Tintin Forums

I really like the changes made to Tintin's character. (I'm also very fond of his jeans, though of course plus fours will always win.) Picaros is such an awesome book anyway, and it's made all the more interesting for the sudden change in Tintin. More cynical. Perhaps a little weary of adventuring? By that time he must have been learning from his experiences - becoming more mature and less naive.

What really makes me mad is that there are no books afterwards, so we don't get to see if this is a permanent thing or just a phase, or even if it's the beginning of a far more pronounced change in Tintin's character! (And the Captain's, if it comes to that. Talk about irony. It always makes me smile that he was the one pestering Tintin to fly off to some distant country...) Maybe, had Alph-Art been finished, we would have seen an astonishing transformation in our young hero. Not a complete transformation, you understand. Then the adventures would hardly be exciting.

Of course the changes were good. It bought Tintin much upto date.His character also procured more depth.Though captain not drinking is way too freaky.After all he is identified by it.

I think what people fail to realize sometimes is the change was done to show that Tintin did not have to jump at the drop of the hat to every emergency that came towards him. In the past he went at full speed not worrying about consequences. I think Herge also wanted to show him maturing because at the point of Herge's that he was there was not a sense of urgency to complete these stories. He was doing it for fun at that point. Change had been happening in a lot of volumes if you look closely.

Artistically, Herge just got better and better, and the rich colouring and detailed line-work of Picaros make it one of my favourite Tintin books. I also liked the updating of Tintin's interests and clothing. It seemed to me that Herge was keen to do some character development after so many years writing his characters as archetypes. Though I agree that there were some slight changes throughout the years, this was the first one since Congo and Soviets (which I consider to be prototypes) to make clearly intentional changes.