It’s summer and once again I have broken out my Tintin comics to read on the back porch. Ever since my first exposure to the adventures of Tintin, around 30 years ago, I have been a huge fan. I can still pick up my favorites and read and reread them over and over again. I particularly like the ones once the whole cast has been assemble (the pre Haddock / Calculus ones are kind of lifeless, for the most part).
My favorites are: The Seven Crystal Balls
Prisoners of the Sun
The Calculus Affair
Tintin in Tibet
Tintin and the Picaros
The Secret of the Unicorn
Red Rackham’s Treasure
Cigars of the Pharoh
Dammit, my Tintin books are years distant and in another country. I’d say the one where Tintin and crew go to the moon. Have you ever read the older Tintin books? I’ve heard they were mostly anti-communist and racist works.
I received Destination Moon as a gift when I was ten or so and was hooked. That and it’s sequel, Explorers on the Moon are my favorites.
The stories are great, and Herge’s attention to detail in the art is remarkable. I haven’t read any of the books in years, but I still occasionally page through them admiring the art, especially his frequent large (sometimes full-page) splash panels.
Well, the older Tintins were heavily informed by Belgian public opinion/policy of the time, but Hergé himself got to re-edit them in later printings (and so have succesive publishers)
My exposure to Tintin is from the early/mid 70s, by way of the Argentinian youth magazine Billiken. Loved the Tibet one, that was great.
The OP is right in that it’s not the same w/o Haddock & Calculus (specially the ol’ Captain – billions of blue blistering barnacles!)
I’ll second that. The Tintin books were the first non-traditional (i.e., not involving a super-hero; maybe this is only “non-traditional” for a teenaged American boy) comics I ever read. But they totally captured my imagination. I started reading them in the late 80s. Those books were so much more sophisticated than Marvel comics, they actually taught me all kinds of things about Europe, believe it or not. British words like “boot” “lift” “flat” etc. I read for the first time in those books.
I’ve read all teh books mentioned so far, except “Tintin and the Picaros.” I don’t have a favorite; they were all pretty good. One that sticks in my mind though was where Tintin and Haddock take over a freighter jammed with imprisoned Africans being taken to be sold as slaves. A submarine comes along and tries to sink the ship. This was where I learned that on boats, “starboard” is right, “port” is left.
One of the main things I liked is how Haddock slowly got over his drinking problem, and turned out to be a great sidekick: steady of nerve and calm under pressure. But I STILL don’t understand Tintin’s hair.
My favorite was probably Flight 747, where they get kidnapped by aliens. Also always liked the Moon duology, the Red Rackham’s treasure books, Tibet, the one where Bianca Catastafiora’s diamond is stolen by a magpie, and Tintin versus the Chicago Mafia.
Wait, I forgot the one about the mechanical shark. Yes, I think that one was my favourite.
Lizard, I take it you grew up without the genius that is Asterix? Those were brilliant, but they started sucking after whatsisname died. (was it Goscinny or Uderzo?)
Okay, there’s something I’ve always wondered about. Are Thomson and Thompson supposed to be related? They look exactly alike (except for the subtly different mustaches), but their last names are spelled differently.
So are they brothers, gay lovers, or both? (Life in Hell reference:))
Yeah, on one the tips curve outwards, the other’s turn inwards. Take a look at this picture. I don’t know which is Thomson and which is Thompson, but I guess it doesn’t much matter, because they’re inter-changable.
Saw my first “Tin Tin” book at the home of my junior high school buddy back in the late 1960s. Highly addictive stuff for a young lad. A cut above even the Classic Comic books, both in terms of art and cosmopolitan dialogue.
Sad to hear the author may have been a nazi sympathizer. We should get some clarification on that subject. Everything else is so good about the series that I collect them whenever I stumble across editions for 99¢ at the thrift shops.
Well, Herge’s racial attitudes were definitly a little… quaint. Remember when Tintin disguised himself as a black waiter on a luxury cruiser to get the drop on a couple of crooks? Very definition of a pickaninny caricture. Extremly embarassing, even when I was a kid. P’raps this would work well over in the Bigotry in Literature thread.
I dig the Tintin. My screen name is one of Capt. Haddock’s insults, and as the good Capt. is my favorite character, my favorite issues are the ones in which he features heavily (like “The Secret of the Unicorn” and “Red Rackham’s Treasure”).
This website is a great source of Tintin stuff, and this site has a list of all of Capt. Haddock’s insults with some other info.
Ha, I wondered when a Tintin thread would appear. Im a big fan of the books. Hell, when I was in Paris, I sat there with an original copy of Cigars of the Pharo in a Flea market. The guy wanted 80 bucks or so for it. Unfortunately I couldnt have eaten too well the last two days of the trip had I bought it, and it wasnt in too great of conditon.
