The Black Island is a particular album because it has been released in three different versions. After its publication in Le Petit Vingtième
(from April 15, 1937 to June 16, 1938) the album was published by
Casterman at the end of 1938. At that time it contained 124 black and
white plates and 4 off-text illustrations. A second edition was produced
in 1943, when changing to 62 colour pages, which did not include any
notable changes from the initial version. In the sixties, the English
publisher, who was about to translate this volume, complained to Hergé
about numerous errors of detail from the point of view of English
reality. Bob De Moor thus stayed about ten days on the places visited by
Tintin and Snowy and accumulated hundreds of sketches, photos and
documents (as well as a complete uniform of Bobby!). The album was
completely redrawn without changing the original scenario. After a
prepublication in the Tintin magazine, Casterman published this new version in 1966.
The difficulties of a scotsman in ScotlandOur hero uses
numerous and diverse modes of transport ranging from, a Belgian train, a
truck, the Ostend to Dover cross channel ferry, a taxi, hitchhiking, a
car, a caravan, a British train, a goods train, a private single engined
light aircraft, a motorboat, and for the return journey, a commercial
airliner. The freight train is of particular interest. In the first two
editions, the container besides which Tintin and Snowy sit features the
name of Johnnie Walker, a very well known brand of whisky. In the 1966
version, the name has been changed to the fictitious name of Loch Lomond
whisky. Loch Lomond is the largest loch (lake) in the UK. Unbeknown to
Hergé, there was a distillery in Loch Lomond.