The Adventures of Tintin - Herge

Back to childhood!!

Exactly, it is! in our childhood, we surely loved to read comic books. And nonetheless, we love to read it still now. And it shouldn't take much more thoughts that Tintin was among the most favourite comic characters, if not the best. Herge had taken a painstaking job of writing "The Adventures of Tintin" which took him to a thorough study of socio-economic structure of Europe in the era of World wars. The selection of characters in the series and detailed depiction of character portraits with the careful touch of non-controversial political plot (though sometimes, it provoked criticism!) and proper blend of humour and adventure have made reading the comic books a joyful journey. The adventures of Tintin moved from different elements of political thriller to science fiction and mysteries, fantasy to sporting adventures.

"The Adventures of Tintin" was written by the Belgian artist Herge, the pen name Georges Prosper Remi and first published as a comic strip in child's supplement to a Belgian Newspaper on 10th January, 1929. From then, Tintin has been soared to extreme popularity and has been translated over 50 languages and sold over 280 millions copy worldwide. Nearly for 80 years, it has been a favourite of children as well the critics all round the globe till date. Herge has written Tintin series with meticulous details and wide-ranging details. The comic series feature the slapstick comedy style and the plot lays on the discretely selected and sophisticated satirical, political and social background which made the series a culturally important workpiece and often regarded as a "cult". Herge used a clean, bold, uniform and expressive style of drawing the comic series and created his own signature of drawing, termed as "ligne claire" style (means "clear line"). Herge has created a wide set of lands for readers to roam around the world with Tintin. Sometimes Herge mingled up real and fictional lands into his comic strips to add depths in the plot. Tintin having a base in Belgium has toured across countries like United States, India, Congo, Peru, Nepal, Tibet, China, Japan along with europian nations like Scotland, England, Switzerland etc and also to the moon. Herge also has created several fictional countries like Syldavia and states like Kingdom of Gaipajama in India and Khemed in middle east.

Tintin is a young and enthusiastic reporter who has become the inspiration for innumerable artists, writers, producers and directors through his heroic feats after cought up in dangerous adventures. Tintin represents a common everyman who brings himself into risky actions to save his friends, nations and for curiosity. Tintin is also accompanied by his inseparable four-legged side-kick Snowy, a white fox terrier. Snowy often reveals his thoughts to the readers through his speaking regarded as a satiric and dry humour.

Captain Archcibald Haddock, a sea-fearing ship captain is Tintin best friend. Captain Haddock, a hard alcoholic in habit often shows harsh humanity and glib heroism that brings sarcastic air of humour in the comic series. Captain uses variety of ridiculous insults and curses for comic relief like "Billions of blistering barnacles".

The other supporting characters include Professor Cuthbert Calculus, an absent-minded and half-deaf scientist having tendency to become furious and aggressive when someone comments against him. Thomson and Thompson are two clumsy detectives showing identical in their appearance and incompetent in their tasks for further fresh air of humour in the comic series.

Adventures of Tintin:

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1929-1930)

The plot has been set in the soviet union where Tintin and his companion Snowy have been sent to report on the soviet union. Through many adventures, Tintin reaches Moscow where he finds the dark condition of communism. The storyline is a political satire and shows the helm of communism over a thriving economy in a sarcastic way. This is the only book of Tintin adventure series which has not been colourised.
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Tintin in the Congo (1930-1931)

The second adventure of Tintin has been set in Congo and first published in black and white form. It has been re-drawn and colourized in 1946 and further changes made in 1975. This book has drawn controversies with the fact that africans has been shown racist and and a brutal and cruel Tintin has been portrayed. The colonialism has been shown here vividly and this book's still been regarded as one of the silly work of Herge.

