To The Last Page

The one where Tintin faces a firing squad drunk There’s an understandable tendency to look dismissively at the earliest solo Tintin adventures - justifiably in some cases. The artwork is somewhat naïve, as are the depictions of the countries that Tintin visits and the racial stereotyping, and the stories themselves suffer from the episodic format that they were originally published in, and there’s often no clear overarching story, just a series of adventures based around a theme. On the other hand, the attraction of his character and the foundations of his investigative nature are established in his exploration of the exotic lands, delighting in the diversity of a world rather that is more complicated than it would seem. In this respect, The Broken Ear is certainly one of the best earliest Tintin adventures and, packed with incident and adventure, it’s also one of the most memorable. More than just a series of adventures in a foreign land, there’s some real-life relevance to the natur...