Checking in once again with our Belgian friend

The Adventures of Tintin No. 10: The Shooting Star
Casterman/Little, Brown and Co.
Creator: Herge
Release date: 1946

Obviously, I was still doing some reading during the time when this blog was on hiatus. I had previously discussed the first four Tintin adventures, and during the time we were apart, I have read the next five, bringing me to this 10th volume.

I'm not going to go back and do full reviews of the titles I didn't blog about, but here are some brief thoughts on them. The Blue Lotus, No. 5 in the series, brought Tintin back to Asia to thwart opium smugglers. If memory serves, I believe this tale was a bit of a direct continuation from No. 4, Cigars of the Pharaoh, and I didn't care for it as much. It seemed to move very slowly.

The Broken Ear, No. 6, was a little better but also seemed a bit ponderous. The usually very bright Tintin seemed a little slow to put the pieces of this South American mystery together. The Black Island, No. 7, however, moved at a much more brisk pace and was a much more light-hearted tale in places, one of the hallmarks of Tintin adventures I most enjoy. Despite its faster story pacing, it still takes two-thirds of the story before the titular Black Island on a Scottish loch comes into the story.

Next up was King Ottokar's Sceptre, adventure No. 8. This story is set in a fictional European country and very clearly shows parallels to the real world, being written as it was immediately prior to the outbreak of World War II.

The Adventures of Tintin No. 9, The Crab with the Golden Claws, is actually the first Tintin book I ever read. It was in the school library where I attended junior high, and I checked it out and read it several times during junior high and high school. This is the tale that first introduces Captain Haddock into the Tintin cast of characters along with his unique brand of liquor-laced comic relief. Haddock makes a fun ally/foil to the much more straight-laced Tintin. And this book is very much responsible for my love of the series.

All of which catches us up to The Shooting Star, No. 10 in the series of 24 adventures. A massive meteorite barely misses colliding with the Earth, causing a number of catastrophes and allowing Professor Decimus Phostle to discover a previously unknown mineral within the meteorite's composition. Tintin and Haddock help lead an expedition into the Arctic Ocean to recover a piece of the massive meteorite to verify Phostle's discovery, which makes for an entertaining read, especially when our heroes find they are in a race for the prize with another ship also trying to claim the meteorite.

Checking In With Our Belgian Friend

The Adventures of Tintin: Cigars of the Pharaoh
Little, Brown
Hergé, writer and artist

It's been a while since we last checked in with Tintin. This fourth installment in The Adventures of Tintin series — originally serialized between 1932 and 1934 — is much closer in tone to the few later adventures I'd read when I was a kid. It also serves to introduce a few of the recurring characters besides Tintin and his dog, Snowy.

Previous installments in the series have begun with Tintin being assigned by his employers, Le Petit Vingtieme, to explore and report back to his readers about foreign lands — Russia, the Congo and America. Cigars of the Pharaoh, however, begins with Tintin and Snowy embarking on a holiday cruise around parts of the Middle East and Asia. In fact, there are only a few mentions of Tintin being a reporter in this volume. One of the more humorous mentions is when Tintin runs afoul of Sheik Patrash Pasha. Once the sheik learns Tintin's name, his demeanor toward the reporter softens because he is fond of reading about the young man's adventures. As proof, one of his servants holds up a copy of Destination Moon, an anachronistic reference to the 16th volume in the series. Of course, what I have is a much more recent printing of the book that has obviously been modified; I wonder, however, what the servant was holding when this adventure was originally serialized. Maybe not a book at all as I don't think any of the Tintin adventures had been collected into book form in the early '30s; perhaps the servant was originally depicted holding a copy of Le Petit Vingtieme.

Back to the story, on the very first evening aboard the cruise ship, Tintin and Snowy chance to meet a seemingly befuddled professor, Sophocles Sarcophagus, who is endeavoring to be the first explorer to find the lost tomb of the Pharaoh Kih-Oskh. Tintin agrees to help the professor only to have the association lead the young reporter from one trouble to the next.

One such peril is being framed as a drug smuggler while still aboard the cruise ship. This brings Tintin to the attention of the Thompsons, two bumbling detectives who are almost identical and who show up in almost all of the subsequent Tintin adventures. By the end of this story, Tintin is cleared of the drug charges, as well as several subsequent charges the Thompsons level against him during their haphazard investigation and pursuit of the young man. The Thompsons part with Tintin on good terms, but they are not yet the friends and allies they will become in future installments.

