davidh777

Thought I'd strike up some conversation about Tintin with the movie coming this year. What's your favorite story or story arc (or album, as the Europeans would say)? For sentimental reasons, I usually pick the first one I read, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure, but The Calculus Affair, Crystal Balls/Prisoners, and the moon adventure would also be high on my list. For the sake of this poll, I'm including only the "official" adventures, so no Soviets, Congo, Alph-Art, Lake of Sharks, etc. (doubt they'd get many votes anyway).

DonnachaOne

I've always liked the Moon albums. I hope they adapt them for the sequel.

Nick Danger

There are a lot of favorites. King Ottokar's Sceptre, Secret of the Unicorn/Red Rackham's Treasure,
Black Island, Calculus Affair . . . but if I have to choose one, I'll go with Tintin in Tibet.

I didn't understand The Calculus Affair when I first read it as a kid. Those men are policemen, so why are they acting like bad guys? My mom had to explain about dictators and police states.

Groucho

Cigars of the Pharoah/The Blue Lotus

davidh777

Forgot to vote in my own poll (/sheepish)

Bronkster

Hard choice but I went with Destination Moon/Explorers on the Moon. I remember watching the cartoon version back in 1962 (fuck! I'm old!) and I was totally captivated by the moon rocket (and now have one sitting above my PC)! I didn't know there were books about Tintin until I accidentally found Destination at a used book store many years later (I was kinda disappointed that the rocket didn't "land" the same way as in the cartoon ).

I've reread all the books numerous times. I still enjoy the heck outta them.

bluetoast

Too hard to choose, read them all at least once, most of them at least 4+ times. So...I should revisit them all before the year is up!

The Secret of the Unicorn/Red Rackham's Treasure - Perfect introduction to the world of Tintin, and the Captain's first and one of his best appearances. Great adventure that sets up the base for the rest of the series, both in terms of characters (Haddock, Twins, Nestor, Calculus), and the physical base, Marlinspike Hall.

The Castafiore Emerald - Not necessarily the best, but here Herge shows here that you don't have to travel the world to have an entertaining Tintin adventure. That really is a testament to his storytelling ability, plus many major characters are involved and it's a funny change of pace. The cover art for this one is among the best.

Tintin in Tibet is definitely top tier. Amazing story of friendship, and different in that there are no "villians" per se, but it's just Tintin the character at his best and most determined, and we see a more serious side of Haddock, with some really emotional moments. Amazing.

King Ottokar's Sceptre - man this is amazing just for that brochure alone. Herge believably creates a fictional country within the span of a few pages, and in a brochure that Tintin reads on the way over. That's some good exposition! The story itself is also top notch, great solo Tintin adventure.

And I don't think this one is particularly liked by many, but I think Tintin and the Picaros is awesome.

davidh777

Was that a cartoon series before the one that aired on HBO? Didn't even know that existed. I do like the HBO series, though--pretty faithful to the books. And I also have a moon rocket.

I agree on all points. Castafiore is a lot of fun as a change of pace, and Ottokar, another of the ones I read fairly early, dazzled me with its history. Stuff like this is why I keep reading my dog-eared albums instead of those convenient three-in-one compilations--just too darn small to enjoy the detail like in the moon stories.

I do like Picaros and nearly all of the later adventures. In fact, the only ones I probably wouldn't choose to reread are In America and The Shooting Star, but even those I've read multiple times. The only ones I haven't read are Land of the Soviets and Alph-Art. I own them, but I guess I just don't want the journey to end.

Bronkster

After I posted last night, I went on a google and youtube search for any trace of the cartoons. No clips that I could find (although I've found clips before, so I'm not sure what happened), but they were made in the early 1960s (possibly late '50s??), and the stories were like five-minute serialized chunks. I loved them as a little kid but was shocked (shocked, I tell you!) at how awful they appeared when I stumbled across the rare clip a few years ago. Truly cheap animation, and the stories veered from the books quite a bit. I've seen parts of the animated stories from the 1980s (??), which had much better animation, but struck me as dull (although I confess I didn't see an entire episode, not giving them a chance).


In my opinion, Soviets is very difficult to get through. I enjoy early explorations of a character, but this one just seemed to plod along horribly (again, just my opinion). Alph-Art - is there a version other than the one that consists of Herge's ruff art?

davidh777

I think the '80s is about correct because I remember taping a number of them on VHS in what was probably the early '90s. I like the ones I've watched because they seem pretty faithful, but there were a few that weren't so good. Like there was a part 2 that was almost completely recap of part 1 or something. Haven't watched them in years, I admit. The '60s series does sound intriguing.

Yeah, I have no illusions about Soviets since I'm not big on Congo, and In America is relatively weak as well. The only Alph-Art I know of is the unfinished book, but I just now ran across The Unknown Tintin, which apparently has all the pages colored and finished and available for download. Not sure if this is the way I want to experience this story for the first time...

Labor

My favorite arc is probably Cigars of the Pharaoh/Blue Lotus, followed closely by the Moon arc.

As for standalone stories, I think Flight 714 for Sidney might be my pick. I love how strange it is lol.

bluetoast

As an aside, I bought one of them in French a few months back, I believe it was The Black Island. Tintin had such an effect on me that I want to learn basic French to read it in the original language!

Labor

Ive read all of them in French, its how I first read them. I remember balking when I heard what some of the english names were, lol

davidh777

The funny thing is that Cigars of the Pharaoh was probably one of the first ones I read, and The Blue Lotus was one of the last ones I read (probably 'cause it looked "old" and I was more attracted to the newer-looking ones and Cigars had been revised to look newer) so I went a long time thinking that Cigars was a stand-alone story. It certainly isn't as overt a two-parter as the others, but it was a revelation to finally read Lotus.

davidh777

Just had a horrible Bing experience trying to find this site again so here's the direct link. I couldn't stop from reading the first seven pages, but I might force myself to read the unfinished version first.

http://www.oocities.org/hergesadvent...tin03/alphart/

Norm de Plume

Probably Prisoners of the Sun followed by The Secret of the Unicorn, but I also like Tintin and the Lake of Sharks.

Groucho

"Could this search engine BE any more useless?"

slop101

Interesting how the love for the series is more or less spread out and doesn't just fall onto a couple of the books (though most agree the the early ones without the Captain aren't their favorites).

I personally like Seven Crystal Balls (it's sequel, not so much), because so much shit happens and it pretty much has good moments from every character and a solid representation of what the Tin Tin books are all about.

davidh777

Interesting--they're rolling out some new covers:

Bronkster

What's the deal with the covers? Can't say they're an improvement at all - in fact, kinda meh. Why mess with stuff like that anyway??

davidh777

I agree--they don't really add anything, and in fact seem more generic than the originals. Are they marketing Snowy or what?

davidh777

Here's more info. I would be interested in the additional material, even though I'm sure I've already read similar things in other Tintin-history books.

davidh777

Saw Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure in my LCS, branded as Young Reader's Editions.

Was disappointed to see they're the same size as the new three-in-one volumes. I realize it's more convenient but I still am an advocate for the larger albums. The supplementary material was kind of interesting--historical stuff and I think some comparative pictures of real-life locations. I didn't look at it too closely. In the beginning before the story started were character bios, one per page. I'd like to think that there was nothing spoiled in there--I think Red Rackham had Nestor and maybe the Bird Brothers among the characters--but I can't say for sure. As a kid, I probably would have liked this stuff.