Tintin Forums

Hello fellow Tintinophiles and Tintinologists!

I was wondering if you could perhaps help me out.
I know there is quite an amount of books and essays out there concerning critical and contextual analysis of the Tintin series and its diverse characters. Being the aficionados and collectors you are, I thought maybe you could help to recommend some of your favourite or what you would consider to be the most informative and in-depth literature concerning the world of Tintin - whether this would be books I could buy or online essays/articles about the series.

I'm sure that perhaps some of you may even have your own critical Tintin essays that you could recommend :]

As far as the issues covered by these analytical works are concerned, I have no biases, and would actually be interested to see works that perhaps tackle the more controversial topics sometimes raised in deconstruction of the series. Particularly, I would be very interested in seeing any analysis of the many surreal and sometimes disturbing dream sequences of the series, or anything on Captain Haddock as I find him to be easily one of the most intriguing and compelling characters of the series.

Thank you for your help!

First things first: welcome to the forum!

In answer to your question, the ones that spring the most to mind are:

Tintin and the World of Herge by Benoît Peeters
Tintin: The Complete Companion by Michael Farr

How is your French? I could recommend a few of those that you might enjoy.

Yesh, welcome to the forums! :D

Tintin: The Complete Companion by Michael Farr is a very informative book. I highly recommend you to get that one. Michael Farr also made several individual character books that goes in the characters of the story, one at a time. Though not as deep as Complete Companion, if you wish to analyze characters (for example Captain Haddock, as you said), you can also buy them. I don't think there's a specific title to these character books, but in my country they are square in shape and red in cover color. There are twelve of these individual books.
And of course, there are several articles on tintinologist.org itself! It's in the articles section.

Hope it helps! :)

Thanks for the welcome and your suggestions! These look like some great pieces on the series and definitely worth looking into.

I would be really interested in buying a copy of The Complete Companion, but I have found that it is apparently out of print and so any editions available seem to be priced from around £50 - £100.
My question now, as a student with not a very high disposable income, is this one worth its slightly higher price range?
I suppose it would also be too presumptuous of me to hope that it could resume print in a new edition when a resurgent interest in the series is brought about by the upcoming movies, is it?
Perhaps I will have to set this particular one aside as a Christmas wish...

And mct16 thank you for your offer, but unfortunately my french extends to a basic three years of high school french some 10 or more years ago! :P Though if you know of any particularly good french texts worth noting there may be English language translations of them available that I could look out for.

I would also highly recommend Harry Thompson's book Tintin: Hergé & His Creation. Whilst short on visuals it's probably one of the most readable books about Tintin.
It's witty, interesting and informative, without being dry. I hadn't read it for a few years (It came out back in 1991), but recently re-read parts of it again whilst on a train journey and was reminded how very good it is.

Sadly it's also out of print, but it can be picked up for fairly cheap if you shop around.

You mentioned you were interested in works that tackled "controversial" topics; one recent work that springs to mind (and is still available) is Tintin and the Secret of Literature by Tom McCarthy.
Admittedly I haven't read it myself, but it seems to be an attempt to "decode" the works, and search for the uncomfortable truths behind them, by way of several French literary theorists.
Some people have found it interesting, others have complained that it's pretentious, and takes all the fun out of it.

Another biographical work that comes quite highly recommended is Hergé: The Man Who Created Tintin by French author Pierre Assouline, which was published in English last year. A few people have mentioned that the English translation is lacking, but it is apparently an interesting read (still yet to read it myself).

Actually, all of the books I just mentioned are mainly about Hergé, but I think you have to know the story of Hergé to really appreciate Tintin.
That's why Harry Thompson's book is so good as it tells the story of both character and creator.

Apologies to contributor mondrian, who posted the following informative list, which accidentally got culled by mistake - the content was as follows:

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I made a quick search on few databases just to check how much English material there is available. The obvious ones (British Library, Library of Congress) only answered with usual suspects.

Surprisingly article databases such as Project Muse and Jstor gave several hundred hits for both "Tintin" and "Hergé" (full text search). While plenty of them seem to view Tintin as as tool for learning to read or/and to learn foreign languages, quite a few seem interesting. At least these seem worth a read (no, haven't had time yet, so can't comment on them any further):

Tintin and the Family Romance
Jean-Marie Apostolidès
Children's Literature, Volume 13, 1985, pp. 94-108 (Article)

From Drawing to Narrative: Contiguous Clarity in Hergé's "The Calculus Affair"
Jean-Louis Tilleuil, William Moebius, Anne Cirella-Urrutia
Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Volume 24, Number 4, Winter 1999, pp. 179-185 (Article)

Hergé and the Myth of the Superchild
Jean-Marie Apostolidès
Yale French Studies, No. 111, Myth and Modernity (2007), pp. 45-57

Family Secrets and Social Memory in "Les aventures de Tintin"
Serge Tisseron, Barbara Harshav
Yale French Studies, No. 102, Belgian Memories (2002), pp. 145-159

The articles can be read online, but unfortunately not for free. And obviously the printed editions of the journals are out there.

Oh, and the book by Assouline (even the English translation) is really good, definitely worth a read.

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