Feature: Tintin in Tibet Reviews 

“Tintin in Tibet”

By | April 3rd, 2018
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

For this week’s evergreen review, I’m looking back nearly sixty years to Hergé’s “Tintin in Tibet,” a book many consider to be his masterpiece.

Written and illustrated by Hergé

The classic graphic novel. One day Tintin reads about a plane crash in the Himalayas. When he discovers that his friend, Chang, was on board, Tintin travels to the crash site in hopes of a rescue.

Once again, I’m using our evergreen review series as a way to explore “The Adventures of Tintin.” Sorry, but I love this series, and I love returning to it and dissecting it. Previously I discussed “Cigars of the Pharaoh” (1934) and its sequel “The Blue Lotus” (1936). This time I’m going to talk about a book that could be considered the third part in a loose trilogy, “Tintin in Tibet,” serialized in Tintin Magazine from September 1958 to November 1959, with the final album published in 1962.

As with “Cigars of the Pharaoh” and “The Blue Lotus,” I’m reviewing this book after having read the new English translation by Michael Farr (available digitally through the Tintin app).

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of “Tintin in Tibet” is the color white coupled with a feeling of isolation. I’m not entirely sure why, but white and loneliness (or vulnerability) paired together is something that’s always struck me as a very potent combination, right from my first exposure to this visual idea at age seven when Luke Skywalker stumbled out of the wampa’s lair into endless white, and reinforced at age twelve through countless “Calvin and Hobbes” comics. The image of Coraline wandering off into endless white in the film of the same name felt like something plucked straight from my own nightmares. The expansive white is an element I wasn’t overly aware of when I read “Tintin in Tibet” the first time, but in repeat readings it jumped out more and more.

Original cover concept

When I got a little older and started reading up on the Hergé’s process on the books, I discovered that Hergé wrote the book at a time of personal crisis and was haunted by dreams of white. His original cover for “Tintin in Tibet” pushed the white aspect much more, though ultimately his publisher considered it too abstract for children and insisted he change it. Alas, I much prefer this cover.

“Tintin in Tibet” is probably the most personal of all the Tintin books. Just as Hergé was in crisis, so is Tintin. Normally ruled by reason, the Tintin of “Tintin in Tibet” is ruled by emotion. When he learns of Chang’s plane crashing, he has no reason to think he is alive, but haunted by a dream of him calling for help in the snow, Tintin immediately sets off to rescue him.

Every other adventure up to this point had always revolved around external problems. “The Adventures of Tintin” had never been an introspective series before. This time there wasn’t a villain for Tintin to track down; instead Tintin was in search of a friend that in all probability was already dead. When Tintin and his companions arrive at the crash site, there’s a panel which I feel beautifully externalizes Tintin’s emotions. I consider it one of the best Hergé ever drew.

From page 28. What better way to say Tintin is in a state or turmoil?

“Tintin in Tibet” is the beginning of what I like to call the deconstruction of Tintin. At this point, Hergé had been drawing Tintin for around thirty years, and I think he was starting to tire of the self-imposed restrictions he had about what a Tintin story could and couldn’t be. “Tintin in Tibet” is the beginning of Hergé exploring those boundaries, and seeing how he could redefine them. This is an aspect more or less present in all the Tintin adventures following “Tintin in Tibet.”

I find the yeti one of the most fascinating elements in “Tintin in Tibet.” Throughout the story we’re told of how monstrous and dangerous it is, building up to the moment Tintin ventures into its lair to rescue Chang. But the yeti is a kindly creature. It saved Chang’s life and cared for him. This story ends in success, and yet it is such a melancholy ending. The yeti is alone, his sad calls echoing through the mountains. There’s a line from Chang in the Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner translation, “I tell you, Tintin, from the way he took care of me, I couldn’t help wondering if, deep down, he hadn’t a human soul.”

Continued below

This was an element I missed in the Michael Farr translation. Farr’s translation may be more accurate, but he has a tin ear when it comes to natural sounding dialogue. In a book that’s so much about spiritualism and soul, Farr’s translation often feels clinical and stilted. I would only recommend it out of academic interest. For pleasure, the original English translation is superior.

In writings about Hergé and “Tintin in Tibet,” there’s a great deal said about the search for Chang and how powerful that moment of reunion is between the two. In many ways the search mirrors Hergé’s own search for the real life Chang, a friend he met while working on “The Blue Lotus,” but had lost contact with due to the upheavals in Communist China at the time. With so much already written on the topic, I have nothing to add myself. But there’s another relationship in this series that I feel is often overlooked: the relationship between Tintin and Captain Haddock.

Let’s be clear, Chang is not Captain Haddock’s friend. At the beginning of “Tintin in Tibet” the two have never even met. Haddock only knows about Chang through Tintin, so the emotional stakes for Haddock going on this adventure are very different from Tintin’s. Haddock’s not exactly quiet about how insane this whole rescue mission is either. He’s a man who speaks his mind after all.

From page 6, the Farr translation.
Please note, this has been altered from its original panel layout for demonstrative purposes.

And yet Haddock goes with Tintin. I want to reiterate, Haddock is utterly convinced that Chang is already dead. The only reason Haddock goes on this journey is because he knows that eventually Tintin is going to realize this himself, and when that moment comes, he’s determined to be by his friend’s side. And let’s not forget, this is a perilous journey. Haddock goes with Tintin knowing full well this could get them both killed. There’s even a moment when the pair are climbing a cliff face and Haddock loses his grip—knowing that Tintin cannot hold him, Haddock takes it upon himself to cut his rope so that Tintin will at least survive. No moment in the Tintin books better shows the dynamic between these two characters.

This isn’t the only time this adventure nearly gets him killed either. At one point, after wandering through the snow for three days without sleep or shelter, Captain Haddock seemingly reaches his breaking point, refusing to go any further. Yet still he joins Tintin at the end to journey into the lair of the yeti. He grumbled about it every step of the way, but he never gave up on his friend, even though he had many very good reasons to. The thankless loyalty and friendship of Captain Haddock is the best part of “Tintin in Tibet,” and it is baffling to me how it isn’t celebrated more often.


//TAGS | evergreen

Mark Tweedale

Mark writes Haunted Trails, The Harrow County Observer, The Damned Speakeasy, and a bunch of stuff for Mignolaversity. An animator and an eternal Tintin fan, he spends his free time reading comics, listening to film scores, watching far too many video essays, and consuming the finest dark chocolates. You can find him on BlueSky.

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