rossn
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Post by rossn on Sept 18, 2018 17:26:03 GMT -5
The Seven Crystal Balls (French: Les Sept Boules de Cristal) Original publication dates: December 1943 – September 1944/September 1946 – December 1946 First collected edition: 1948 Author: Hergé Tintin visits: Belgium (Brussels, Marlinspike), France (Saint-Nazaire [renamed Westermouth], La Rochelle). Overall rating: As always a great review Confessor. I love the level of research you do! Having only just returned from a family holiday in Greece where I saw the ruins of Mycenae among much else (including the so-called Mask of Agamemnon) the whole idea of archaeology vs. grave robbery is maybe playing a little more on me now than it would before. Still, I'm the type of person who does get intensely uncomfortable with seeing mummies (or human remains generally really) on display in museums. In any case it definitely makes this story even more unsettling than it already is, and I'd probably place it second only to The Shooting Star on the eerie-est Tintin stories. Another aspect that I found intriguing is that this story seems to have two independent supernatural acts going on; the obvious one is the witchcraft with the archaeologists but we also have Madame Yamilah's apparently genuine clairvoyance. Suddenly Tintin's world seems just that little more mysterious and strange. It feels very much of its time (in a good way.) I have a deep fondness for the pulp era-trappings of early-mid Tintin and even if I'd give Red Rackham's Treasure slightly higher points for sheer beauty and charm this is still an effective tale. I can't disagree that the comedy feels a slightly odd fit at times but the individual scenes are strong enough to give it a pass there.
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rossn
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Post by rossn on Aug 14, 2018 15:20:24 GMT -5
What happened to Captain Haddock's mouth? Kissing sort of needs one (well more than one.)
It looks like Tintin is studying Archibald's mustache for a stray fragment of breakfast caught in his whisker.
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rossn
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Post by rossn on Jul 27, 2018 9:11:24 GMT -5
Red Rackham's Treasure (French: Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge) Original publication dates: February 1943 – September 1943 First collected edition: 1944 Author: Hergé Tintin visits: Belgium (Brussels, Antwerp, Marlinspike), Caribbean Sea (unidentified island). Overall rating: Yay this thread lives! As you rightly say Confessor this is a true classic. The cover with Tintin and Snowy in the shark submersible is possibly the single most recognisable element Tintin canon and throughout the book Hergé gives those unerseascapes a marvelous sense of place. Appropriately enough the world beneath the brine is a murky green-blue, with even the sand cast in a green light but Hergé still finds endless ways to introduce light and life down here from the knotted seaweed to the striking red fish to gold and cream jellyfish. And of course the two toned submersible. It is wonderfully done, as are the scenes on the island. As you rightfully say this is a paen to exploration and in some ways the most romantic (in the sense of 'the romance of the sea' or the 'romance of adventure'. It might be favourite work of the Tintin as Explorer era. The great introduction here is Professor Calculus. As you say Hergé manages to work the comedy of the character well. What I particularly like is that the joke is not so much Cuthbert's deafness as his obstinate refusal to recognise it, probably out of sheer vanity. It is the personality flaw rather than the physical ailment that is what makes it work. One thing that amuses me is how long it takes Haddock to get annoyed about the treasure; for a long time he is perfectly delighted to recover the antique rum - and why not? It might not be up there with gold doubloons but the unopened bottles are actually worth something! All in all this is just a classic mix of adventure, comedy and a wonderful old fashioned adventure yarn. I can see why in some ways it feels a trifle light weight after that biting satire of the 1930s but as a pulp tale it is bursting with charm!
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rossn
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Post by rossn on Jul 10, 2018 17:25:13 GMT -5
I really want to say Clark Kent's better half and the world's greatest reporter (1938 to present): But as much as I have a huge crush on Lois Lane, and as gorgeous as she is usually drawn I'm not sure she's meant to be a world-class knockout in the actual DCU rather than being 'merely' pretty.
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rossn
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Post by rossn on Jul 5, 2018 11:48:00 GMT -5
I'm not the first to say it but Tintin of course! Honourable mention:
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rossn
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Post by rossn on May 31, 2018 5:07:24 GMT -5
I saw this in the newspaper weeks ago and finally got a chance to post it now: Hah, I love it! Great find!
