Tintin Forums

oh my god, that scene always creeps me out, i watched it the other day and it seems that its still frightening when you're 18

I never really found them traumatic. I always found it funny. It was as if they were saying to Ramon and Alonzo: "Yay! Some new playmates!".

Nothing in Tintin ever disturbed me.

But Wolff's death is pretty alarming.

hahaha thats a classic scene "master abdullahs visit wasn't very good for me sir"

Tintin can get quite 'dark' 'gritty' and even brutal at times, but one really must look at the times that those stories were written with regards to what you could and counldn't put in kids books and comics back then....

I know that some of you are going to hate me for this, but I do have quite a large number of reprint volumes of 1940's/1950's/1960's superhero comics (as well as ones from more recent times) and when I look at the ones from the 1940's in particular I find that many of them are VERY brutal!!!

Take the (1940's) Human Torch for a start. Here was a superhero that would not only often burn crooks ALIVE but also force confessions from them.

Or what about the first few 'Superman' strips? Here was a super powerful guy that would often bully the bad guy's into 'changing their ways'

Needless to say the results were rarely pretty...

In one story where he is trying to help get some miners safer working conditions he to a dinner party where a load of rich guys (and gals) are enjoying themselves, needless to say, some of whom are indeed in the wrong others but others not so. And he traps them on purpose in order to show them what it is like to work in such a place. He is successful in attaining his goal but at the end of the story he concludes to himself that if the mining boss goes back to his old ways to use his own words "He can expect another visit from Superman!"

Given Superman's actions in some of the other tales at that time, he would have most likely beaten the poor guy to a pulp to the point that he would have been killed if he did not get his way!!!

Don't get me wrong, this is stuff that s always directed at the bad guys, but it can make reading 'Golden Age' Comic books disturbing reading for some people nowadays.

Likewise if one reads the reprints of 'Flash Gordon' (as drawn by Alex Raymond) you'd find a HUGE amount of stuff that would be considered too adult for kids now!!!!

Sorry to have gone a little off topic, but I thought that you'd all be interested in seeing what I have to say.

We forgot the torture of the seven explorers in The Seven Crystal Balls through witchcraft.

The scene in the hospital is pretty haunting as is the way in which Tarragon is finally taken out.

How did the photographer Clarkson get attacked when Chiquito is at the music stage hall performing his act with General Alcazar? I cannot believe that his accomplices are well versed in the mysteries of the Incas to perform the attack on their own.

How did Tarragon's attacker (presumably Chiquito) get into a locked room with no windows and manage to introduce him to the mysterious crystal ball?

Even though Prisoners of the Sun explains away the mysteries, Seven Crystal Balls has quite a bit of loose ends which makes it all the more mysterious and disturbing.

No shudders caused by Tintin's possible fate in Alph-Art? Being murdered and put on permanent display, ugh. It could simply be that when I was a kid I was convinced statues were all fossilised people, so this sequence tapped into my darkest fantasies.

Allan has always been a source of deep horror to me, despite the fact he's a comparatively petty villain. His casual cruelty towards the Captain, verging on sadism, his complete lack of any kind of scruples, his brutality even towards his crew ... With him it always seemed personal rather than hating our boys because they're good, which made him much more frightening and realistic IMO.

It's interesting what you said about Alph-Art Karaboudjan, because I've always found it similar to the "House of Wax" theme, perhaps you might have had that in the back of your mind?

5 Mar 2012 12:34 - Merged topic:
Darkest moments in Tintin?

There are some very dark moments in Tintin. But what do you think should rate among the darkest?

So far I have:

1. Sacrifice of Frank Wolff (Explorers on the Moon).
2. Nightmare of Rascar Capac (Seven Crystal Balls).
3. Vision of Chang's cry for help (Tintin in Tibet).
4. No change in poverty from the revolution (Tintin and the Picaros).
5. Tintin facing the firing squad (The Broken Ear).
6. Near-burning at the stake (Prisoners of the Sun).
7. Indians losing their land to corporations (Tintin in America).
8. Introduction of Abdullah (sorry, couldn't resist that one!).
9. Castafiore descending on Haddock in The Castafiore Emerald. Well, it was dark for Haddock anyway!

You could say that is the bleakest, a man seeking redemption by performing the ultimate sacrifice.

Haddock almost does the same thing when hanging at the end of the rope ("Tintin in Tibet"), much to Tintin's horror.

Another one could the scene when Tintin's enemy gets consumed by crocodiles ("Tintin in the Congo"). No man deserves that!

Some of Capt Haddock's drunken antics in The Crab With the Golden Claws are disturbing, when seen out of context.

The worst is when he hits Tintin over the head with an empty whisky bottle.