At another point in the story, Tintin and Snowy are adrift at sea, only to be rescued by a passing ship. Also aboard the vessel is one Oliveira da Figueira, a disheveled but apparently gifted salesman of useless trinkets. I haven't seen da Figueira in the other Tintin stories I have read previously, but according to Wikipedia, he is a frequent, recurring character in the series.

And finally, back at the beginning of this tale — just after Tintin meets Sarcophagus, in fact — he also meets a man named Rastapopoulos. Again, this was a character unfamiliar to me prior to reading Cigars of the Pharaoh, but he pops up repeatedly in this tale, and again according to Wikipedia, Rastapopoulos is another character who will be seen in later volumes of the series.

This is a fun adventure, and as I said before, it more closely resembles the three later tales I'd read in my youth than the three that preceded it in publication order. My one complaint with Cigars of the Pharaoh is that the narrative is a bit disjointed as Tintin moves from one setting to the next, and a number of plot threads seem to be left dangling, or if resolved, that resolution is brought about by pure chance.

The villains in this story are smuggling opium disguised as ordinary cigars. The clues that help Tintin piece that together come in the form of counterfeit cigar bands and a symbol found repeatedly in the strangest of places. For instance, the mysterious symbol is a circle with a wavy, vertical line drawn through it and two dots placed on either side of the line, one near the top but inside the circle and the other at the bottom, outside the circle. At first, Sarcophagus believes this symbol to be the royal cipher of Kih-Oskh because it appears on the map he is using to locate Kih-Oskh's final resting place, and later, once Tintin and Sarcophagus find the tomb, the symbol is displayed in various places there as well. It turns out, however, that the tomb is being used by the smugglers as a base of operations. The symbol marks secret entrances and communications for the villains. Strangely, Tintin also comes across the symbol on random tree trunks in the jungle after crash-landing his plane there in one portion of the story. No explanation is given for the symbols to be in the jungle except to push Tintin onward in his investigations.

One further note about the villain behind everything in this tale: Rastapopoulos is first seen being very rude and gruff to both Sarcophagus and Tintin. He comes across as being very pompous and self-important. Later, he is seen again when Tintin stumbles onto his movie set. Here we learn that he is a movie producer, and he is much more kind and friendly toward Tintin. One character later in the story, the poet Zloty, tries to reveal the name of the mastermind to Tintin before he is poisoned; Tintin does not understand Zloty's final words, and the mastermind's face is never revealed in the art, but it is heavily indicated by what Zloty says that Rastapopoulos is the mastermind behind the smuggling operation. It will be interesting to see if and when Rastapopoulos resurfaces in future volumes of the series, as the mastermind of the smuggling scheme — identity still unrevealed — appears to fall to his death pursuing Tintin in the climax of the story.

One final humorous note: Snowy, Tintin's dog, speaks in every story of the series I've read. I've commented in the past that it is unclear if Snowy's often snarky comments are just humorous asides to the readers or if they are intended as being heard by the other characters. After reading this fourth volume, I'm going to solidly say Snowy's comments are NOT heard by the other characters and are just for the readers' benefit. While sometimes Tintin almost seems to be replying directly to something Snowy says, Cigars of the Pharaoh makes it clear that isn't the case. But also with this volume, Snowy is no longer the only animal to make such comments; while in the jungle mentioned above, Tintn and Snowy run into a very talkative herd of elephants.

This Is America?

The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in America
Little, Brown
Hergé (Georges Remi), writer and artist

This third collection of Tintin adventures picks up where the second book left off. While in the Congo, Tintin was attacked repeatedly by a bearded assassin employed by someone known only as A.C. At the opening of this third volume, readers learn that A.C. stands for Chicago's own Al Capone and that Tintin is on his way to America to track the man down. Capone dispatches men to prevent Tintin and Snowy from ever setting foot in Chicago. Several attempts are made by various gangsters to stop Tintin, but each one fails, and in just a few pages, Tintin manages to capture not only the gangsters, but Capone himself. Unfortunately, getting the authorities to believe his story and come round up the hoodlums proves more difficult than capturing them in the first place.

