When it seemed like spending time in Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam would be a little too ambitious for the time we had, we cut out Brussels as an overnight stay. Instead, I made plans for a day trip from Paris in order to visit my holy grail, the Musée Hergé in Louvain-la-Neuve, about an hour […]

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Amidst all of the work in the run-up to the show and my ever-increasing marathon training as the big day (March 21, 38 days from today) approaches, I haven’t had a chance to reflect on the passage of another year — which is probably for the best. After our weekend in Palm Springs last week, […]

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Back when I lived in Connecticut, I returned after a summer away to discover that the basement, where I’d been storing my stuff for the summer, had flooded, and my photos, books, and film journals had been soaked. In some cases they were salvageable, and in other cases, I had to chuck them. So, I […]

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Just like clockwork, and within fifteen minutes of the day and time our judge had predicted a month ago, our trial ended today, and I finished reading the last of the 24 Tintin books Hergé wrote. We’d been deliberating for half a day prior to today, and I figured we’d be done, so I took […]

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I backtracked a bit to finish up the completed, published canon of Tintin adventures today with Flight 714, a strange and entertaining book that takes Tintin into the realm of mental telepathy and aliens, though it’s not quite as corny as it sounds. I read the book on my lunch break on the Santa Monica […]

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Two signs that we’re nearing the end: we heard closing arguments in the case, and Tintin’s wearing jeans. In fact, it’s a little premature; I grabbed the wrong book on the way out the door this morning, the last completed Tintin book, Tintin and the Picaros, instead of the one I should have, Flight 714. […]

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The Castafiore Emerald was certainly our least favorite of the Tintin books as kids. I remember consciously skipping over the book as I picked through the shelf to choose one to re-read; it just didn’t interest very much, and I think I was a little turned off by Tintin’s gaze on the cover, as though […]

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Tintin in Tibet almost needs no introduction. It’s perhaps the best-known of the Tintin books, and was the author’s favorite of his creations. It’s unique among the canon as a book with very few characters, no villains, and no crime or intrigue; it’s simply the story of Tintin’s steadfast search for his friend Chang, lost […]

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Tintin books of this period, in the height of the Cold War, seemed to be filled with political intrigue rather than simply adventure, and in The Red Sea Sharks, the topics are arms trafficking, the slave trade, and a Middle Eastern rebellion. As the canon gets larger, Hergé also takes every opportunity he has to […]

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Another disjointed day at jury duty means I read this book at the table at home, rather than at lunch in some Santa Monica location as usual. The Calculus Affair may be my favorite Tintin book, a page-turning political adventure full of action and intrigue, hidden foes and tight escapes. The book returns to the […]

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While it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of seeing the first man to walk on the moon, decades before Apollo 11, Destination Moon strikes me as being interesting for a few other reasons. It’s the most artistically daring of the books so far, with a much more varied landscape of layouts than […]

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So quickly after the Unicorn / Rackham two-fer, we’re on to the other best-known, most admired set in the canon, the Moon books. Destination Moon, like Secret of the Unicorn, is all about preparation, getting ready for the voyage, and leaves us hanging at the end, even more than the earlier book does, as the […]

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My third week (really?) of jury duty began today, and after a few long runs this weekend, my legs were pretty tired on the bike ride to Santa Monica, but it’s probably good for me, or something. I rode down Main Street and to the beach to read at lunch. It’s amazing how different the […]

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It’s been a busy weekend, with two long-ish runs and a few hours spent at work trying to make up for lost time. It was the end of the day today by the time I had gotten around to today’s Tintin, so it was some bedtime reading. This sequel to The Seven Crystal Balls continues […]

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Hergé followed up the two part “sunken treasure” series with another two-parter, the “Incan curse” duo of The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun. The book is a real page-turner, but it’s interesting to me that it is almost exclusively a part of the two-book set; on its own, there’s not a whole […]

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