Tintin and Alph-Art - The Adventures of Tintin 24 by Hergé

Whenever a popular creator dies there's inevitable speculation about works that might have been, either stories that were planned but never made or unpublished material sitting in an archive somewhere. Perhaps the most frustrating is when there's an incomplete tale that has a start and a middle but no clear indication of how it was meant to end.

Hergé had stated that he wished The Adventures of Tintin to die with him and it's a request that his heirs have upheld, to the point that Tintin and Alph-Art was never officially completed by the Studios Hergé (although they did carry on with a few more volumes of Quick & Flupke before closing). Although there have been some fan produced completions, the official version remains the unfinished sketches which have been released in a couple of formats with the current version being a 62-page album that appears to only be available in hardback from Egmont. (The American publishers, Little Brown, have, however, published it in paperback.) The bulk of the album is taken up with forty plus pages of thumbnail sketches on which Hergé had drafted the first two-thirds of the story, with the text and some directions transcribed, plus some additional pages of notes at the end that show some of his ideas during the development of the story, some of which were abandoned on the way and others may also have fallen aside.

Tintin and the Picaros - The Adventures of Tintin 23 by Hergé

As the final complete album in the Adventures, Tintin and the Picaros inevitably has a lot riding on it, more so when one considers that this was the only completed story produced by Hergé in the last fifteen years of this life. There are some signs that the series is aware that things are winding down and thus it tries to tidy up some matters. But at the same time this story also sees some changes to the regular characters, as though the intention was to take them into the last quarter of the twentieth century in a far more modernised pattern.

Flight 714 to Sydney - The Adventures of Tintin 22 by Hergé

The full title of Flight 714 to Sydney is a recent change, bringing it closer to the original French Vol 714 pour Sydney. The English language translation was originally published as just Flight 714 back in 1968; the same thing happened with the Dutch (Vlucht 714) and a number of other translations seem to have taken their cue from one or other of these editions. But in the last decade the destination has been added, maybe to increase the album's appeal in Australia, maybe to create greater conformity, maybe for some other reason.

But however long the title is, it's a misnomer. For the whole adventure is an interruption from Flight 714, with the characters having temporarily disembarked in Djakarta (now Jakarta) for a refuelling stop, only to transfer to another flight. Only at the end of the story do they once more board a commercial flight, also numbered Flight 714 and we never actually see them arrive in Sydney. In between they wind up on a deserted island and make some highly unusual discoveries.

The Castafiore Emerald - The Adventures of Tintin 21 by Hergé

There's a notable cover variation with The Castafiore Emerald with the size of the spotlight on the cover varying, with a corresponding effect on how dark the remainder of the cover is. One effect on the current Egmont edition, with the smaller light, is that Tintin almost looks like he's been lifted from a cartoon cell. By the time this story appeared the series was now being adapted as a cartoon (known in English as Hergé's Adventures of Tintin). It's a reflection of the changing environment in which the Adventures now appeared. With this story they also began appearing much less frequently, with this album coming out three years after the preceding one, then it would be five years before the next, eight years until the one after that and presumably even longer had the final story been completed at the time. Tintin was more famous than ever before with an established volume of work and further appearances need not be so frequent. It was now possible to sit back, relax and bask in the fame, much like one of the characters in this tale.

Tintin in Tibet - The Adventures of Tintin 20 by Hergé

In some corners of the internet, which is an inevitable warning sign about the truth of this, there are claims that Tintin in Tibet was intended to be the final of The Adventures of Tintin and that everything which came afterwards was by publisher and popular demand. It's not clear how true this is, and it may be a misunderstanding of Hergé's considerations and circumstances at the time when it was conceived, but it's interesting to consider how this album might have stood as a conclusion to the series.

