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| Tintin and dog Snowy with Spielberg and Jackson |
To work up my interest in Tintin whose adventures are translated into a motion capture 3-D film, The Adventures of Tintin: Secrets of the Unicorn, directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson and scheduled to be shown this year, I have decided to buy the 7-volume The Adventures of Tintin from Bibliarch-Gensan (actually, only Volumes 1 & 2 are available while the rest are still on order).
As a young child, I was already aware of Tintin and his dog, Snowy. Whenever I read the comics section of the newspapers, there would be a strip of their adventures. But I never really followed the serial strip because I was into Superman, Prince Valiant, The Phantom, Popeye, Nancy & Sluggo and Flash Gordon in my elementary years and promptly shifted to the adventures of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys when I was in high school.
Written by Belgian comics writer, Georges "Hergé" Remi, the 7 volumes contain 21 stories about the exploits of young news reporter, Tintin and his dog Snowy:
Volume 1: Tintin in America, Cigars of the Pharaoh and The Blue Lotus
Volume 2: The Broken Ear, The Black Island and King Ottokar's Sceptre
Volume 3: The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Shooting Star and The Secret of the Unicorn
Volume 4: Red Rackham's Treasure, The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun
Volume 5: Land of Black Gold, Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon
Volume 6: The Calculus Affair, The Red Sea Sharks and Tintin in Tibet
Volume 7: The Castafiore Affair, Flight 714 to Sydney, and Tintin and the Picaros
Not included in the collection are: Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in Congo and Tintin and the Alph-Art, which means I have to buy them separately.
I wanted to kick myself while reading Volume 1 - how could I have ignored this comic strip for so long? It was a fun read, it appealed to the the journalist and adventurer in me! Tintin could give present-day investigative reporters a run for their money and put Mcgyver to shame for his inventive ways with costumes and get-aways (not to mention "lucky" near-misses with the villains in the stories).
Reading it page by page raised my nostalgic longing a notch higher. While literary characters are given modern spin-offs involving either vampires and/or zombies (like Nancy Drew), Tintin retains his old-fashioned charms and still succeeds to draw the reader into his adventures.
I can't wait to introduce Tintin to my grandchildren! But first I have to succeed in explaining to them why this character is named Tintin, which of course is baby-talk for the male genital. Then and only then, can I induct them as Tintinophiles, Tintinilites, or Tintinologists. Heheh.
UPDATE: At last, my Tintin collection is complete!
