Tintin: The Top 3 That Divides Hergé Fans

Tintin: The Top 3 That Divides Hergé Fans

What is the best Tintin album? The question seems like casual dinner table talk, but as soon as it opens up, war breaks out. Some argue that The Calculus Affair is the narrative peak of Hergé: geopolitical intrigue, a kidnapped scientist, the shadow of the Cold War and a breakneck pace, without any safari or exotic explorations in between. Others maintain, with equal conviction, that the culminating masterpiece is King Ottokar's Sceptre, a script that, they say, could have been written by Billy Wilder or Ernst Lubitsch and won several Oscars. Between these two poles, a dozen albums fight for third place.

Which is the best Tintin comic according to readers?

There is no consensus, and that is what makes it interesting. The Calculus Affair appears again and again at the top: described as pure spy thriller with Borduria and Syldavia in the background, antiestéticaturing the most polished narrative in the entire series. King Ottokar's Sceptre generates the opposite effect: some readers confess they don't understand its popularity and promise to reread it, while others place it directly at number one. Flight 714 for Sydney has its star moment in comics history: the fight between Rastapopoulos and Laszlo Carreidas in the Japanese World War II bunker, arguing about who had been more despicable in their lives under the effects of scopolamine. Two egomaniacs revealing their true petty personalities. "Incredible Hergé," summarizes one reader.

Cigars of the Pharaoh, The Blue Lotus and the Lunar Duology

The third step on the podium is a battlefield. Cigars of the Pharaoh repeats in almost every list, usually between first and fourth place. The Blue Lotus has defenders who consider it the work that defines Syldavia: coup d'état, document forgery and a plot that pays homage to the Anschluss, with a mature Hergé masterfully building a fictional kingdom. The lunar duology —Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon— appears due to the precision and detail with which everything was shown: some recall seeing the film Project Moonbase months later and finding it practically identical.

Tintin in Tibet and the argument of friendship

There is a current that argues Tintin is primarily about friendship, and that its culmination is Tintin in Tibet. The reunion with Chang, the perception of a friend in distress as the most powerful force that exists. It is a personal work by Hergé about his Chinese friend, and it shows. At the opposite extreme, Tintin in the Congo and Tintin in America are marked as far below the rest of the collection. The rarity is Tintin in the Land of the Soviets: it was practically censored for decades, not reissued as an album until 1973 and not integrated into the complete collection until 1999, for the 70th anniversary. A copy of the 1930 first edition is worth a small fortune today.

Alpha-Art: unfinished work or memorable ending?

The question about Alpha-Art looms over the entire discussion. Is it one of the worst albums or is it an unfinished work with which Hergé wanted to give a memorable end to Tintin's adventures? Some place it in the line of Tintin and the Picaros, an already elderly Tintin, and consider that the ending given by Rodier is canon. In parallel, it is recalled that Hergé's heirs prohibited the publication of new stories, unlike other Franco-Belgian series such as Blake and Mortimer, which practically have a new adventure every year —and some quite weak ones, all must be said—.

First memories and the unexpected detail

Many readers arrived at the series through a specific gift: Cigars of the Pharaoh, The Broken Ear, The Temple of the Sun. Some confess that the first cost them a world, and ended up having the complete collection from publisher Juventud, including the boring and childish Jo, Zette and Jocko. And there is a surprising detail: according to a participant, in its day the publisher Bruguera forced its authors to be inspired —copy— by Franco-Belgian comics like those of Franquin, and without those authors memorable strips like The Atomic Bomb would not have existed.

In the end, the answer to which is the best Tintin depends on what is valued: the narrative architecture of The Calculus Affair, the comedy of manners of King Ottokar's Sceptre or the emotion of Tintin in Tibet. Forty years after Hergé's death, we are still discussing the same thing. It almost seems like the Belgian keeps winning.