Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Majorly (talk) 01:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free

The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - (View log)

Contested prod. Non notable The Adventures of Tintin pastiche, not published by a major publisher ("Attack" seems to be an anarchist press), not discussed in WP:V sources, gets only 26 distinct Google hits for the exact title[1], or a still rather weak 413 distinct (906 total) with a less strict search[2] It exists, but it fails the proposed guideline Wikipedia:Notability (books) and (even excluding a proposal based deletion) fails WP:V beyond its existence. Fram 10:36, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I do hope you would reconsider your terminology. I can not see how being an anarchist press makes one not be a "major publisher". I personally know at least two anarchist presses which are very very very major publishers. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 11:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, "Attack" does not seem to be a major publisher, and attack is an anarchist publisher. Due to their search-unfriendly name, I have found only one other publication by them. I have found one link to their homepage, but that gave a 404 (bad link or inactive homepage, I don't know). If you could point me to more info about the publisher to show that it is indeed a major publisher, be my guest. Otherwise, your comment seems like nitpicking. Fram 11:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Conditional Keep With the greatest of respect this prod and and AFD are a clear demonstration of the way that WP:V is poisoning wikipedia, providing a figleaf for removal of content that is not removable by any other means. I have a genuinely hard time believing this publication would not have been covered in critical publications or have received reviews in same. What makes it vulnerable is purely the relative obscurity of the subject, not the verifiability of it. In short no matter how good the sophistry used to argue for the deletion of this article, I would like to read evaluations of it's worth by those who have read the actual comic book. If people who have read the comic book say it is not worth a wikipedia entry, I will gladly vote for deletion. I can not in good conscience do so without such assurances. The rule should be, if in doubt, keep. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 11:23, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Sophistry? Anyway, it is irrelevant if people who have read a comic want to keep or delete it. WP:ILIKEIT is an invalid keep reason. WP:V is hardly poisoning Wikipedia, it is a (perhaps the) core policy. If good WP:V sources can be found, I have no problem keeping it. In fact, I have argued for keeping obscure comics I haven't read in the past (see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Meng_and_Ecker. I have looked for good sources for this one with the means available to me. I haven't found any. This does not mean that there aren't any, of course, but then providing those is up to those wanting to keep the article (they have had a year to do so since the creation of the article, and they have five more days to do so now). But the opinions of readers, fans, opposers, ... have no value in deciding whether this or any article is a suitable subject for a Wikipedia article. Fram 11:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment With regard to reception - critical or otherwise - in the media, searching for "Tintin" and "breaking free" gets 0 relevant hits in the Factiva news and magazine database while "Tintin in Thailand", a sex parody version of Tintin generally available only as a hard copy for sale on the tourist streets of Thailand gets 17 hits (including The Guardian, Reuters, Agence France-Presse (this book[3] indicates Tintin in Thailand mentioned in Asiaweek and the Far Eastern Economic Review). Only book source I could find that referenced the anarchist book is an advert in this book[4]. No hits for either title in google scholar. I'll withhold my !vote until there has been a bit more further discussion Bwithh 15:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment to Cimon WP:V is an essential foundation stone of Wikipedia, not something which is "poisoning" it or a "figleaf" excuse or sophistry!! This may be the strangest argument for keep I've ever seen. And Tintin is not an obscure subject! Bwithh 15:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Delete The article doesn't make any effort to assert the notablity of the comic --RaiderAspect 14:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete due to lack of verified notability. I've taken a look at the comic online[5]. It's a real stretch of the truth to describe it as a parody of Tintin. The two main characters visually look like Tintin and his friend Captain Haddock (no doubt mostly traced directly from actual Tintin books - other scenes are directly traced from Tintin books but are otherwise in a totally different context). Otherwise, they have no resemblance - they talk differently, they act differently, they have different jobs and motivations and social context. The producers of this book could have chosen to "borrow" the imagery of Homer and Bart Simpson and the Simpsons and used exactly the same script of English anarchist characters with no significant effect from the change. At least in the Tintin in Thailand parody (which I've also read but won't link to due to legal issues) there is more than a visual resemblance for the characters. Bwithh 15:42, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete being a parody of a well-known comic does not make a publication notable. If notability is asserted I'll change my stance.--Jersey Devil 17:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete besides being truely dire (Bwithh's analysis of this work is spot-on) and an insult to Herge (which of course is not a valid reason to delete), it fails Wikipedia:Notability (books). --Larry laptop 18:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Weak keep. I'm sort of amazed it sells on amazon, but it's widely available, has ISBN-13, is in libraries. Is it notable because it's a copyright violation? It's unappealing work and the article gives no hint of anyone ever taking notice, but there could be truth to the stated press reaction at the time. It already gets a much too long description in the Tintin article, so maybe it would it be best if that text ends up in a Tintin pastiches and imitations article for this to merge into..? MURGH ^disc. 02:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: WP:V is what makes wikipedia a serious dictionary, acceptable in scholarly circles in ways that other, non-verified sources like urbandictionary are not. The requirement for verifibility, paired with that of notability, is our last line of protection from hoaxes, mass spam and eventual uselessness. It is not 'poisioning' wikipedia, in fact in my opinion the twin core policies of WP:N and WP:V are the very heart of the project, most of the rest is just quality assurance and process.

