Tintin in America (The Adventures of Tintin)

Rating:
Summary: Two against the Underworld
Review: 1931: Herge's Chicago is a city where policemen snap to attention when a gangster comes along. But the world-famous reporter Tintin is en route to put a stop to their activities and the underworld shivers with fear. Al Capone orders his underlings to sweep away this dangerous fellow. Soon our young whiz and his gifted fox-terrier Milou lay Al Capone by the heels. How unfortunate for Tintin that the police does not believe his story...

Capone's competitor Bobby Smiles is a more cunning adversary: He even tries to persuade Tintin to enter his service! Smiles walks into Tintin's trap - bootleg whisky serves as bait - then slips through his fingers. Tintin pursues him as far as the hunting ground of Native Americans, but Smiles is an ingenious agitator. Page 29 contains a sad history lesson: Tintin discovers an oil spring and is assailed with requests to sell it. He informs his prospective customers that the spring belongs to the Native Americans. One of them gives the Chief $25 and orders him to leave his territory. The Chief thinks the man is crazy, but one hour later armed forces expropriate the tribe. Three hours later a bank is built and next morning a traffic-officer cautions Tintin because he tried to cross the street at rush-hour...

In Cactusland, Tintin is mistaken for a bank robber. The lynching mob is eager but maladroit. The sheriff decides to save Tintin but have a couple of drinks first while listening to the radio: 24 banks closed - 24 bankers arrested. 44 lynchings. 35 kidnappings. Illegal booze confiscaded - 28 police officers in hospital...Tintin is also fastened to a railway track and nearly drowned in Lake Michigan. He gets acquainted with a gang of kidnappers who dognap Milou for a ransom and a private eye of the type they don't make anymore. My favorite moment: A gangster who works in a cannery pushes Tintin in a meat grinder where he is spiced with salt, pepper and garlic. But he is saved when the workers go on strike because the management lowered the purchase price for the rats, cats & dogs that served to feed the nation...

Herge became politically more correct with time and most children prefer his colorful late adventures which have the advantage of a continuous plot and increasing suspense. One has to grow up to appreciate this anarchic volume properly. Herge had a great perceptive faculty and his wit is sure-hitting. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Satire and serial thrills as our heroes race through the USA
Review: Although it begins with a precise date (1931) and location (Chicago) and features a real historical figure (Al Capone), 'Tintin In America' is Herge's tribute to the mythical America of dime novels and silent serials (especially gangster stories and Westerns). There's a real 'Perils Of Pauline' quality to Tintin's misadventures, which see the young reporter and his faithful terrier Snowy attempt to clean Chicago of gangsters, and which includes trapdoors, underground passages, falls from cliffs broken by handy branches, tetherings to railway lines etc. On their arrival, the pair are plunged into a hectic series of mishaps - they are kidnapped by a mob stooge in a steel-shuttered limousine; sawing their way out, they are met by police, and give chase; just as the nabbed hood is about to squeal, he is knocked out by a boomerang, whose owner they pursue in a gun-stuttering chase which ends in the first of many vehicular accidents. Throughout, Tintin will be gassed, dumped into Lake Michigan, shot at by a professional sniper, captured by Red Indians, have his brakeless train dynamited, and be thrown into a mincer. Welcome to America!

The simple-minded pleasures of these melodrama cliches are supplemented by a sophisticated and often quite savage critique on modern America (having tackled Bolshevik Russia in the previous adventure), an America on the brink of globalising superpowerdom, a critique that invokes the past to indict the present. The Red Indian sequence at first seems in dubious taste, with the warriors easily manipulated by a gang leader into mutilating Tintin - their knee-jerk savagery and comical rituals are the sad cliches of many a Western. But in the book's most perturbing sequence, Tintin accidentally hits oil on their land; they are speedily thrown off the reservation, and oil wells, banks and a new city erected in its place; a brilliant, shocking encapsulation of the long and terrible history that underlies bright modern America. The gangster epidemic is linked to police and presidential corruption, while the tendency of famed American democracy and justice to degenerate into mob rule and lynching is unflinchingly pinpointed, as are the ecological crimes of big business. In fact, Herge sees American capitalism as a form of cannibalism - a sausage-grinding plant is a front for disposing of gangland enemies, their flesh mingled with animal meat for sale (the leader of the gang is a dead ringer for Foucault!). Conversely, Tintin is at one point rescued by a labor strike! One frame must have registered on the young Jean-Luc Godard, in which Tintin passes a landscape of car-wreckage overlooked by advertising hoardings. The irony of the story is that America, once so new, innocent, a beacon of hope where the world's oppressed could find refuge, has become as corrupt as the Old World, to which Tintin must return ito protect HIS innocence.

