Le Lotus Bleu by Herge

Hergé. Le Lotus Bleu (1936). Casterman: 1974.

The comic book adventures of Tintin are probably as much a part of French culture as those of Superman or Charlie Brown in the United States. Created by the Belgian artist Hergé in 1929, Tintin appeared in comics and books through the mid 70’s (also films and radio plays). This is the first TIntin book I’ve read, the fourth or fifth of his books (depending on how you count them). I owe the majority of my background knowledge to the excellent Wikipedia articles on Tintin and The Ideology of TIntin.

Tintin is a young Belgian reporter who, accompanied by his white terrier Milou, travels the globe (and beyond it seems) having adventures. I found it odd in this book (and apparently true in his others) that this reporter doesn’t seem to write any stories or work for anyone. He is just well known and… well he gets into adventures.

Le Lotus Bleu (The Blue Lotus, I opted to read Tintin in the original French but his adventures are easily available in English translation) concerns Tintin’s adventures in China as he becomes involved in investigating a Japanese opium ring and attempts to save someone from the “poison which renders mad”.

This was one of the first Tintin stories where Hergé began researching his subjects. The earlier works are often cited as being racist and colonialist, but this one clearly shies away from that bias. Taking place in the years previous to WWII, during the Sino-Japanese war, the story implicitly critiques the Japanese and other colonial interests meddling with the Chinese. Here the Japanese are militaristic and involved with smuggling opium into China; the Europeans (other than TIntin) spout racial slurs and seem interested only in themselves. The Chinese are kind and helpful, and one is even able to laugh when TIntin relates the stereotypes Europeans hold about them.

The story itself involves adventures, spying, capture, chase, improbably coincidences, and a rather large cast of supporting characters. Tintin is not the most interesting of characters, but he shows persistence in the pursuit of his goals (in this case helping out the Chinese friends he makes). It’s hard to say how old he is (he seems quite young), but I found it odd that he carries a pistol with him. His dog Milou kind of like the later cartoon dog Snoopy speaks in words we can read but the other characters cannot hear.

Hergé is well known for using the “clear line” style of drawing, wherein lines are drawn with a uniform thickness, giving equal value to characters and background, often placing cartoony characters on realistic backgrounds (a method often used by Japanese manga artists like Tezuka). Compared to modern comics Hergé’s compositions are quite unusual. His characters most often open appear in toto with their feet resting on or just above the bottom border of the panel (this is similar to how someone recently described old newspaper strips as “actors on a stage”). Close-ups are rare except in the case of a head shot for extended dialogue and distance shots are only used for scene setting. The pages are formed of numerous small panels most often in four rows. While the panels vary in width they almost never change in height. The clear line style is greatly aided by the use of color in the albums. They were originally published in black and white, and I’m curious to see what that would look like.

Le Lotus Bleu was an enjoyable read. I’ll be seeking out more of the “Adventures of Tintin”, particularly to see how the later volumes differ from this early one.

Tags: Bande Dessinee, herge

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