The Adventures of Tintin, Vol. 1: Tintin in America / Cigars of the Pharaoh / The Blue Lotus by Herge

It is so weird how bad Tintin In America is compared with the other books in this collection. It’s the kind of thing you expect from a successful series writer towards the end of his interest in the venture as anything beyond a profit generator, when he’s just churning out pablum to please the mindless hordes of die-hard fans and the editors who won’t let him try something new. Granted, Herge had a tough time getting to the point of being able to write this story, and had to satisfy his original, ultra-conservative publishers. Still, were I a child whose first exposure to Tintin was through this volume, I’d have likely given it up halfway through TIA and been absolutely mystified by why anyone else liked this stuff.

Fortunately, this was not my introduction to Tintin, and the two other stories, Cigars Of The Pharoah and The Blue Lotus, had all the charm and verve of my remembering. The hardback digest format doesn’t do as much justice to the artwork as the over-sized paperbacks of my youth, but they do have a durability that’s hard to beat, especially in the hands of children. Not that my four year-old showed a lot of interest in this, tho I doubt I would have at that age either. Perhaps when he’s several years older.