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Tintin in America (1931-1932)

This time, Tintin goes to Chicago, America to report on the gangster problem. Incidentally, he falls into the traps into the henchmen and meets the Gangster. Subsequently, with his wit, he rescues himself and snowy and leads this to capture the gang. Here Herge has depicted cruel indians and real gangster problem in the world war and depression age. In this book, for the only time, a real human has been portrayed as a character, i.e. Al Capone. Though Tintin makes himself able to catchhold of Capone, Capone manages to get out from the captivity to make it realistic.
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Cigars of the Pharaoh (1932–1934)

The story starts with the mysterious disappearance of the egyptologists who has tried find the lost tomb of Pharaoh Kih-Oskh. Eventually Tintin gets himself involved into this search of tomb. Tintin and Snowy through many circumstances, find themselves in clashes with a gang of drug peddler which drives them to travel to Arabia and finaally to India to fall into a dangerous battle with an international gangster. In this book, for the fist time, Thomson and Thompson have appeared.
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The Blue Lotus (1934–1935)

The story continues from the last adventure of Tintin, where he has encountered a grievous drug dealer and the ongoing sequences lead him travelling to Shannhai, China where he is dictated to be assassinated by the opium syndicate. The plot is set on the political upheavals of colonialism when Japan tries to invade China including the blown-up of South Manchurian railways. In this book, Herge first introduced his "Ligne Claire" drawing style to paint the chinese characters and artifacts and he later followed this style in all his books.
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The Broken Ear (1935–1937)

A south american indian fetish has been stolen from the museum and replaced by a fake one. Tintin identifies the fake replacement as the origin fetish has an ear broken. Tintin is on his one the most exciting adventure with Snowy through travelling to the San Theodoros (It's a fictional country in south america!) and finds the revolution being clouded over and General Alcazar as the commander-in-chief.
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The Black Island (1937–1938)

The seventh book of the comic series opens with the plane crash in Sussex, England and Tintin gets interested as he has been the victim of attempted murder of a similar plane when it crashlanded. Tintin arrives in England and faces one of his most villainous character, Dr. Muller. He follows Muller to the Black Island, a fearsome island with a ruined castle and no intruder returns from the island. But Tintin dares to go there to uncover the dark secret of Black Island.
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King Ottokar's Sceptre (1938–1939)

Tintin finds the lost briefcase of a professor and after suspecting menace, Tintin accompanies the professor to Syldavia where they uncover the rebellion against the Syldavian king. The king must carry his sceptre in the royal procession, he will loose the throne and the rebels manage to steal it. And here Tintin and Snowy come for rescue.

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The Crab with the Golden Claws (1940–1941)

Detective Thomson and Thompson tell Tintin of a murder and a scrap of paper found with the word "Karaboudjan", Tintin fells of suspicious menace around it. He subsequently finds that Karaboudjan is the ship through which opium is being smuggled in the tins of crab-meat. Tintin escapes after being abducted by the gangs and meets Captain Haddock for the first time. Together they chase down the gang through the Sahara desert and finally finds the boss of drud consortium.

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The Shooting Star (1941–1942)
Tintin goes to the observatory, being inquisitive after noticing a bright star and the evening being unexpectedly hot. To his utter surprise, he finds that the star is shooting star (meteor) which hurls towards the earth. The following circumstances lead him to a new adventure of finding the lost part of the meteor in the polar region with his mate, captain Haddock and Professor Phostle who discovers a new metal in the meteor. But the painstaking adventure becomes more surprising when Tintin suspects sabotage.
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The Secret of the Unicorn (1942–1943)

When Tintin buys a old model of sailing ship to present that to the captain Haddock, two people wrangle to buy it from Tintin. And story begins when captain and Tintin find that the ship is actually a model of same ship "The Unicorn" that the ancestor of captain has a picture with. Tintin finds a scrap of paper when the ship has been stolen from his house and from the dairy of captain's ancestor, Tintin and captain discovers a treasure hidden by the ancestor and the clue written in the scraps secretly kept in the three models of the ship. The mystery continues and Tintin with the help captain and detective Thomson and Thompson finds the complete hints by finding the scraps of clues and sets out to find the treasure of "The Unicorn".

