the Tintin Reader

[secharles]

which one to start? book or graphic novel? i'm looking for inspirational pictures.

thanks

[Plynkes]

book or graphic novel?

Not sure what that question means, to be honest. Can you clarify?

Are you looking for editions in English? The chronology of the English ones is all over the place, as they weren't printed in English in order, and the earliest ones were some of the last to be released. Some of the earlier ones actually refer back to things that haven't happened yet in the series due to this odd arrangement.

I think I'd avoid the first few in the series to begin with. The artwork isn't as good, Remi hadn't quite found his style or his voice, and was a little under the thumb of the ideology of the right-wing newspaper he worked for. I'd go for a pair of the two-parters from the 40s and 50s, as they are "classic Tintin."

Such as:
The Secret of the Unicorn/Red Rackham's Treasure
The Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun
Destination Moon/Explorers on the Moon

I also have a soft spot for The Calculus Affair and The Red Sea Sharks (where Haddock actually gets to be an heroic sea captain, and has his finest hour in a duel with a U-Boat), too. Though these are two individual stories rather than a two-part adventure. Tintin in Tibet is a visual delight, too. Well, if you like snow it is.


However, if you are more interested in stories with an historical backdrop, The Blue Lotus is set amidst the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, The Broken Ear is Hergé's take on the Gran Chaco War, and King Ottokar's Sceptre is a thinly-veiled reaction to the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s (but with all the serial numbers filed off).

[Elk101]

You just named most of my favourites. I don't think you can go wrong with those.

[FramFramson]

Yep, all good choices I would have recommended.

The Secret of the Unicorn/Red Rackham's Treasure is pretty much the quintessential "Tintin story" and among the top 3 stories overall (Tintin in Tibet is probably Georges' strongest and deepest writing, but requires some familiarity with the series so I would not recommend it as an introductory book).

The Blue Lotus, the fifth Tintin book to be published is where the books really started to shine.

If you really want to know, the accepted list in chronological order is:

    Tintin in the Land of the Soviets - (Tintin au pays des Soviets) (1929–1930)
    Tintin in the Congo - (Tintin au Congo) (1930–1931)
    Tintin in America - (Tintin en Amérique) (1931–1932)
    Cigars of the Pharaoh - (Les Cigares du Pharaon) (1932–1934)
    The Blue Lotus - (Le Lotus bleu) (1934–1935)
    The Broken Ear - (L'Oreille cassée) (1935–1937)
    The Black Island - (L'Ile noire) (1937–1938)
    King Ottokar's Sceptre - (Le Sceptre d'Ottokar) (1938–1939)
    The Crab with the Golden Claws - (Le Crabe aux pinces d'or) (1940–1941)
    The Shooting Star - (L'Etoile mystérieuse) (1941–1942)
    The Secret of the Unicorn - (Le Secret de la Licorne) (1942–1943)
    Red Rackham's Treasure - (Le Trésor de Rackam le Rouge) (1943)
    The Seven Crystal Balls - (Les Sept boules de cristal) (1943–1946)
    Prisoners of the Sun - (Le Temple du soleil) (1946–1948)
    Land of Black Gold - (Tintin au pays de l'or noir) (1948–1950)
    Destination Moon - (Objectif Lune) (1950–1953)
    Explorers on the Moon - (On a marché sur la Lune) (1950–1953)
    The Calculus Affair - (L'Affaire Tournesol) (1954–1956)
    The Red Sea Sharks - (Coke en stock) (1956–1958)
    Tintin in Tibet - (Tintin au Tibet) (1958–1959)
    The Castafiore Emerald - (Les Bijoux de la Castafiore) (1961–1962)
    Flight 714 to Sydney - (Vol 714 pour Sydney) (1966–1967)
    Tintin and the Picaros - (Tintin et les Picaros) (1975–1976)
    Tintin and Alph-Art - (Tintin et l'Alph-Art): Unfinished work, published posthumously in 1986, and republished with more material in 2004.

I've bolded the true classics (although I also really enjoy Vol 714 pour Sydney and Tintin et les Picaros, personally), and the red ones are... uh... skippable for all but the most diehard of fans. (the running gag about Tintin in the Congo is "The one we don't talk about")

[Steve F]

I think I'd avoid the first few in the series to begin with. The artwork isn't as good, Remi hadn't quite found his style or his voice, and was a little under the thumb of the ideology of the right-wing newspaper he worked for.

I agree.  Specifically, avoid "In the Land of the Soviets", "In the Congo" and "In America".  At this stage, Hergé was just recycling stereotypes common in right wing Catholic Belgium at the time.  The first two are the more notorious, but "In America" is just as lazily clichéd - its all either gangsters or cowboys and indians.

"The Blue Lotus" marks the upturn - it's the point where he realised that people were reading this stuff carefully and began researching everything he wrote and drew.  Most of the albums from this point on were pretty consistent (they were redrawn by Hergé and his studio when they were first printed in colour, so you are not really seeing "early" work anywhere but in "Soviets", which was kept out of print for decades).  I'd start from here and go forward chronologically, but the classic cast took time to assemble, and if you want them, you're better off with Plynkes' nominations.  Wikipedia has a chronological list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin#List_of_titles

My personal favourite is "The Castafiore Emerald", but it probably has the least gaming potential of them all.  It's a farce set entirely in Haddock's country house.

