TrainWorld, the new-ish train museum at the old Schaerbeek railway station in the north of Brussels, has been advertising a temporary Tintin exhibition, and F and I decided to go on the last afternoon of the year, yesterday ( Read more... )

I remembered this fondly from my childhood - it may even have been the first Tintin book I ever read - and very much hoped that it would live up to my memories. I'm glad to say that it did, and if anything it works even better for me now that I have spent several years in the meantime being closely involved with Balkan politics, and also because I ( Read more... )

After the excellent Blue Lotus, The Black Island is a bit of a step backwards for Tintin; he is shot and wounded ion the first page, and then chases a group of forgers to Scotland by a series of improbable incidents involving various means of transport and defeats a gorilla in a ruined castle, all the while hindered by the bungling detectives ( Read more... )

Travel both last week and at the weekend has made me way behind with bookblogging, so I shall be trying to catch up over the next few days. I may not quite get there by the end of the month though.

The Blue Lotus really is the first proper Tintin book - a huge step up from Cigars of the Pharaoh. Hergé takes Tintin to the real 1931 Japanese ( Read more... )

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F borrowed this from the local library out of curiosity, and we both read it pretty quickly. It is just as bad as I feared: the Africans encountered here are stupid, illiterate, desperately aping civilisation and pathetically grateful for rule by white men; by the end of the book they are worshipping idols of Tintin and Snowy. Even more startling ( Read more... )

I took advantage of yesterday's public holiday to take F to see the new Tintin film, which has credits for Stephen Spielberg, Stephen Moffatt and Peter Jackson and so can reasonably expect to be the bearer of high expectations. Unfortunately I realised while we were out that I was coming down with some bug, and have spent most of the time since we ( Read more... )

Another lesser-known Tintin book, this time from the exact opposite end of Hergé's career: this is the story he was working on when he died in 1983. It is a strange and convoluted tale - Captain Haddock wakes from a nightmare, goes shopping and almost accidentally buys a giant plastic letter H, a piece of a new sculpture style called 'Alph-Art' ( ( Read more... )