Oct 24, 2011 05:42 PM
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"Tintin in America" has our hero coming to America, which is a land of Chicago gangsters and Native Americas. The art here is a bit more cartoonish than what comes later, but the most important difference is that this is basically Tintin and Snowy on their own with the wonderful cast of colorful supporting characters that end up populating the Tintin universe nowhere to be seen at this point. That may explain why Snowy "talks" a lot more in this early Tintin adventure than is his habit in later volumes. This is not a great Tintin adventure, but it is certainly an interesting one because of the way Herge presents America to his readers. Tintin arrives in Chicago to clean up the city ruled by gangster bosses and Al Capone is not happy to see the world famous reporter. Tintin survives so many attempted gangland hits that you lose count of them, and it is a toss up whether there are more last second escapes or scenes where Tintin pulls a gun on a gangster. The perils of Tintin continue even when our hero and his faithful terrier companion make their way out West and become involved with some of the quaint customs of the local natives.
As for "Cigars of the Pharaoh, " if your understanding of human history leads you to believe that the Pharaohs did not smoke cigars, then you already have a leg up on the fact that this adventure of Tintin is not what it seems. Our hero is sailing the Mediterranean with Snowy when he encounters a strange academic type named Sophocles Sarcophagus whom he dismisses as a clumsy nitwit. Tintin also has a runin with Rastapopoulos, the film tycoon who owns Cosmos Pictures. The next thing we know we have the first appearance of the Thom(p)soms, who arrest Tintin for having heroin in his cabin. Obviously, our hero is getting to close to something, but what could it be? From an Egyptian tomb filled with cigars, to floating in an coffin on the Mediterranean, to wandering the Arabian desert, to being lost in the jungles of India, Tintin does some major traveling to solve this particular mystery. Herge certainly shows more of an understanding for various cultures than he did in the previous Tintin adventure, but the overall improvement of "Cigars of the Pharaoh" over "Tintin in America" is pretty noticeable and quite impressive when you think of the state of comic books stories in the early 1930s.
"The Blue Lotus" begins where "Cigars of the Pharaoh" left off, with Tintin and Snowy in India as the guests of the Maharaja of Gaipajama. The evil gang of international drug smugglers had been smashed and all of them are now behind bars except for the mysterious leader, who disappeared over a cliff. A visitor from Shanghai is hit with a dart dipped in Rajaijah juice, the poison of madness, which is enough to send our intrepid hero to the Chinese city where his rickshaw runs into Gibbon, an occidental who is not looking where he is going and starts beating the rickshaw driver for daring to barge into a white man. Tintin intervenes, calling the man's conduct disgraceful and Gibbon vows revenge. The next thing we know Tintin is being shot at every time he turns around. Things become even more mysterious when another bystander is hit with a Rajaijah dart and Tintin embarks on a ship for Bombay only to wake up in the home of Wang Chen-yee, who begins to unravel the mystery for our hero.
This Tintin adventure was first published in Belgium in 1934-35, but the story is actually set in 1931, which was when Japanese troops were first occupying parts of China. Herge incorporates several actual events in this narrative, including the blowing-up of the South Manchurian railway, which served as an excuse for further Japanese incursions into China, and led to Japan walking out on the League of Nations. Of course, it is the Japanese invaders who are after Tintin, who is pretty much on his own for most of this adventure until the Thom(p)sons show up with orders to arrest. The title of the story comes form an opium den that figures prominently in the resolution of the tale. "The Blue Lotus" finds Herg' fully committed to providing accurate cultural details in is stories, although this story has the added virtue of being the most "realistic" in terms of portraying current events in a world poised on the brink of war. His drawings of Asian figures can certainly be considered caricatures, but then this is pretty much true of the way he draws everybody in these stories, with the simplistic look of Tintin being the exception that proves the rule.
"The Blue Lotus" is also the adventure in which Tintin meets Chang Choug-chen, a young orphaned Chinese boy our hero saves from drowning. Chang is surprised a white devil would bother to save his life and Tintin haas to explain how not all white men are wicked. The character of Chang is based on Chang Chong-Chen, a young Chinese student who became Herg's friend in 1934, as is the case with Chang and Tintin, and who would inspired the classic adventure "Tintin in Tibet" in 1960. "The Blue Lotus" is a first rate Tintin adventure, made all the more special because once World War II began Herg' made a concerted effort to distance his stories from the horrors of the real world. After the war Herg' would deal with East-West tensions on a completely fictional level, making this early adventure of more than passing interest in Herge's career. So by the time you get to the final story in this first trio, it should be clear to you that you are reading something special