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rossn
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Post by rossn on May 26, 2018 6:41:37 GMT -5
It's ended once already in Return of the Jedi. The end of the Dark Empire trilogy is another suitable ending (even though the EU was in full swing at that point). Disney's Episode IX will hopefully be another ending. Obviously Star Wars is a huge business and business demands endless product/content, but a story needs an ending. I always thought RoTJ was the start of the next chapter, even when I was a kid seeing it in the theatre. Yes, it's the end of Vader's story, but certainly not the end. Could everything been summed up with a happy ending 10 minute epilogue? Sure. But I'm glad we got the EU instead Well said! There is a great moment at the beginning of the Thrawn Trilogy where Obi-Wan and Luke have their last conversation together (eerily mirroring that between Yoda and Luke in The Last Jedi): Luke: "Then I am alone. I am the last of the Jedi." Obi-Wan: "Not the last of the old Jedi, Luke. The first of the new." The Thrawn Trilogy is about discovery, about rebuilding what was lost while sometimes painfully letting go. Yes Thrawn is a wonderful, memorable villain but the actual main villain in the Thrawn books is Joruus C'aobth, the false mentor and the key point in the series is that Luke fails to redeem him despite his best efforts. Not because of any flaw in Luke but because Joruus has no interest or capacity for such redemption. Not everyone can be Anakin Skywalker, reborn in the Light. Instead Luke redeems Mara Jade, the assassin, a creature of the Emperor in ways even Vader was not. And he does it not by provoking an ache of sympathy but by inspiration, by being the Jedi. I think it is very important to the series that Mara doesn't turn good by falling in love with Luke (and I say this as someone who shipped them and still does). He wins her over because he makes her realise she could be better, should be better.
Anyway, I came to Dark Empire quite late because even though I was a huge fan of Star Wars in the 1990s it was mostly via the novels rather than the comics. Technically they are all set in the same continuity but with Dark Empire (and Dark Empire 2) wedged in between the Thrawn Trilogy and the Kevin J. Anderson books it was easy to lose place. I did also have a lot of books for the Star Wars D6 roleplaying game, which incidentally had a sourcebook for Dark Empire. When I finally got around to reading it I already knew 'what happened' since I had read Jedi Search (which chronologically took place the following year in-universe) but it was certainly interesting. The art design struck me as very unusual and it was a bit of a shock moving from Zahn's more small scale, humanised (with an alien leader) Empire on the ropes to the epic juggernaut of the comics but there definitely something to be said for the epic quality and scale of the story. I'm looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts!
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rossn
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Post by rossn on Apr 20, 2018 11:19:10 GMT -5
For a thread about Dragons there is far too little Dungeons & _ here.
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rossn
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Post by rossn on Mar 27, 2018 11:09:10 GMT -5
Thanks Confessor, thread officially bookmarked!
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Post by rossn on Mar 25, 2018 5:23:16 GMT -5
The Secret of the Unicorn (French: Le Secret de La Licorne) Original publication dates: June 1942 – January 1943 First collected edition: 1943 Author: Hergé Tintin visits: Belgium (Brussels, Marlinspike). Overall rating: Yay it's back! Sorry I didn't comment earlier but great to see you continuing these reviews Confessor! I like this book a lot. Maybe a little less than it's sequel with it's gorgeous locales but I do like it. The epic sea battle (both the recreation and the good Captain acting it out in the present) is one of my favourite scenes in the series. Also I think as Harry Thompson pointed out in his book this was basically our last glimpse of the early Tintin, living alone in his flat with Snowy and Brussels based. Together with it's sequel there is a real transitionary feel at play here. I never got the flea market joke until now! When I was young I used to own the Belgian cartoon version of this (and Red Rackham's Treasure) . Since I also owned the books there was some mental disconect between the sophisticated mystery in the original work and the more... uh... fast paced work in animation! I've seen and like the Spielberg film, but I want to save my thoughts on that for the next review.
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rossn
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Post by rossn on Jan 5, 2018 8:47:41 GMT -5
And that comes to my one minor complaint of the issue... my would Luke go to Tatoinne to look for a pilot? We've already had him other places that were bigger and more likely to have candidates.. while I appreciate the excuse to have him go home again, since it made for a good story, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the bigger picture. The only way I figure it is if Gen. Dodonna was really just getting him out from underfoot so he wouldn't worry about Leia, which now that I write it DOES make a fair amount of sense . One of the Expanded Universe books ( Tales From The Mos Eisley Cantina I think) has a character think to himself that there are only two important things to Tatooine that the galaxy at large would register: (a) Jabba the Hutt lives there (which attracts a lot of smuggler pilots) and (b) it produces a lot of good pilots in it's own right. The explanation for (b) is that moisture farms are so spread out that to stay in touch with the neighbours a lot of kids pick up piloting skills. The movies by the way give us two Tatooine native pilots (Luke obviously, but also Biggs Darklighter.)
