Tintin Forums

I chose to post this in a new thread or many would have missed it.

These are the final scores of the poll conducted by Tintinologist.org members over nearly 4 years, here.

Several members wished to see the average score of each, so I did it, and there you go.

Before you look at your favorite book's ranking, I must say that I have only included Hergé's books, with the exception of Alph-Art, which was never completed, and so any votes for it would be purely sentimental.

In ascending order, starting from the lowest scoring book:

#23 Tintin in the Congo - 4.41 (my poor favorite book came last!)

#22 Tintin in the Land of the Soviets - 4.68 (at disadvantage as it never saw light in colour)

#21 Tintin in America - 5.51 (what? not sophisticated, but tons of fun to read!)

#20 The Broken Ear - 6.96 (another bad one for me. I like early solo adventures)

#19 The Shooting Star - 6.99

#18 Flight 714 - 7.17 (further proof that this book is not as good as many believe)

#17 Tintin and the Picaros - 7.25 (similar, hardly out of the bottom 1/3)

#16 The Castafiore Emerald - 7.27 (I expected it to be in the top 10)

#15 The Crab with the Golden Claws - 7.37

#14 The Cigars of the Pharaoh - 7.48 (my Cigars :D)

#13 Land of Black Gold - 7.54 (hope one day English speaking world would get it in its original politically charged format)

#12 King Ottokar's Sceptre - 7.69

#11 The Black Island - 7.71 (I wanted to see it in the top 3. Maybe after you read the charming 1943 original?)

#10 The Red Sea Sharks - 7.79 (one of my bottom 3!!)

#9 Destination Moon - 7.97

#8 Explorers on the Moon - 8.02

#7 Red Rackham's Treasure - 8.13 (my first book and the reason I became a fan)

#6 The Secret of The Unicorn - 8.15

#5 The Seven Crystal Balls - 8.17

#4 The Blue Lotus - 8.66

****** Ready for the top three?******

#3 Prisoners of the Sun - 8.74

#2 Tintin in Tibet - 8.87 (was in a heated competition with the winner, which is......)

#1 The Calculus Affair - 8.9

I really hope you find it useful as it took me quite some time to finish.

Correction: this merely illustrates that this book is a least favourite for many people but it has absolutely nothing to do with whether it is good or bad. "Good" or "bad" are totally abstract concepts and subject to anyone's point of view as people tend to define these two terms based on different standards. Besides, the poll was about voting for our favourites, not for those which we consider the best. Otherwise my top 5 list would have been different since my favourites are not always the ones that I consider the best. I think that Flight 714 is an excellent story with great drawings but despite being a second favourite of mine I wouldn't place it as number 2 on my top 5 best list. And in any case I believe that many people (myself included) love all the books (or at least most of them) and even those with the lowest ratings are not considered to be bad; they are all very good books, it is just that some are regarded as less good than others.

Other than that, good job and many thanks for posting the results.

I might need a wizard to explain this statement to me. So, people think it's a one of the best books, yet it's one of their least favorites? I appreciate the enthusiasm that made you start your fantastic statement with "correction", but this is just.... Well, never mind.

Oh well, the poll was not about which book was good or bad. It was all about a book being least favourite or most favourite. Of course, that doesn't mean that a book with a lower average is bad.

Also, this poll is insignificant and cannot be considered as a detailed survey that considers all the virtues of any book as regards to the story, drawing, humour, drama, suspense, thrill, action, etc...

Anyway, thanks for the results. Now we know that "The Calculus Affair" ranks higher on users' favourite list.

People may favor a book that is not really good for many reasons, I mean my favorite one is Congo which I'm under no illusion of being a good book. But for the life of me I can't figure out why people would rate a book they think is very good in story, drawing, humour, drama, suspense, thrill, action, etc... so law it goes to the bottom?

Anyhow, you all seem to have missed a little thing: the thread these results are from is called "rate the books", and inside, the original poster said "tell us what you think of all 24 books". Rating things according to what you think of them is absolutely not choosing your favorites.

When someone asks you to tell them what you think of Tintin albums, naturally it means what you think of the content (story, drawing, humour, drama, suspense, thrill, action, etc). Not that you think X is your favorite and that you think Y is your next favorite. Had it been your favorites, then people would have arranged them from top to bottom, but when people give them ratings out of ten, many giving two books the same score and many not giving any a certain rate, then we are talking about perceived quality of the books, not favorites.

Let me elaborate even more: When someone rates a book 10, then not rate any book a 9, and gives another an 8. According to your "favorite" theory this means that the first book is his favorite, and he has no second favorite, and the other book is his third favorite. Does it make sense? Nopes, the ratings then are representing the quality as the rater sees it.

Hope this helps.

Yeah exactly! Some people may rate a book higher for its story; some may rate the same book lower for its humour. Not all people think alike.

Even overall rating can be decided on a context with unequal significance to each aspect. Its all about individual outlook.

Oh dear, I am so sorry, I thought these were the results for the top 5 favourites poll at
https://www.tintinologist.org/forums/index.php?action=vthread&forum=1&t opic=2470

Silly me, I only had a quick look at the page. In fact I never voted for that one. So forget what I said, it just shows fans's opinion on it.