While Tintin tries to convince the authorities that he really has single-handedly captured Capone and several of his men, the hoods escape, never to be seen in the pages of this book again. Perhaps Hergé thought better of using the real-life racketeer in his story, because from this point on, all of the "big bosses" Tintin comes up against are fictional gangsters. First he follows one from Chicago out into the wilderness of Redskin City where the American Indians are portrayed in much the same way as the natives of the Congo were in that book, and everyone else dresses in the finest cowboy regalia. Once this man is finally caught and turned over to the authorities, another Chicago "big boss" steps in and kidnaps Snowy to lure Tintin into a trap.

Again, this third Tintin volume, originally serialized between 1931 and 1932, doesn't read quite as well as the later volumes I am more familiar with. The story is entertaining, but a little more uneven in pacing than I would have expected. Many of Tintin's last-minute escapes this time out are due more to happenstance than actual ingenuity on the young reporter's part. Also, several people refer to Tintin as a young boy in this volume; his age is never quite nailed down, and while it is clear he is young for his position, I wouldn't expect anyone to call him a boy as he travels alone around the world.

I also think it is interesting to note that after Capone disappears from the book, all of the subsequent gangsters to confront Tintin are from a group of Chicago mobsters organized much like a union or corporation, but the name of that group changes each time it is presented. This may have been deliberate on Hergé's part, maybe even some in-joke that doesn't translate well into English, but it very much comes across in this volume as just an error.

I don't want to make it sound as if I didn't enjoy this Tintin adventure; I did. Just not quite as much as I remember enjoying the three from my youth. Maybe the writing in the series will get better and begin to resemble what I am more used to as the series continues, or perhaps my younger self was just less critical than I have become today.

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I don't just collect comics. Like many of my peers, the comic book habit has spread into other areas, including action figures and toys based on my favorite characters. Sometime I might post some pictures of my figure and statue collections if there is interest. But today, I wanted to mention two specific figures I recently acquired. These are custom-made figures of two characters I created several years ago, made using DC Direct 13-inch figures as a starting point, and they were made by a talented customizer named Nick. He has a Facebook page and also sells on eBay, which is how I discovered him. If you are interested in action figures and are looking for someone to do some custom figure work, especially in the 13-inch scale, Nick gets my highest recommendation!

Back By Popular Demand

The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in the Congo
Egmont
Hergé (Georges Remi), writer and artist

This collected edition is the second serialized Tintin adventure by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. This is typically the hardest to find of the 24 Tintin adventures because of the controversy it caused in the 1940s. The story, originally published in 1930-31, reflects the attitudes of the time, mainly that the natives of the Congo were simple and child-like, needing the care and watchful eyes of their European betters. Many folks also objected to the depictions of violence against animals when the tale was first printed in English, so Hergé made some changes to the story beginning with a collection in 1946. Subsequently, this volume has been reprinted very rarely.

The tale begins with Tintin and Snowy setting out on a new adventure, this time to explore the Congo. There is no mention of this being a work-related voyage as Tintin's trip to Russia was in the first serialization. It seems to be more of a vacation of sorts. But it is clear both from the crowd at their departure and the reception when the pair arrive at their destination that Tintin and Snowy are known the world over for their reporting from the land of the Soviets.

Not all of the attention they draw is the good kind, however. Even as they depart from Belgium, Snowy and Tintin are shadowed by a dark, bearded man who stows away on the vessel. Snowy takes the brunt of the earliest dangers, first being attacked by a belligerent parrot and contracting psittacosis. No sooner is that malady treated by the ship's physician than Snowy discovers the bearded man and is thrown overboard and menaced by a shark!

Once Tintin and Snowy arrive in the Congo, their notoriety is proven once again as representatives of the "London Daily," the "Diadio de Lisboa" (Lisbon) and the "New York Evening Press" all try to bid for the exclusive story of their trip. The bidding reaches $10,000 in advance before Tintin shuts them all down by announcing his loyalty to "Le Petit Vingtieme."

While on his Congolese safari, Tintin takes his rifle to all manner of beasts. First, while hunting an antelope, Tintin inadvertently kills 15 of the creatures. Later, when Snowy is kidnapped by a curious chimpanzee, Tintin shoots a second chimp and uses its skin to disguise himself. Later victims of Tintin's hunting forays include a de-tailed lion, a tame leopard Tintin mistakes for a wild animal, several snakes, a bull elephant, a buffalo, some crocodiles, a rhinoceros and a giraffe.

Amid all of this animal slaughter, Tintin has several run-ins with the bearded gentleman, and it soon becomes clear that he has been hired by someone to kill Tintin. By the end of the story, Tintin manages to learn that the bearded man was hired by someone with the initials A.C. The quest to track down A.C. will lead Tintin to America in his next adventure.