The Red Sea Sharks - The Adventures of Tintin 19 by Hergé

The Red Sea Sharks is a rare example of one of the later Adventures which had subsequent modifications to solve problems that brought up with it. However, the current Egmont edition appears to be a translation of the original album and thus the problematic dialogue, mostly relating to characters' understanding of the language in one way or another, is present here. One notable change from the original French is the title - originally this was called Coke en stock, meaning "Coke in stock" or "Coke on board", but it was felt that in English this evoked the soft drink far more than the fuel (and it would have also dated badly as coke is now little used domestically).

The Calculus Affair - The Adventures of Tintin 18 by Hergé

The Calculus Affair is the most overtly political of the Adventures since King Ottokar's Sceptre. Appropriately it returns once more to conflict between the fictional countries of Syldavia and Borduria. Yet whilst the earlier tales were making clear points about and jibes at contemporary political developments, this one instead just uses situations to provide a framework for the plot.

The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko: Mr. Pump's Legacy, Destination New York and The Valley of the Cobras by Hergé

As previously noted, much of Hergé's non-Tintin work isn't well known in English because so little is still in print in translated form. However, there is one other series with three albums currently available in the UK, which can often be found alongside The Adventures of Tintin in bookshops.

The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko are the tales of a brother and sister and their pet monkey. Hergé created them on request from one of his French publishers but ultimately only produced five complete albums. Two of the albums, The 'Manitoba' No Reply and The Eruption of Karamako, have only had a limited English-language circulation in a double-volume that used the overall story title The Secret Ray and is now out of print. Some of the depictions in them are controversial and were thus passed over by first Methuen and then by Egmont.

Explorers on the Moon - The Adventures of Tintin 17 by Hergé

"This is it! I've walked a few steps! For the first time in the history of mankind there is an EXPLORER ON THE MOON!"

When Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon he received many messages from all over the world. One that baffled him the most, so the story goes, was an illustration of him standing by the lunar module being greeted by three men and a dog in orange spacesuits, with a red and white rocket in the background. He soon learned that another had already visited the Moon in fiction.

Destination Moon - The Adventures of Tintin 16 by Hergé

This is the big one. Of all The Adventures of Tintin, by far the best known is the two-part story that begins with this album. Such is its prominence that a special display stand for the albums in book shops is even modelled on the rocket. It is arguably the second best known Moon landing of all time. However much of that is to come in the second part of the tale. For now we have the story of events at ground control.

Land of Black Gold - The Adventures of Tintin 15 by Hergé

It's surprising just how many of the Adventures were at one stage partially complete. Land of Black Gold began as the ninth and final Tintin story to be serialised in Le Petit Vingtième but the supplement and the parent paper, Le Vingtième Siècle, were shut down when the Germans invade Belgium in May 1940. Though the Adventures would soon resume, the content of Land of Black Gold made it impossible to carry on during the occupation. The tale might well have remained incomplete but then in the late 1940s it was revived as a filler, with the whole story restarted, redrawn and with some modifications to match developments in the series. It was changed again in 1971 for the English-language publication, changing the setting from the long out of date British Mandate of Palestine to the fictional Arab kingdom of Khemed.

Prisoners of the Sun - The Adventures of Tintin 14 by Hergé

Prisoners of the Sun concludes the story begun in The Seven Crystal Balls, with the scene shifting to Peru as Tintin, Snowy and Captain Haddock pursue Calculus's kidnappers, with the not quite help of Thompson and Thomson. There's no real recap at the start of the tale, just a quick scene in a police commissioner's office, reflecting the original back to back publication but it does stand out more when the two albums are published under separate names.