I think this becomes clearer with examples: I have never been a fan of the Lord of the Rings movies but trying to be as objective as possible I cannot possibly give any of them a low rating since I cannot really find anything wrong with their quality; it is just that the theme doesn't appeal to me. On the other hand I have always loved, say, the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy but this also doesn't mean that I will give the two sequels a higher rating than the Lord of the Ring sequels because although I like the PoTC movies more, I do tend to find more faults with them as movies (but I do enjoy the action and characters nevertheless).

Or, one of my favourite Disney animated movies is "Hercules" which is hilarious but although it is on my top 5 favourite animated movies list, I would never put it on my top 10 best animated movies list because I just don't find in it all that it takes to deserve such a place. On the other hand, I have never been particularly keen on Miyazaki's critically acclaimed "Spirited Away" and "Princess Mononoke" as none of them has a storyline I care much about. But just because I don't like them I cannot possibly say that they are bad when they are so meticulously crafted and I cannot give them anything less than 5 stars out of 5.

If I were to vote for the top 5 best Tintin books (and not necessarily favourites), my list would have included "Tintin in Tibet", "The Black Island", "Prisoners of the Sun", "Explorers on the Moon" and "Red Rackham's Treasure". Now these are the best in my opinion (although I am sure that others have a different list) and from these, only "Explorers on the Moon" is also on my top 5 favourites list. But I do love all of them anyway (except "Tintin on Congo" and I so far I have not read "Land of the Soviets") so it is not too difficult trying to be a fair judge in this case.

Just to clarify, I am not saying that most people love Flight 714 but gave it a low rating nevertheless just because they wanted to be fair. Many people just don't like it and find more faults with it than I do. Like I said, it is one of my favourites but it does have a few (in my opinion minor) weaknesses in the plot compared to other Tintin albums which is why I wouldn't place it among the very best. But although I really dislike Tintin in Congo, I still don't want to let my animosity towards it affect my judgement and I wouldn't give it anything less than 6 out of 10 simply because of its historical value in the world of comics. And in real life I only know one person apart from me who really likes "The Castafiore Emerald" (everyone else I know thought it was the dullest Tintin book ever with no action whatsoever) so it really depends on who you ask.

Pharaoh
#18 Flight 714 7.17 (further proof that this book is not as good as many believe)

I think Vicky was right to correct your use of the word "proof", Pharaoh. It's an odd word to use. Surely other peoples' opinions about a book - whether they're naming their personal favourites or objectively stating what they think is the best - can never actually prove anything about the book; the opinions merely prove what those people believe. Jane Austen, and most readers of her day, believed that Walter Scott's books were better than hers. It doesn't prove that they were. These days, most people would rate Austen's books higher than Scott's, but again that doesn't automatically prove anything either. If you wanted to make an objective case (if there is such a thing) for either writer's book's being best, you'd surely have to refer to the books themselves, not to the opinions of other critics or readers, no matter how overwhelming their view.

All that said, I enjoyed your personal asides on the survey results, even when I didn't agree with you! And, as other have said, thanks for doing the maths on the survey for us. :-) It's interesting to see the collated results, even if the survey was four years ago.

No worries at all Vicky :-)


This is when it becomes interesting, because I also don't find the subject appealing at all and I actually hate those movies. I just can't say it loudly or people would lynch me. Especially that the third one was at #3 on IMDB top 250 and is now still in the top 20. That said, I try to be very fair when I rate movies, I deduct points for faults, and only give myself the right to a "1" to do what I wish with. Meaning that if a film gets 7 technically, I can reduce it to 6 if I hate it, or raise it to 8 if I love it. This is why I found it painful to give my all time favorite movie a 9 on IMDB, while I gave movies I don't really like a perfect 10 just because they were faultless.


Again, you are identical to me. Same goes with my favorite people: some fans of a certain star go and give all their work a 10. But I do not do this. My favorite actress, Jennifer Connelly, whom I once met in London and was charmed by her personality, never got a 10 from me. With choices such as "Dark Water" and "Blood Diamond", my hands are tied to lower ratings than I would LOVE to give her.

I do not want to turn this into a movie chat or I might get banned ;) But if you would like to share vote histories and chat more about movies, just drop me a line at j.t@dbzmailDOTCOM (replace the DOTCOM with a .com)


Me, if I was choosing my top favorite 5, they would not be the ones I rated higher at that thread. I would go like #1 Congo, #2 America #3 Broken Ear #4 Black Island and #5 Castafiore. Not all of them are of good quality, but I tend to love the simplicity and ease of reading of the first ones. You need to be in a certain state of mind to read a powerful story like Tibet, but give me America any time and I'll be laughing like a baby....


Huh?? Look at my list of favorite 5 above. This is one great story and i love the simplicity of going through adventures in the safety of Marlinspike. This is like the difference between two comidies: La Vita A Bella, and Home Alone. Both make me laugh, but one will have my mind rushing with tens of documentries and years of studies of WW2, while the other is a relaxing fun that I used to watch during College days when I felt my head was going to explode with numbers and tables.

Thanks for all :)


Vicky was referring to something else.

I do agree though that it does not "prove" anything. The word was absolutely misplaced by myself. Let me replace it with "indication". This I stand by ;-)


Thanks for the kind words :-) I think being 4 years old makes it more credible. No one can accuse us of rigging the vote now :-D

Good, exhaustive work, O great Pharaoh. It must have taken a long time for you to process all of that data.