• Comment Murgh, I dont really understand your reasoning. While there could be truth in the stated press reaction, there is no verifiable evidence of such. The merely possiblity of notability is not sufficient. --RaiderAspect 06:49, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I mean that the notion of "no verifiable evidence of such" is harsh. The claimed coverage from Channel4, The Face, Daily Star whatever in 1989 isn't as accessible as 10 years later. It may still be very verifiable, but falls outside "easy online verification". And the more I check around (though no microfilms at the public library) there seems to me to exist wikipedia precedence of a more generous threshold of notability. -MURGH ^disc. 14:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I must be missing something, but I don't even see any claimed coverage in the article (or in the section about it in The Adventures of Tintin). Any pointers as to where you got that info is more than welcome... Fram 14:59, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Sorry, it came via the mandatory google. [6] [7] mentions this press. MURGH ^disc. 15:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
        and if that Thatcher quote[8] is right I'd say it is fairly notable.. MURGH ^disc. 16:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
        • These are from the back cover of the comic. If they don't have qualms about copyright infringements by using Tintin for their political goals, I don't think they will have qualms about fabricating quotes to make it seem more anarchistic and anti-government (it's not unusual to make up blurb quotes anyway, for humoristic purposes, even Gerrit De Jager has done it). These are very very far from WP:V sources, and especially the Thatcher one makes me doubt the veracity of all of them. 20:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
          • Well if the press quotes are just hoax, I care even less if someone doesn't appear and passionately champion this book. So yes, if it's all lies and RL unverifiable, I'll change my consensus flag.. MURGH ^disc. 02:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
            • To be fair, it's just my gut feeling that they are fake, not a certainty. You are correct that if e.g. the Thatcher quote is real, then it is a strong point in favor of the book of course. We'll see if someone comes along with good sources! Fram 06:07, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
              • I think I then reconfirm weak keep (in some form) after this last round. In spite of itself this seminotable, crappy comic has managed to survive obscurity since 1988 which must account for something that wikipedia can't be "above" including. -MURGH ^disc. 04:35, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I believe I've found the source of the Margaret Thatcher "quote" [9] (search for "utterly revolted") however it turns out that she was refering to another comic called "The Scum". --RaiderAspect 06:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. The many delete votes above are absolutely correct that WP:V and WP:N are "the very heart of the project," and that we should not keep an article with no third-party references that attest to impact or historical significance. I have, however, just added quotes and references from The Times, The Guardian, and The Independent. Hopefully that takes care of the basic sourcing and notability issues as far as all are concerned. -- Dragonfiend 06:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the good work, Dragonfiend. These are clearly WP:V sources, which show at least that at the time, the book has gotten some attention (which is enough for Wikipedia). Too bad, I'll have to change my opinion to a reluctant Keep now (reluctant because I utterly dislike these rip-offs which seem only to use the name of more famous books or characters to get the attention: but "I don't like it" is not a valid delete reason, luckily). I'll not withdraw my nomination though, since I want to give the other !voters an the closing admin the chance to give their own opinion (again). I don't think it will be deleted after your work, but it can do no harm to let the AfD run its course. I'll probably reduce the section about it in the main Tintin article though (a bit undue weight now), but I'll wait a few days for that as well. Fram 09:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
    • After seeing the full text as given by Steve Block, I still apreciate the work done by Dragonfiend, but I think that the very short merntions these sources are, makes me go for a weak delete again. It's a close call, but I think this one fazlls slightly below the threshold for notability I am looking for. Fram 15:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Reconfirm Delete Sorry, thanks for the effort but sarcastic mentions in diary columns and paperback roundups aren't sufficient as non-trivial sources. If these mentions are more than a few lines long, recommend Dragonfiend copies the entire text of these mentions to the afd discussion. Bwithh 12:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep. Appears to pass WP:V, as I don't find the sources to be trivial; appears to be an encyclopedic topic, and it's treated respectably in the article as it stands. I'm not utterly convinced that it is notable, but I am sufficiently convinced that I don't want to see the article vanish. Dekimasu 12:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, the Martin Rowson sourcing is the killer for me. Rowson is a very strong source within the field and his opinion is rather more important than Bwithh may be aware. Given the mention in the main article and given the opinion of Rowson, who saw fit to recommend it to readers, I think the article is warranted and well written. Steve block Talk 14:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. Here's the fullness of Rowson's words:

Equally nostalgic, but hankering after an entirely different epoch, is J Daniel's The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free (Attack International pounds 3.95). Dedicated to "all those fighting capitalism" this "graphic novel of Tintin and Friends in a Revolutionary Situation" generously allows any part of the book to be "freely reproduced by any revolutionary group" (including, I suppose, the urban guerrillas administering the Herge Estate). This cavalier attitude to copyright is just another acute observation in what I take to be a brilliant post-modern parody of a situationist canard produced during a sit-in at Hornsey School of Art circa 1972. I hope. Otherwise the crusty cadres of Class War (of which this is a by-product) might as well pack up and go home. Placing obscene epiphets and revolutionary nostrums into the mouths of the icons of child-ren's fiction was beginning to look stale even before the Oz Trial, and nowadays VIZ (VIZ: The Pan Handle: The Most Outstanding Parts of Issues 53 to 57, John Brown Publishing pounds 6.99) does this kind of thing much better, and probably to more subversive effect. The only cliche that Breaking Free doesn't salvage is the hoary old line "Steal This Book!!!" on the back cover. But if the idea of this sad little publication appeals to you, don't hesitate to do just that.

• • I'd say the article is misrepresenting the source and I withdraw my opinion, revising it to delete. Steve block Talk 14:46, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• The Guardian coverage in full too:

REVOLUTIONARY comic book, first published in 1988, in which Tintin and Haddock are reincarnated as militant activists who organise a strike, and a mass demonstration, after a friend is killed on a building site. The interesting things about it are the way each frame is adapted from Herge's originals, and the touching belief in the possibility of an upsurge in grassroots socialist radicalism. One suspects that Tony Blair is not the saviour Daniels had in mind

• The last sentence kind of deflates the selected prose somewhat, you ask me. Steve block Talk 14:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I certainly don't mean to represent the sources. Yes, they are from brief book reviews. I see that others have posted two of the three here. The third, from The Times reads, "Thunderin' Typhoons! Tintin, the raisin-eyed, be-quiffed journalist hero of a thousand adventures against bolsheviks, terrorists and Johnny Arab, has changed sides drastically. He goes beserk at the social security office, gets nicked for shoplifting, works on a building site with Cap'n Haddock (who now lives in a tower block), hangs around with militants, becomes a class warrior and strike co-ordinator, and finally helps usher in a socialist revolution. This startling volte-face appears, presumably without the imprimatur of the Herge estate, in Breaking Free, a naive and brutish strip-cartoon book for junior Dave Sparts, published by something called Attack International, whose affiliated organisations are the Anarchist-Communist Federation, Black Flag and World Revolution. I presume Harry Thompson, will be reflecting this unusual side of his subject in Tintin: A Biography, which comes out from Hodder in July." -- Dragonfiend 16:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
    • From memory, Harry Thompson didn't. I read the book recently in order to work on the Tintin articles. I won't swear it wasn't in there, but I'm 99% positive if it was I would've used it as a source for the mention at The Adventures of Tintin. Steve block Talk 17:35, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
    • And to be honest, the press coverage we have here is in relation to the work's status as a Tintin parody rather than as a work in its own right. I think then that the mention in the The Adventures of Tintin article is enough, but other people may beg to differ. Steve block Talk 17:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes, I'm pretty sure the Harry Thompson reference was a joke, not a serious prediction, let alone one that came true. -- Dragonfiend 17:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. I am a bit bemused as to why the negativity of the reviews would make the sources less important. It still passes WP:V, and WP:N does not require positive press. Dekimasu 13:32, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - its been sourced. Refer to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Addhoc 14:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.