This story was first published in French in 1941 and returns to the theme of an exotic adventure. Tintin sets off for North Africa. He thwarts a scheme thought-up by a gang of criminals who have hidden opium in tins of crab-meat. Thanks to this adventure, Tintin meets Haddock who will become his side-kick in the future.
On board a polar vessel with Captain Haddock at the helm, Tintin and a team of European scientists sail to the Arctic Ocean where an aerolite made of an unknown metal crashed. But soon they find out that another ship is sailing toward the strange meteorite and their expedition turns then into a true race.
The Calculus Affair (1956) or “how scientific inventions can serve humanity without being coveted by military powers”, in the tense climate of the Cold War. This new adventure takes Tintin back to Syldavia and Borduria. After inventing an ultrasound machine, Professor Calculus is kidnapped. Jolyon Wagg, an insurance sales rep, makes his entrance in this story, and will prove to be a constant nuisance. A thrilling chase, surprises, old friends getting back together, headlong fights... all this for a stake in what seems to be limited to an ordinary umbrella. This is probably the most “detective-like” story.
Captain Haddock simply cannot believe it, but human trafficking really is still going on, even in the twentieth century (and today in the twenty-first century). The Red Sea Sharks lifts the veil on the scandal of the modern day slave trade. Herge stayed abreast of current affairs, and as was his style, for this story he wove real-life news into action-packed adventure.
The Castafiore Emerald is a story in which, essentially, nothing happens. Captain Haddock's mansion, Marlinspike Hall, can be considered a theatre; the characters in the story are the actors in a play. Various outsiders, including a doctor and some gypsies, mingle with the residents.
Flight 714 to Sydney (1968), is the interrupted voyage, the hijacking which will turn everything upside down, Tintin and his friends' foray into the unknown, in a surreal world highlighted with telepathic phenomena. It is also the incredible contact with extra-terrestrials and the emerging from a dream... or is it a dream? Jakarta, the last stop for the Boeing and flight 714 to Sydney.
The twenty-third episode in the series, Tintin and the Picaros (1976) is a Latin-American tale of a coup d’état, complete with hostage-taking and guerrilla warfare. Tintin returns to the country of San Theodoros, which he first visited in The Broken Ear (1937). Hergé’s story reveals the hypocrisy behind the apparently endless cycle of revolution and counter-revolution in South America. Tintin and the Picaros was the last book written by Hergé, and it took more than ten years to complete. As Hergé grew older readers had to wait longer and longer between each new adventure!
While looking through an old sea-chest found in his attic, Captain Haddock chances upon the diaries of his ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock. This legendary sea dog achieved fame through his renowned run-in with the fearsome pirate Red Rackham. So are the words of Sir Francis Haddock just another chronicle of life at sea? Certainly not! His journals speak of a fabulous hoard of jewels: for Tintin, Captain Haddock - and a gang of crooks - the treasure hunt is well and truly on. But as the search continues, the plot thickens...
Red Rackham's Treasure (1944), sequel to The Secret of the Unicorn (1943), Tintin and the Thom(p)sons accompany Captain Haddock on a journey in the footsteps of the Captain's illustrious ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock. The parchments discovered in the previous adventure are in fact a treasure map pointing the way to the hidden gold and jewels of a notorious pirate, Red Rackham. A new character, named Professor Cuthbert Calculus, will prove invaluable in the search for the lost treasure; by the end of the adventure Calculus will also help Captain Haddock to acquire his family's ancestral home, Marlinspike Hall. This story is full of twists, turns and surprises, not least the moment when Professor Calculus demonstrates a new type of machine for underwater exploration...
The tale unfolds in China, a place as yet unknown and mysterious to Tintin. It looks like our hero may have bitten off more than he can chew as he takes on the task of wiping out the international opium trade, which has a vice-like grip on this beautiful country. With the assistance of the secret society Sons of the Dragon, and his friend Chang (whom he encounters later on in the story), Tintin succeeds in overcoming myriad obstacles to finally triumph over his adversaries and disband their network of corruption.
On 10 January 1929, a young reporter boarded a train from Brussels to Moscow accompanied by his dog, Snowy. It was the start of Tintin's first great adventure and the beginning of Hergé's career. The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter for "Le Petit Vingtième", Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, was published as a book in 1930. That year marks the birth of a legend and the start of one of the most engaging relationships between fiction and reality, of the twentieth century.
The Broken Ear (1937) is the story of a thrilling pursuit. Tintin sets off to South America to retrieve a stolen fetish. There, all sorts of interests are in conflict: military, economic and the war of the Gran Chaco which had been opposing Bolivia and Paraguay for the past three years. A small Arumbaya statue has been stolen in a museum, then returned. One little detail though will tell Tintin that instead of the original, a mere replica was returned. There must be a secret hiding behind this small statue since its robbery was carefully concealed. This is in South America that Tintin will find the key to this enigma.