[Update: Or you could use Fram's list posted while I typed.  "Alph-Art" was left uncompleted at Hergé's death.  It's a most unfortunate title to retain for an Anglophone readership - it sounds like a flatulent Arab.]

[Plynkes]

I love that one too, Steve. Very much not classic Tintin, though. It's intentionally "the one where nothing happens" just to see if it could be sustained for a whole book. I think he succeeded, but the version of me who wore short trousers wasn't totally convinced at the time. It was funny, but there just weren't enough punch-ups, gun fights, car chases, or de Havilland Mosquitoes for his liking, and too much of that bloody awful woman (I think I am channeling Haddock now).  

One thing I'd just say about The Blue Lotus is that if you're going to try that one, it is a sequel to Cigars of the Pharaoh, directly continuing on from it. So you might want to pick that one up too.


Fram is possibly right about Tintin in Tibet. I suggested it because it is a personal favourite, and I remember being impressed with the stark visuals when I first read it, and the OP said he was looking for inspirational pictures. But I think Fram probably has a point about it not being a good place to start.

This thread has reminded me just how much I love Tintin. I'm thinking maybe it's time to have a marathon session and read them all again. As an aside, I actually used to have dreams where I'd go into a bookshop and there would be a load of new Tintin books somehow, dozens of new stories for me to consume. And then I would wake up crushed when I realised it was just a dream and there were never going to be any more.  

[secharles]

thank you all for the excellent direction.

I just assumed a "graphic novel" would have more pictures than a story book. I am in dire need of inspiration for building.

thanks again to everyone for the excellent story recommendations. I will check Amazon for something within budget and work my way through.

[Plynkes]

The actual canonical Tintin stories are all in what we'd call graphic novel format nowadays (though I wasn't familiar with that phrase at the time). There are no doubt some other books around with more text (I have a rather nice book made in collaboration with the National Maritime Museum about Tintin's seaborne adventuring) and over the years I've picked up some lovely calendars, poster books, and the odd biography or two; but if you want the artwork for model-building inspiration you should probably go direct to the source, which is the graphic novels.

[Etranger]

There's also the rather good (IMHO) animated TV series which largely follows the books in both style and plot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin_(TV_series) There are some deviations as noted in the link.

[secharles]

thanks for that; i'll go through it with my morning coffee tomorrow. I skimmed and read Herge made cameo appearances. very cool, indeed!

[FramFramson]

Fram is possibly right about Tintin in Tibet. I suggested it because it is a personal favourite, and I remember being impressed with the stark visuals when I first read it, and the OP said he was looking for inspirational pictures. But I think Fram probably has a point about it not being a good place to start.

It has a greater emotional heft and depth to it than any other Tintin book, and some of his best artwork, I think. But, yes, you need to have a good sense of who everyone in it is before reading it to really appreciate all that.

Part of this is because it really was something of a cri de coeur by Georges. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, here the brief version (which I will try to keep spoiler-free):

As Steve explained, the Blue Lotus was where Hergé started really properly researching his books and began to put in a great deal more effort to move beyond lazy stereotypes. The main reason this happened was that Père Gosset, a chaplain for Chinese students at the university of Leuven and a fellow who'd travelled to China himself, wrote to Hergé urging him to be more scrupulous in his writing, to not help perpetuate the racist caricatures of the past. In an effort to help Hergé in this, he also introduced him to Zhang Chongren, a fellow art student who became a very good friend of Hergé's (and formed the basis for Tintin character, Chang Chon-Chen). Eventually Zhang returned to China and while the two kept in touch for a while, but lost contact following the Japanese invasion of China, and the civil wars which followed.

Also, in the late 50's Hergé was also experiencing severe marital problems which cased him to reach a point of crisis where he questioned much about himself, even his very identity. He had recurring nightmares where he was in a land of pure white

Tintin in Tibet is both something of a lament by Hergé for his then long-lost friend (they were eventually reunited in real life, at least in part because of Tintin in Tibet's publication), as well as serving as a metaphorical search for his own identity and a way to purge his nightmares. He put so much of himself into it.

Incidentally, it worked so well, that it's also the reason The Castafiore Emerald is such a very silly, relaxed drawing-room farce.

This thread has reminded me just how much I love Tintin. I'm thinking maybe it's time to have a marathon session and read them all again. As an aside, I actually used to have dreams where I'd go into a bookshop and there would be a load of new Tintin books somehow, dozens of new stories for me to consume. And then I would wake up crushed when I realised it was just a dream and there were never going to be any more.  

I'd give a lot of money to know how Aleph-Art was supposed to end. The sketches which do exist seem rather a lot of fun, even if it wouldn't have been his best work (hard to say... it was meant as a paen to his longtime hobby of abstract art at least) and retreads some old ground unnecessarily (the choice of villain was somewhat lame, I must say).

[Hammers]

For drama, nothing beats King Ottokar's Scepter.

[Sir_Theo]

For drama, nothing beats King Ottokar's Scepter.

That's always been my favourite one too.

I love Tintin you can't really go wrong with them.

[von Lucky]

I revisited my old copies a few months ago - definitely one of most cherished possessions. I think King Ottokar's Sceptre is also my favourite.

In regards to purchasing, Book Depository sells the A4 copies delivered for around US$10-15 each. The other option is the 3 in 1 books.

[Driscoles]

Yep Hammers!