oh yeah… I started reading Tintin when I was like 7 or 8 years old? It had a pretty big impact on me bc at the time I was living in a developing nation with no TV stations, no radio in any language that I spoke, and where movies in English were shown very rarely (and in Spanish basically never). I did have access to a reasonably-good library with kid’s books in English tho. And it had a bunch of Tintins. Anyway, I thought I’d pick out a couple panels that were particularly memorable. Or just ones that I liked.
Flight 714 freaked the heck out of me. Even as a kid I’d been on a plane several times, and this one involved an incident on a plane. And if you’ve read it, you know that the story gets kind of weird…
This panel happens early in the story where Prof. Calculus/Tournesol is demonstrating his mastery of savate. As a kid I had no idea wtf savate was or anything much about martial arts but it looked intriguing and of course hilarious. Needless to say, I became well-practiced in fake kicks and pratfalls.
Such a great panel! I vividly remember laughing at this moment as a kid as well!
Love that writeup!
Weirdly, I didn’t really get in to Tintin until I was ~19yo. Those days, I had to take a long-arse bike ride to the nearest comics shop, record shop, and hobbyist shop, which were all in the same area. Along the way I happened to bump in to a cool book store, which happened to carry a bunch of Asterixes and Tintins, which was a rarity here. I did slightly remember them and Lucky Luke from childhood trips to Canada and such, and decided to give them a try.
Within a year or so, I’d almost completely fallen out of interest with American superhero stuff, and went 99% ‘alt and Euro’ in my comics. That was a long time ago, now.
In “714” I also loved how Calculus / Tournesol became enraged at Carreidas, briefly mauling him after the wealthy asshole dared to knock Cuthbert’s hat off his head. Few things are better in the series than a furious Professor, lol.