This volume is reprinted in color like the later collections, but it remains obvious that this story is made up of a collection of serialized episodes. Both Tintin and Snowy are drawn closer to the later appearances I am more familiar with, although Tintin is drawn quite a bit smaller in stature here than in subsequent volumes. This adventure was not quite as entertaining to read; much of the animal slaughter is played for laughs and when viewed with modern sensibilities, they make Tintin much less of a heroic figure. But for the completist, it is worth searching for this hard-to-find book.

In The Beginning

The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter for "Le Petit Vingtieme," In the Land of the Soviets
Little, Brown and Company
Hergé (Georges Remi), writer and artist

My first exposure to the Belgian comic The Adventures of Tintin was in elementary school. My family lived in a small farming community in Iowa at the time, and the school district was operated jointly by two nearby towns. The youngest children were bussed to a three-story building in one town that housed kindergarten through sixth-grade classes, and the older children went to a three-story building in the other town for seventh- through 12th-grade classes. I mention the size of the district only because looking back it amazes me that they had these books in the elementary library of such a small school district.

For those not in the know on Tintin, he is a young reporter for a newspaper in his native Belgium. Tintin and his ever-present dog, Snowy, get into a number of adventures, traveling all around the globe and beyond, and along the way, he meets a vast array of colorful characters to either assist or attempt to stymie his purposes. The first two of Tintin's adventures to catch my attention were Destination: Moon and Explorers On the Moon. In the first, Tintin and some of his friends are invited to be part of the first manned trip to the moon; in the second, the rocket blasts off and the adventurers land on the moon with a stowaway aboard. I enjoyed these two adventures so much that I checked them out and reread them several times. These two books prompted me to try a third, also from that same elementary-school library, The Crab With the Golden Claws, a tale that takes place mostly in Africa and the Orient. I'd always suspected that there were more published Adventures of Tintin from references in these three volumes, all three hardcover, oversized books, by the way. But it was much, much later that I learned there are 24 Adventures of Tintin volumes in all.

This one is the first, having been serialized between 1929 and 1930 and first collected into a single book in 1930. The illustration style is very crude compared to the later Tintin volumes, but both Tintin and Snowy are still recognizable. This first volume is in black and white, while all of the other volumes are in color. Also, to my knowledge, all of the other volumes, while almost always first having been serialized, read like one continuous story per volume, much like today's modern original graphic novels. That is definitely the case with the three I have already read. Land of the Soviets, however, is presented with six large panels per page, and each two-page spread reads like a single installment of a serialized narrative; each one ends with somewhat of a cliffhanger in that 12th panel, clearly meant to entice young readers to come back for the next installment.

Tintin is sent to Russia to report back to his readers about the real conditions in the socialist nation. The clear intent is to quash any disinformation and lies being spread by the Soviets.

In the very first installment, Tintin and Snowy climb aboard a train bound for Russia only to have a Bolshevik spy try to blow them up before they can arrive. Miraculously, our hero and his dog both survive the explosion, but are quickly arrested as the responsible parties in the bombing. They manage to escape custody, but with even more Bolsheviks in pursuit. All told, Tintin and Snowy end up traveling by train, automobile, hand cart and motorcycle, just trying to get to Russia. Then they have just as much trouble trying to get back out after witnessing the hardships and injustice the poor have to face in Russia at the hands of their fat-cat leaders.

Tintin stories often have elements of humor mixed in with the adventure and intrigue, but there are many more instances of slapstick-style humor in this volume. The story has more in common with an ongoing comic strip than an original graphic novel in this first volume. The situations Tintin finds in Russia are pretty one-sided depictions based on the politics of the time period, but that can be said for many things written to reflect a certain era or political setting. Tintin himself is portrayed as young, but not a child. He can handle himself in single, hand-to-hand combat, and in the instances where Tintin's opponent is physically stronger or he is outnumbered, the reporter is quick-witted enough to outsmart all comers with trickery.

One definite departure from reality with the series are the often sarcastic comments made by Snowy throughout the adventures; however, Herge never has the human characters react to what Snowy says as if they cannot hear him, only the reader can. Even Tintin does not appear to "hear" what Snowy says although he can often "read" his pet's feelings through body language.

Overall, this is a satisfying adventure for a modern reader interested in the complete world of Tintin adventures. But if one is curious to try a Tintin adventure, it might be better to start with one of the later volumes.