The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter For “Le Petit Vintième,” In The Land of the Soviets. Phew! That’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? For the sake of my carpal tunnel, let’s just call this “Tintin in the Land of the Soviets,” okay?
Originally published in 1929, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was Hergé’s first Tintin story. At the time, Hergé (real name: Georges Remi) was only 22, and had no formal art training. If it sounds like I am setting you up for a rationalization, well, you’d probably be right.
For the most part, reading Land of the Soviets is a bit like watching “Steamboat Willie;” you see a lot of things that you recognise, but the whole thing seems a little weird. The story is all over the place, full of hit-you-over-the-head sermonizing and bizarre deus ex machinae moments (my favourite is when Tintin and Snowy, trapped in prison cell located below the level of the adjacent canal, look into the corner of their prison and see… a diving suit! Luckily, once he has it on, it is a simple matter of minutes for Tintin to pull several blocks from the wall and create a passage to freedom).
In my opinion, the real value of the book lies in the evolution of the artwork from start to finish. Here are two panels from the book: the first is from the first page, and shows a barely recognisable Tintin boarding a train to Mother Russia. The second is literally the last panel in the book, and shows a scene much more like the “ligne clair” that Georges Remi became famous for.
Tintin: Early
Tintin: Late
Pick it up at the library, give it a read, maybe the kids will like it.
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