When I was young, I read through just about every single comic in The Adventures of Tintin series by the acclaimed Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Since the Tintin movie just premiered in theaters, I thought it appropriate to review one of the comics where it all began. The only collection of Tintin comics I actually own is The Blue Lotus, one of the slightly more controversial and difficult to find titles. It had been almost a decade and a half since I last read a Tintin comic; how did The Blue Lotus stack up when viewed from an adult perspective?
Originally serialized in Le Petit Vigntième in Brussels between 1934 and 1935, Le Lotus Bleu, as it was first known, details Tintin’s adventures in Shanghai during 1931. It was a turbulent time in the Far East: the Empire of Japan began its colonial expansion in earnest, while Western powers still vied for trading rights across China. In the midst of it all, China faced political upheaval, almost powerless to resist the coming foreign forces. But enough of the history lesson, let’s talk about Tintin!