THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN

Tintin, a young reporter, and his dog Snowy journey around the world, and even to the Moon, seeking adventure and solving mysteries. Tintin in America The boy hero comes to the United States and triumphs over gangsters in Chicago of the 1930's and the pitfalls of the wild West. Cigars of the Pharaoh Is one of Tintin's earliest adventures. This story was written in 1932, but in the 50's was shortened and rewritten. Tintin and Snowy are on a cruise to Egypt when they happen to meet Professor Sophocles Sarcophagus (the first of Tintin's absent-minded professors) and join his expedition. But they become embroiled in a complicated scheme involving a fakir, cigars marked with an unusual brand, and Rajijah, the poison of madness. Most significantly, Tintin meets the detectives Thompson and Thomson as well as the movie mogul Rastapopolous. The Blue Lotus Picking up where he left off in the Egyptian adventure Cigars of the Pharaoh, Tintin travels to China in The Blue Lotus, a tale which is generally considered Herge's first masterpiece. It¿s also Tintin's only foray into actual history, specifically the Sino-Japanese conflicts of the early 1930s. The political tensions combined with the chilling threats of drugs give the story an especially high and realistic sense of danger. Herge's interest in China was spurred by a friendship with a young Chinese student named Chang Chong-chen, a relationship that Tintin mirrors with a Chinese boy also named Chang Chong-chen. Herge paints a vivid picture of China and takes the opportunity to denounce ethnic prejudices (though ironically his artistic depiction of the Japanese businessman Mitsuhirato is quite grotesque). Years later, Tintin¿s relationship with Chang would become the basis of Tintin in Tibet.