The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin and the Lake of Sharks - Hergé

The one that isn’t by Hergé

Just in case it’s not obvious, this is not one of the official Adventures of Tintin series by Hergé, but rather an album based on the original 1972 animated film Tintin and the Lake of Sharks, scripted by Greg (Michel Régnier). A look inside the album will certainly reveal that this isn’t drawn by Hergé or his studio, the book derived rather from animation cels with a great deal more detail in the backgrounds and richness in the colouration. The album also only runs to 44 pages rather than the standard 62 pages of a regular Tintin adventure.

So, it’s certainly not Hergé, but is it Tintin? Well, in a way, yes, but only because the story uses familiar characters and puts them through certain situations that are taken straight from other Tintin adventures. The story opens up with the theft and switch of an object from a museum that is almost identical to the opening of The Broken Ear, while the conflict between Borduria and Syldavia from King Ottokar’s Sceptre forms the background to the story, Professor Calculus having inexplicably decided to relocate to his laboratory to a lake on the border between the two countries. On a visit there, Tintin’s plane is sabotaged plane leading to a crash, similar to Flight 714, organised by the same master criminal Rastapopoulos, who is similarly bashed around a bit in his endeavours to obtain Calculus’ latest fabulous invention. With some sequences taking place underwater, Calculus’ shark submarine from Red Rackham’s Treasure is also given another spin. Basically, it’s just a hodge-podge of several other Tintin stories rather than anything new, but you could say the same about several of the later Tintin stories.

For all that, The Lake of Sharks plays out pretty much as you would expect a Tintin adventure to, albeit with a touch of James Bond feeding through into the tone of the adventure and in the twists and perils of the storyline. Calculus’ duplicating machine is certainly the most memorable and original touch in the book, although in my memory, I was sure it featured more prominently – but that could just be youthful imagination. In its own way then, while not of the calibre of the best Tintin, and certainly not a patch on the artwork of the regular Hergé books, The Lake of Sharks is fairly faithful to the characters and, as such, it’s not a bad adventure. At least in comic album form. The animated film, which I haven’t seen, might well be a different story.

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