Cozy afternoons and Tintin

Tintin’s adventures were more than just an escape

Tintin, the intrepid young reporter, travelling around the globe in search of adventure and a story, has seen a resurrection, thanks to a newly discovered strip of drawing which has set a record after being sold for a staggering 1.55 million Euros (about $2.24 million). This means, out there in the market, there are plenty of people with the wherewithal to go into an auction to own a bit of cartoon’s most enduring heroes. I sometimes feel that most of the adventures of this youthful journalist will never lose relevance because the general themes of the comic books by Herge, where the fight is against tyrants, secret organisations, smugglers, and artefact looters, will continue to plague society. Tintin, for many of us, growing up in a time when reading was emphatically encouraged by parents and society at large, was the ultimate getaway from a black and white world into a thrilling colourful one. If I remember correctly, back in the early 80s, each Tintin comic book cost Tk50, which was simply exorbitant, since, with that amount, one could easily buy at least four brand new Bengali books. While some books dealt with lost treasure and tinned cans containing narcotics instead of crab meat, there were several others. “Tin Tin and the Picaros,” which directly dealt with despotic military rulers in an imaginary Latin American country. These books struck a chord with the overall political strife here in Bangladesh, where an autocratic regime was in power. Interestingly, “Flight 714,” the 22nd volume of The Adventures of Tintin, a latter-day work by Herge, was invoked and furiously debated after the inexplicable disappearance of the Malaysian Airline plane MH370.

With no debris found, conspiracy theorists quickly pointed to a similar incident in the Tintin book where a plane carrying the journalist and his whiskey-obsessed friend Captain Haddock is hijacked and landed secretly in a remote island on a makeshift airstrip.

At that time, with plenty of theories going around, the most plausible seemed very much similar to the plot in Flight 714, where all traces of the aircraft landing are wiped clean.

Of course, in the comic book, there is direct allusion to some alien presence in the end, which, not surprisingly, was also hinted in the case of the missing Malaysian plane.

Back in my day, a wave of exhilaration went through the youth when someone informed that Filmfair Video had brought Tintin cartoons.

In fact, these were early cartoons done in black and white.

Tintin, for many of us, growing up in a time when reading was encouraged by parents and society at large, was the ultimate getaway from a black and white world into a thrilling colourful one

Thinking back, in retrospect, I feel that these comics opened social and political history to us, though laced heavily with humour and adolescent frisson.

For instance, “Blue Lotus” looks at the Japanese occupation of China in the late 30s. The two moon related books, “Destination Moon” and “Explorers of the Moon,” capture the heady race of the 50s and 60s to conquer space along with the subtle subterfuge that went with it.

In “The Calculus Affair,” a professor is abducted by a nefarious group for an ingenious formula — a reminder of how German scientists after 1945 were pursued by the Americans and the Soviets.

One will not be wrong in stating that many a young reader was inspired by Tintin to take up journalism as a career later in their life.

To be honest, reading these books after entering the profession doubles the excitement, because, only then could one relate to the adventures more intimately.

Just to bring to context the demand of Tintin adventures, someone in the early 80s spread a rumour in our area, Elephant Road, that a new book called “Tintin and The Black Ship” would soon be out in the market.

This triggered a race to use all means available to us to get hold of one copy before everyone else. At that time, my connections to the West came in forms of yearly visits by a UK-residing uncle or through work-related overseas trips by parents.

The demand was simple: Get me “The Black Ship” at any cost.

If someone’s relative was found to be coming from abroad, others gathered around him to make a beeline for the right to read the book.

Alas! There was no “The Black Ship” and, soon, the cat was out of the bag.

The news of the recent auction brought back so many memories of lazy winter afternoons after final exams spent on an old easy chair, imbibing Tintin escapades.

The other day, while I was walking past the Nilkhet second hand book market, a stall owner shouted at me: “Mama, Tintin asey, lagbo ni?” (I have some Tintin comics, you want them?)

I stopped, naturally. Always wanted to own the full set.

Published in Dhaka Tribune, Dec 5, 2016

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