Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Project BD Book 9

Tintin: L’ile Noir
Story and Art by Herge
Casterman

Tintin goes to Scotland in this one and the story has a lot more humour in it than the previous volume I read. Okay, Tintin does get shot on page one but trust me there’s some humour later on when his dog develops a taste for whiskey and Tintin wears a kilt.

This volume felt a lot less dense than The Blue Lotus simply because there was more visual action rather than dialogue. What that translates to on the page is a lot more beautiful artwork showing Herge’s ability to recreate landscapes and nature in a believable fashion while populating this world with simplified characters.

Let’s see how the action goes in this volume. Hmmm. Tintin is shot on page one, then knocked unconscious, knocked over by a goat, knocked out by chloroform, pulls down a tree branch with a flood light attached onto his head, runs full on into a rake, tries to jump onto a moving car and misses, is in a trailer that detaches and crashes into a tree shooting him out into a pond, bumps into numerous people on numerous trains, gets hauled around by Dupont and Dupond with a cane around his throat, is in a plane crash, fights a gorilla repeatedly, tries to scare the gorilla by shooting into the air only to knock a brick out of a castle tower that lands on his head, then finally trips down the tower stairs of the same castle into the police. I’m telling you, he’s Jimmy Olsen without the brain damage. He’s a cub reporter who holds his own in adventures around the world, uses disguises, cunning and brute force to escape thugs and has probably stopped more counterfeiting rings than the FBI.

These adventures are pure gold and I enjoy totally at face value, rather than finding enjoyment on some ironic level. It’s totally refreshing and reminds me of what good comics can be – exciting, simple and beautiful to look at.

Read more Tintin if you’re ever feeling out of sorts and angry at the medium. You’ll get pretty much everything you’re missing from superheroes.

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