Herge's satirical instinct does not preclude a great love for the LOOK of America, with its precisionist skyscraperscapes, and vast prairie spaces. Herge deliberately streamlines his animation, drawing in bold, uncluttered strokes and strong, bright colours, giving some indication of the size and modernity of America, as well as its anonymity, conformity and assembly line mentality. The nocturnal scenes, in which the overall brightness becomes deeply mysterious, are particularly beautiful. I dare anyone who views the flabbergasting scene of Tintin clambering across an endless skyscrapter not to feel dizzy. Within his frames, Herge creates an extraordinary dynamism of movement. I particularly love it when characters walk on the border of the frame, as if getting ready to leap from it.

Rating:
Summary: Tintin comes to America, home of gangsters and Indians
Review: I read "Tintin in America" relatively late in my journey through the Adventures of Tintin, which might not be fair since this early work by Herge certainly pales in comparison to some of our beloved heroes later and greatest adventures (e.g., "Land of Black Gold" or "Explorers on the Moon"). From that perspective you notice that the art is a bit more cartoonish than what comes later but the most important difference is that this is basically Tintin and Snowy on their own. The wonderful cast of colorful supporting characters that end up populating the Tintin universe are not to be seen at this point, which might explain why Snowy "talks" a lot more in this early Tintin adventure than is his habit in later volumes.

While this is not a great Tintin adventure, "Tintin in America" is certainly an interesting one because of the way Herge presents America to his readers. In a manner that reminds me of Babe's fanciful vision of the big city in "Babe: Pig in the City," Herge presents the U.S. as half Chicago gangsters and half Wild Wild West cowboys and Indians. Tintin arrives in Chicago to clean up the city ruled by gangster bosses and Al Capone is not happy to see the world famous reporter. Tintin survives so many attempted gangland hits that you lose count of them, and it is a toss up whether there are more last second escapes or scenes where Tintin pulls a gun on a gangster. The perils of Tintin continue even when our hero and his faithful terrier companion make their way out West and become involved with some of the quaint customs of the local natives.

The final word would be that if you have heard people raving about Herge and Tintin, and then you start at the "beginning" (in terms of what is readily available of the Adventures of Tintin) you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. Do not fear. "Tintin in America" represents the early days when Herge was still finding his way and learning his craft. The best is yet to come after this one and the best is pretty good. Get with the program and stick to it.

Rating:
Summary: Good Tintin, though not the best by far....
Review: one of the "OK"s. the TinTin image is not yet complete. the absence of some the major later characters is a little disappointing but the magic is there.

Rating:
Summary: Tintin in America
Review: The first well known Tintin book "Tintin in America" begins where reporter Tintin and his trusty canine companion Snowy get off of a train in Chicago in order to solve a mystery. They come to investigate the doings of the largest gang in Chicago. On their way the gang finds out they're being investigated and try to stop Tintin. Tintin has many close calls and chases, and on top of that some very good luck. I reccomend this book to anyone who loves mystery, suspense, and a great comic.

Rating:
Summary: Tintin catches gangsters in the big city and the wild west
Review: Tintin and Snowy are kidnapped by Al Capone immediately after arriving in the United States. Of course they escape - and spend the rest of the book rounding up gangsters. They chase Mr Smiles from the big city to an Indian reservation and through the wild west, so you get a good variety of American adventure landscapes. Finally they return triumphant to the city and Snowy gets kidnapped. There is a sequel so you know things end happily.

This is probably my favorite Tintin book. It has a lot of ironic moments: in the first pages of the book Tintin succeeds in catching Al Capone but no one believes him, the discovery of oil turns wilderness into big city in a matter of hours, and an animal rights activist is upset that a puma is eating a deer in the wild.