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Red Rackham's Treasure (1943–1944)








The Seven Crystal Balls (1943–1948)































Prisoners of the Sun (1946–1949)





















Land of Black Gold (1948–1950)






















Destination Moon (1950–1953)
















Explorers on the Moon (1950–1954)






















The Calculus Affair (1954–1956)





















The Red Sea Sharks (1958)


























Tintin in Tibet (1960)


















The Castafiore Emerald (1963)


























Flight 714 (1968)























Tintin and the Picaros (1976)


























Tintin and Alph-Art (1986, 2004)















From the book "Tintin in Tibet"



Certainly, the drawing has contributed none the less than the excitement of the storyline. The unique drawing style of Herge, as termed "Ligne Claire" shows the expression of every character in the comic series perfectly. The use of strong colour and clear, uniform outline brings out the exuberance youthfulness of the comic series. The majorirty of Tintin readers belong to the youthful agegroup between 8 to 12. In their world of no imaginary restrictions, they build their own world around Tintin and its adventures. It's an exhilarating experience to read the adventures of Tintin. So if you still haven't read these comic series, don't fuss and rush to your nearest bookstore!



From the book "The Castafiore Emerald"






To learn more about Tintin and its comic series, please visit






http://www.tintin.com/



http://www.tintinologist.org/




To get the books of "The Adventures of Tintin", please click here!








N.B. Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson, two brightest directors of modern hollywood, have decided to direct three motion pictures of Tintin, the first one being "Secrets of the Unicorn" which is scheduled to release in 2010.

A brief history of time - Stephen Hawking

“A brief history of time” is not a mere book, but it’s a science journey to the centre of knowledge. Written by renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, this book gives us a plausible way to enkindle our intellectuals to the basic but incomprehensible questions that we find everyday.

This is a book of astrophysical science which gives us the scientific acumen to find the answer that long been unanswered by the institute of science. What is the beginning of time? Where is the end of this universe? Where did the universe start from and where will it end? In spite of our daily chores, we have been trying to ignore these questions and leave them to the child’s wonder or a philosopher’s quest. But off late, a growing curiosity of general human around the space has been witnessed due the recent success of space-mission and moon-mission and that curiosity has inspired Hawking to come up with this book. This book, an international bestseller and a critically acclaimed masterpiece, has described the cause of typical behavior of heavenly bodies in light of the theories of Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg, the greatest scientists of all time to name a few.

Hawking, widely regarded as one of the greatest astrophysicist of his time found the scarcity of a popular science book for every common people which shouldn't contain any scientific equations and explain the complicated theories in easy way. This is a great enthusiastic attempt from Hawking to present the wide range of content from the celestial movement of stars to the inner core of smallest particle in universe and try to collate them into single binding showing the glimpse of the Hawking’s mind.

The tone of the book is narrative and passive in majority. Although, the book is rather descriptive and illustrated by the simple drawing to understand the general complexity of astrophysics, sometimes the book needs a higher level of attention and scientific interest to keep the reader in flow with the book. The content of the book are well-thought of and meticulously divided into chapters to maintain the pace and flow of the book. The first chapter describes how people perceived the cosmic bodies before the modern era of science. It tells Aristotle and Galileo way of describing heavenly bodies and lays the path of modern astrophysics. The next chapter tells us the finiteness and relationship between space and time. The third chapter depicts the expanding universe and its attributes. The fourth and fifth chapters tell us the principle and properties of the particles that created the universe and every body in this universe. The sixth and seventh chapters describe the black hole theory and the singularity concept and nature of black hole. The following chapter tells us the origin and fate of the universe and the ninth chapter describes the property of time in universe. The following chapter tries to combine the science theories together and concludes the nature of human, God’s greatest creation, trying to unmask the secrets of the universe, God’s largest creation.

A brief history of time is a popular science book, first published in 1988 and from then, it has been sold more than 9 million copies. It was also on the London Sunday Times best-seller for more than four years. Though crippled by the motor neuron disease, the ever-shining mind of Stephen Hawking has helped us to grow the interest in astronomy and has led the path to answer everyone’s wonder! This book is a must read for all of them who has crossed the boundary of general inquisitiveness in sometime of their life to seek for the future journey to the world of knowledge.

"Master of the Universe... One scientist's courageous voyage to the frontiers of the Cosmos" - Newsweek.

"He can explain the complexities of cosmological physics with an engaging combination of clarity and wit... His is a brain of extraordinary power" - Observer.

If you are interested in reading this book, you can find the book here!