3 out of 5

This would be the “real” volume 1, collecting ‘…In the Land of the Soviets’ and ‘In the Congo,’ the former featuring a drawing style somewhat different than the commonly recognized Tintin, and the latter casting African natives in a narrow, stereotyped mindset, relegating both of these books to “early” adventures which I guess aren’t nowadays suggested for the little’uns to read.  But I’m a big’un, and I’m all like pro racism, so it don’t bother me none.

The differences between the two books in this volume are rather massive, both in style and pacing and tone, with the latter ‘Congo’ being more closely related (logically) to the first book in the next volume, ‘Tintin in America,’ sharing its loose rambling nature of shuffling Tintin from one calamity to another with only a very loose plot to keep him tied to the locale.  Not that this general setup would change, but even from the title format shifting away from “Tintin in…”, its apparent that Hergé got better at having a central mystery drive things instead of just relying on ADD associations.

‘In the Land of the Soviets’ reads like a Sunday newspaper comic.  Tintin visits Russia to expose… Communist lies or something (to keep readers “up to date on current affairs”, and I guess come to think of it casting the Ruskies as Reds might be why this book has been unceremoniously left out of current collections as well), and is immediately beset by spies and assassins (the first stating, plainly: “He must never get to Russia : He’d report what’s going on!”  …So yeah, again, ‘early adventures.’), leading to a 140 pg Benny Hill runaround of implausible escapes and scuffles and dumb Russians.  It’s very setup, joke, setup, joke, and has the Sunday comic feel because there’s the sense that Hergé didn’t want to go too long without putting in something slapsticky to chuckle at.  His creativity and scripting flexibility is already apparent – Tintin whittling a new propeller for his plane out of a tree, Snowy dressing up in tiger skin to scare off a real tiger – but it’s equally uninvolving for the same reasons, as it strays to the side of ridiculous and thus comes across as a gag book more than a sit-down read.  What’s more worthwhile about ‘Soviets’ is watching Hergé’s style evolve over the pages, his lines (inks?) growing finer and more steady, Tintin and Snowy both starting out rather “puffy” before slimming down to something closer to the modern look, and Tintin is notably more of a brawler early on.

And then by “Congo” he’d pretty much found his final version of his characters.  The paneling still isn’t as tight as it would get in later editions, but Hergé is already spreading his action out more effectively, and finding a better sense of repartee between Tintin and Snowy (though both books still break the “can he understand him or not?” ambiguity at points).  The story is a tad more focused, in that there’s a central bad guy we can follow most of the way, and some of the gags begin to bring in more inspiration – Tintin cutting Snowy partially out of a snake stands out as one of those hilarious but ridiculous moments that works really well for Hergé’s style.

Just starting on my Tintin experiences, I would guess that Hergé’s body of work will prove to be a slowly evolving and yet consistent one.  It makes sense, then, that these first attempts are the rougher than the next volume.  They feel like the initial runs they are, getting a sense of the pacing and style which would seem right.  It’s amazing how quickly the progress would come, and that’s probably the primary interest for Tintin fans, as casual readers might find the two books collected here a bit more tedious and wandering than later adventures.