My review, as posted in Tintin Books

The perils of this album are well-documented: written before Herge awoke to a wider worldview, and when he was still a pencil for hire, this is a propaganda piece and nothing more. Tintin as a reporter is an Everyman thrust into a land of corrupt politicians, and evil overlords.

To me, there's something messily beautiful about Herge's boyish scrawl. It's not polished, true, but that pudgy little potato boy and his scruffy dog make for delightful heroes, even if they barely do anything individual here at all. It's certainly a trademark of Tintin that henchmen concoct elaborate schemes to bring him down, but most of the time here he seems to slip out of these by chance in this book.

It makes sense though, since this book was published as a serial not one album, of course. Still a fascinating insight into how much Tintin himself doesn't really change: he becomes no less ambiguous in his nature and personality (a blank slate, I fear) but his investigative skills certainly do get better.

Even here, Herge is managing to capture atmosphere in his panels very well; it's just a pity that the atmosphere is so rigidly stereotyped. ( )

Interesting only as a peek into the beginnings of a character. The flow of the story was a bit too 'jumpy' for my taste. But I liked seeing that part where Tintin gets his trademark cow-lick hair (I heard about this from a Tintin tour in a local bookstore). ( )

This reads like a collection of 2-page magazine comics that Hergé never meant to be stitched together, yet was into this book. They do follow a story arc, but lack any and all cohesion past that. Tintin's having tiny sub-adventures on a back-to-back basis, and I come out with a light headache, feeling like I've been just been beaten and badgered around like poor Tintin every 2 pages. ( )

Early Tin Tin, from the days when he seldom had a mouth, and Snowy had a rectangular face. This story is action all the way with the two characters escaping from one near death experience into another, over and over again, until they are finally welcomed home to Belgium as Heroes. Fun, quick read. ( )

I've read and enjoyed other installments of this series but this one, being the first, is definitely the slightest and most dated. Unfortunately there just isn't much to enjoy here anymore. ( )