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Post by rossn on Dec 31, 2017 9:03:25 GMT -5
Great to see this wonderful thread still gets buzz. Cool to get your insights wildfire2099. I think I'm definitely in the 'I like it, but...' camp regarding "Princess Alone". The sheer Orwellian nature of the planet feels a little off model from the Empire we know. If anything it would probably fit better with the Corporate Sector Authority Brian Daley introduced in Han Solo at Stars' End earlier the same year (1979). It is great to get a Leia-centric adventure though and I agree the Alderaan cover story is a neat idea.
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rossn
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Post by rossn on Sept 19, 2017 10:35:09 GMT -5
Yeah, good idea contrasting it against The Blue Lotus. The Shooting Star really has a very different vibe to it and is actually much bleaker; it really must've felt like the end of the world as they knew it for those in occupied Europe during the Second World War. Exactly. I suppose the difference was that Hergé was forced to live through the occupation himself. I have a lot of love for The Blue Lotus and it's definitely a great condemnation of Fascists but there is a distance there that there isn't in The Shooting Star. The soldiers suddenly weren't a continent away, they were patrolling just outside the window. I guess this book also fits really well with King Ottokar's Scepter. There was a lot of paranoia in that book about what was coming - of course that makes The Crab With the Golden Claws feel even more slight sandwiched between the two (I'll talk about The Land of Black Gold when we get there - I know it was started and abandoned because of the war.) It really is. I think Harry Thompson mentioned in Tintin: Herge and His Creation that we actually get to know Haddock better than we get to know Tintin. Haddock is a man with old seadog friends he's know for years (this book), ancestors and a family history ( The Secret of the Unicorn) and a first name ( Tintin and the Picaros.) Tintin is much more of a blank in that regard, but you really get the feeling Haddock came from somewhere. By the way I've been thinking about how I'd categorise the Tintin timeline and how this book fits in. There is a definite 'Primitive Tintin' era that runs through Cigars of the Pharaoh followed by a much more sophisticated run of 'Early Tintin' from The Blue Lotus through King Ottokar's Scepter. The Crab with the Golden Claws and this book feel transitionary here, heading into the 'Classic Tintin' era marked by the very pulpy two parters coming up (I'd probably peg 'Classic Tintin' as ending with The Red Sea Sharks after which the series shifted into a more experimental late period - 'Mature Tintin'.)
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rossn
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Post by rossn on Sept 19, 2017 6:45:01 GMT -5
The Shooting Star (French: L'Étoile mystérieuse) Original publication dates: October 1941 – May 1942 First collected edition: 1942 Author: Hergé Tintin visits: Belgium (Brussels, Antwerp), Iceland (Akureyri), Arctic Circle. Overall rating: Ah, great review of a great book! Though not quite one of my top tier favourites it is very good. Of all the war era books I think The Shooting Star carries the feel of war the most. That might sound strange given the absence of German soldiers, u-boats and Heinkel bombers from the pages but I think you are very right to point out to the atmosphere pervading the first third of the book Confessor. Brussels has never felt so claustrophobic and our hero has never seemed so helpless against a threat. It makes a fascinating contrast with The Blue Lotus, the other iconic 'Tintin in wartime' adventure. In that volume Tintin is able to do something against the Japanese occupiers, if only in a small way. Here he is helpless against the meteorite. In Lotus Shanghai was full of bayonets, barbed wire and armoured cars racing through the streets. Again the threat is much more abstract here. It is a fascinating difference. The bulk of the book is an exciting race against time followed by the surreal adventures on the island. It's thrilling stuff, even if it can't live up to the eeriness of the opening. As you say Captain Haddock is a much more 'heroic' character here, away from the pitiful man we saw in the previous book. A good argument could be made that Haddock as we know him - the irascible, hopelessly unlucky but still heroic character - arrives here and that The Crab With the Golden Claws is more of a trial balloon. Incidentally that panel with Haddock cheerfully manning the wheel in the middle of a gale little draught is one of my favourite character pieces in the series. Tintin's surprise and disbelief, Snowy's dizziness, Haddock's genial reaction and the crazy slant of the Aurora all combine wonderfully, though as you say the whole sequence is great.
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rossn
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Post by rossn on Aug 12, 2017 13:41:12 GMT -5
In absolute fairness Clark has been called on his jerkishness at times. Like back in his Superboy days when he was turned into a girl for being a mysgyonist: Out of curiosity, what issue of Superboy does this adventure took place ... anybody can help me! Superboy #78 (Jan 1960). It's a fun story especially if you like gender flip comedy and as I noted Superboy gets a lesson he deserved (I'm actually a big fan of Silver Age Superman/Superboy but he did need taking down a peg or two occasionally.)
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