Order you think Tintin should be read in

Hello! I was wondering what order you think the Tintin books should be read in.

Here's my idea for an order:

1. The Crab with the Golden Claws

2. The Shooting Star

3. Cigars of the Pharaoh

4. The Blue Lotus

5. The Secret of the Unicorn

6. Red Rackham's Treasure

7. The Broken Ear

8. King Ottokar's Sceptre

9. The Seven Crystal Balls

10. Prisoners of the Sun

11. The Black Island

12. Destination Moon

13. Explorers on the Moon

14. Land of Black Gold

15. Tintin in America

16. The Calculus Affair

17. Tintin in Tibet

18. The Red Sea Sharks

19. Flight 714 to Sydney

20. The Castafiore Emerald

21. Tintin and the Picaros

That looks like a reasonable order to me, though I would put

"Cigars of the Pharaoh" and
"The Blue Lotus" at the top of the list.

It is in those books that Tintin first meets the Thompsons and that Herge starts to develop his supporting cast.

Ideally, you should read them in the actual order of publication, but then your list does put the best at the top, so go for it.

Yes, mct16, I thought of putting Cigars of the Pharaoh and Blue Lotus first, but I lend them out to kids I know, and I've found that they seem to get a lot more interested when they meet Captain Haddock right off. That said, some of the children that love Tintin the most started with Cigars or King Ottokar's Sceptre.

Well, my first insight into Tintin was as a kid in the 1990s watching the cartoon adaptation of 'Tintin in Tibet'.

Then my first book was 'Flight 714'.

So, according to your list, I'm a bit backward, hah!

I would argue that there is definitely a point in starting with 'The Crab' for the sake of Haddock and Tintin's essential friendship. Hergé also develops Snowy's character in this one too.

I would also argue that reading them chronologically in publication order is effective for the sake of understanding the development of the narratives themselves, across the context of world history as it unraveled throughout the twentieth century. Certainly, as Hergé matured throughout life, so did Tintin.

So, my answer to your initial question? Start someone out with one of the most exciting adventures, then get them going from 'The Broken Ear' in chronological order. When they get to a point that they understand the ins and outs of Tintin, they'll be at a place more mature themselves to more effectively come to terms with the earlier adventures – then leave Alph Art to the very end, but not because it's any worse of a narrative, at which point they'll have a better understanding of Hergé, who he was and how he worked.

For the record, I innocently loved the 'Congo' when I was a kid and was enough of a Tintin fan to be amused at the humour throughout these first two adventures. I might argue that the 'Soviet Union' adventure actually had a pretty good narrative structure overall.