Tintin Forums

I agree with the previous poster. A lot of people, for some odd reason, tend to overlook King Ottokar's Sceptre. The fictional country of Syldavia is so wonderfully detailed, in every aspect. It can pose as virtually any Balkan country in the average mind. The satirical intonations towards the Anschluss are excellent as well. Herge's artwork is beautiful, and is only enhanced by the aid he received from E.P. Jacobs (just look at the walls of Kropow Castle)

While it's not a reason that I love the story so much, I do agree with you, Mitsuhirato about Hergé's subtle hints to events occurring at the time. I mean, the leader of Borduria, Musstler! Mussolini and Hitler anyone?

Well, everyone saying how much they believe that Seven Crystal Balls is a masterpiece only strenghtens my belief that it is indeed overrated.
Don't get me wrong, it's great, but it's not a touch on Tibet or Calculus Affair in my mind.

But you asked if someone could explain to you what "The Seven Crystal Balls" has that makes it so special. We've done that, and it would only be overrating it if the book were bad in the first place, which it isn't. "Tintin in Tibet", in my opinion, is the best book in the series, it's a masterpiece that is unlike any other Tintin book, yet works perfectly in the series. Breathtaking artwork and a simple yet captivating storyline contribute to its success. I think "The Calculus Affair" is superb too, but I would have to place Crystal Balls ahead of it.

I can see your point about it - that the artwork isn't as technical as in the later books, and the story moves at a slower pace, but as the first part of a double album, it's permitted to take its time in telling the story. The artwork, too, works perfectly for the story. There is still plenty of detail, technically accurate vehicles etc., beautiful scenery work, and the story leads perfectly into "Prisoners of the Sun".

Furthermore, if you take into account the number of complications that Hergé faced - having started the story as miniscule newspaper strips, then a couple of interruptions during its run, then being stopped completely, Hergé being imprisoned a few times, and eventually getting the certificate that permitted him to work again, and ultimately resumed the story in full colour in "Tintin" magazine, then having to recast it all for final album publication- the book is remarkably accomplished.

It's quite difficult to say which is the most underrated - I think most of them are! But I agree with some of the ones mentioned so far.

I'd personally add Crab to the list, I noticed it doesn't feature high in most of the ratings on the forum but I think it's an underrated work (I have the french b/w facsimile and it's far superior to the colour IMO, much bolder). And a good story too of course :)

I actually reckon the most overrated book is Congo. I think it's controversial nature has given it a certain curiosity value, together with the iconic image of Tintin in a jungle-trekking outfit carrying a gun. But as much as I love the colour artwork nothing much really happens - in fact the story is pretty non-existent !

I think the same can be said of Soviets for the same reasons. It seems that in those books it's almost as if the idea of Tintin going to the Soviets or Congo is actually greater than the work itself. I don't see either of them as great works (some of the other earlier ones aren't great either but they're not so overrated) nor do I believe they would stand up on their own without the rest of the canon to prop them up!

Fair enough Richard. And sorry, it must be infuriating for you to spend all that time explaining why you like a particluar episode only to have someone say "well, seeing as so many people like it, it MUST be overrated"!

I didn't mean it quite like that, but I just found that all these people jumping on me and saying "but Seven Crystal Balls is my favourite!" kind of exaggerated my opinion of it.

Unfortunately, when it comes to comparing masterworks such as Tintin books (a very difficult task!), I can't afford to take such factors into consideration such as the outbreak of war, or even that it is the first part of a two-parter.

The question in my mind is - does this book grip me and sustain my attention for all 62 pages while being technicaly proficient and work as a stand alone album?

In Prisoners of the Sun (also half a complete work), the answer to all these questions is a resounding 'Yes'!

In Seven Crystal Balls it's a 'yes' to most and a 'sort of' to the rest. Hence, while I adore it, I can't bring myself to place it in the top echelon of Tintin books.

And by the way, there's no doubt in my mind either that Tintin In Tibet is the jewel of the Tintin crown.
It is completely unsurpassed in the series in almost every way - and that's saying a lot considering the context!

I agree that Tintin in Tibet is probably the 'best' album, but, like Soviets and Congo, the effect Tibet has on us would be nowhere near as great if we didn't have the context of the other stories to place it into. The main reason it's so good is because of how unique it is for Tintin.

Re: Harrock's point that Soviets, and in particular Congo, are overrated. I didn't think that either were that highly rated in the first place. I know I didn't think much of them as stories. I enjoy them as they are part of Tintin and are very interesting reads for a Tintin fan as they show the early workings of Hergé and how Tintin evolved. I never rated them highly in terms of the story though.

Most overrated is Castafiore Emerald by a long way. It's dull and the ending is awful. It has some nice moments but somewhere along the way someone decided it was really clever what Herge had done and that if u didn't see it you weren't a real herge fan. I really dislike it.


Jockosjungle is quite right. "The Castafiore Emerald" is relatively bland and seems to have no real purpose (except to talk about a farcical visit, which Herge at his best). Basically Tintin and his friends just stay at Marlinspike and do nothing exciting like going to another country. The other adventures were by far more interesting. How odd that most of the games in "The Tintin Games Book" are centered on that adventure.

going beack to the original question:

overrated: I would have to say The Shooting Star (even though i gave it a 7/10 mark on the ratings question). It got a lot of high marks on that poll, so it shows that people must rate it quite highly. I think that it is a little bit dull.

underrated: The Castafiore Emerald. It is a great book, full of intrigue, humour and wit. It is a great adventure in which "nothing really happens". It is also similar to my favourite TV show "Seinfeld". A show which was famously called "The show about nothing".

First of all I must say that Hergé really was a master that he could create books that would be liked by anyone and that everyone could have his own favorites despite being quite different sometimes.

I would say that some books that seems to be a bit under rated is Cigars of the pharao, The broken ear, Destination moon and Flight 714.

For me the pace and sometimes weirdness of Cigars is topnotch and I really like the whimsical professor, the annoying detectives that keep nagging Tintin an the totally odd thing as speaking with elephants and jumping on fat persons bellys to clear walls.

The detective story in Broken ear is spellbinding (even though the fetish is just a Hitchcockian Macguffin) and the hunt for it is somewhat lost in the middle part of the book. Another thing which make it stand out is that we actually see the crooks sort of die and that is no question that they do. (As oppose to the snowballs in Prisoners of the sun where we can't be sure they are really killed.)

The first part of the moon-adventure is far better then the second part and has some of the best comical scenes of all books.

In Flight 714 I really enjoyed that Carreidas is also kind of a shady character, cheating at games, stealing and so on. The Erich von Daniken inspired parts are truly mindprovoking and was my first glimpse in to the great mystery of that we might not be alone in the universe.

The over rated books by my taste is The Castafiore emerald and Tintin in Tibet.

I do enjoy the comical scenes in Emerald but the overall plot is boring and the end is dissatisfying. I know that some consider it to be an absolute masterpiece but I can't really see it. I think that my biggest problem with the story is two things, I want to see exciting places (though Moulinsart is a cool house) and have at least one clear defined villain doing the evil deeds.

Tibet has the same major problem as Emerald for me, no villain. The straight forward search and rescue doesn't really make me care. Tintin only met Chang once some 30 years earlier and I have trouble seeing that they would keep up the contact after all this time. I know that there are some real world factors tied to this story, but in the book it doesn't work, for me anyway.

Well as I said in the beginning the good part is that we all could find our own favorites, and I do enjoy all books, just not equally much. And in the later lesser books there is always Haddock to lift things up, which Tintin in Congo sure could have benefited from. (No disrespect for Milou's antics in Congo.)