The Seven Crystal Balls - The Adventures of Tintin 13 by Hergé

Had things turned out differently, The Seven Crystal Balls could have been the final, incomplete Adventure. Begun in the latter stages of the war, publication was abruptly halted when Brussels was liberated with Le Soir newspaper being temporarily suspended and then restarted with a completely new editorial staff whilst Hergé faced accusations of collaboration and was unable to work for the press for nearly two years. (During this time, he redrew many of the earlier Adventures for the clear line colour format, but although his book publishers were supportive, it's doubtful the economics of the album market could have sustained the series by themselves.) The story and the Adventures as a whole were only revived with the launch of Tintin magazine in the autumn of 1946, bringing colour to the original serialisation for the first time. It's interesting to wonder what might have happened had the Adventures never returned, not just on the cultural impact and legacy of Tintin but on the whole Franco-Belgian comics tradition. Although a number of the developments had begun before the war and many creators began during it when imported strips disappeared, The Adventures of Tintin were a key influence for years afterwards with imitators and rivals. If Tintin had never returned after the fiftieth page here, bandes dessinées could have turned out very differently.

Red Rackham's Treasure - The Adventures of Tintin 12 by Hergé

Red Rackham's Treasure is the most unusual of the Adventures so far. It's explicitly the second part of the story begun in The Secret of the Unicorn but it takes quite a different approach. Whereas that tale is set entirely in Tintin's home country, this one takes him all the way across an ocean and back again as he searches for the treasure captured by Captain Haddock's ancestor.

The Secret of the Unicorn - The Adventures of Tintin 11 by Hergé

The Secret of the Unicorn is very different from what has come before, showing the series growing in self-confidence and showing a willingness to experiment. For the first time in the series we get an adventure told over two books (whereas Cigars of the Pharaohs is essentially self-contained, albeit with loose ends that The Blue Lotus picked up on). It's also a tale that confounds expectations. The cover suggests a grand adventure at sea with an early modern ship and pirates but in fact we get the first story set entirely in Tintin's home country.

The Shooting Star - The Adventures of Tintin 10 by Hergé

The Shooting Star shows a decisive change of approach from previous Adventures. There's no great exploration of a country and no grand crime to investigate. Instead this is a story made up of incidents and action. As a result, the plot is somewhat slight. It's also the first tale to really venture into the realm of science fiction, though that's a genre that can often be misunderstood.

The Crab with the Golden Claws - The Adventures of Tintin 9 by Hergé

The Crab with the Golden Claws is one of the best known of all The Adventures of Tintin and the one that's been adapted more times than any other. It introduces Tintin's best known and most popular supporting cast member, Captain Haddock. More fundamentally it represents a shift in direction for the series, stepping away from political commentary into the realm of escapist action and comedy. It's easy to see why this album has made the mark that it did.

Quick & Flupke: Under Full Sail and Fasten Your Seat Belts by Hergé

Hergé produced far more than just The Adventures of Tintin. During the 1920s and 1930s he either created many different strips and also worked with other writers. But much of this output is little known in English, not least because of the limited translation and even many of those are now out of print or only available in certain countries. Today it seems there are only three non-Tintin albums available in the UK, which I'll be looking at later. Two others were published by Egmont in the last decade but it would seem weak sales have killed off the chance of the rest of the series being released, although a full set of eleven translated albums have been printed in other countries. So for now we have just two volumes of Quick & Flupke to look at.

King Ottokar's Sceptre - The Adventures of Tintin 8 by Hergé

King Ottokar's Sceptre is a curious entry in the Adventures. It features both a highly modern (for the time) scenario of a country facing an internal coup & potential annexation by its neighbours, yet also contains an extremely odd structure by presenting a situation where control of a country rests upon possession of a single object. This fusion of late 1930s concern about German expansion and the potential weakness of small neighbouring states with almost fairy tale notions of monarchy and power feels odd. And yet the story is set in what is by far the most thought through and developed fictional country yet seen in the Adventures.

The Black Island - The Adventures of Tintin 7 by Hergé

The first thing that stands out about this album is the cover format. The use of a band at the top for the series title with Tintin and Snowy's heads in the top left-hand corner is a style not otherwise seen until quite late in the run, reflecting the complicated publication history of this adventure. Like most of the early Adventures it was originally published in black and white and then redrawn in colour during the 1940s. But the version now generally available, and reviewed here, is a further alteration from the 1960s, made at the behest of the-then British publishers, Methuen, but which appears to have displaced the earlier version in all languages.