This card was chosen because the moon on it looks rather large, just as our beaver super-moon ought to - and also because it is an orange colour, which ours will be too.
Now Tintin had two encounters with the moon - starting with "Destination Moon" and moving on to "Explorers on the Moon". The first of these was the sixteenth adventure for our boy hero and his little white dog, and it began as a serialisation in Tintin Magazine in March 1950. It was not published as a book with all the sections in until 1953. The following year saw the next adventure, which was almost a continuation, and this had started to be serialised in Tintin magazine from October 1952. This was then again collected as a complete story, and published in 1954.
Now if you are a space buff, you will realise that these adventures were very far-sighted, for the first man to step on the moon was Neil Armstrong - but not for fifteen years!
Etablissements Jules Bel was founded in 1865 by Jules Bel - it was his son, Leon, who registered the brand La Vache Qui Rit, (or, in English, "The Laughing Cow"). It was originally only sold in France, and came to the British Isles in 1929. Until writing this I never made the connection between this brand and what turn out to be its siblings, Bonbel and Babybel. And they also own Port Salut. However La Vache Qui Rit is primarily sold as small round boxes, inside of which are separately wrapped triangular cheeses, the sort that we in Britain call "Dairylea" though that is quite another brand. I do not know how the cards were issued, because those boxes are round and not so large.
I do know that the album for this set cost 15 francs, and the last date that you could apply for one was March 1993, so it is possible that these cards were first issued in 1992. I await to be corrected.
And, just as I started a list of the cards, I have discovered that there is a site which actually shows them all, fronts and backs, on Tintinophile.com/VQR. This proves something that I was unaware of through looking at this card - that being that one side of the card is an actual image from outer space and the other side has a Tintin related image added on.
This was not La Vache Qui Rit`s first dalliance with Tintin, because in 1972 they had issued large hexagonal stickers showing the characters, which are entitled "Tintin et ses Amis" (Tintin and his friends). I have no list of those yet - and then in 1976 they had issued a complete sheet of twelve stickers (which are today often found trimmed into smaller, single characters). The 1976 characters are -
- Tintin and Snowy
- Captain Haddock and General Tapioca
- Tintin and Snowy on a motorbike
- General Alcazar
- Colonel Esponja
- Professor Calculus's hand kiss
- Professor Calculus in the bath
- Captain Haddock is allergic to whisky?
- Tintin and the Happy Turluron
- General Tapioca
- Castafiore and her guard
- Thomson and Thompson