguided dupes and then kill them off in pointless fashion. We're not talking about some two-bit Suicide Squad character getting axed and replaced here, this is the iconic figure that DC Comics—and really, costumed superheroes as a genre—owes its very foundation to. Horribly disrespectful and unnecessary to the story. I'm just surprised they didn't have an abandoned refrigerator in the wreckage on Earth-2 for Lois' corpse to get thrown into .

How is Lois's death a refrigerator death?

It's not exploitative in the context of the story itself, but on a meta level the writers specifically brought the beloved venerable character out of a respectful retirement for the specific purpose of having her die and traumatizing her husband into a mindless fight scene .

I don't think it's much different from the way they brought him out of retirement--they were both exploited, and her gender had little to do with her death. I wince when I see the refrigerator clause invoked, because it almost seems (I'll proactively cop to overreacting) like no woman can die again, ever.