The Broken Ear

i was shocked to see the broken ear referred to as a "minor tintin" by one reviewer. i've read all the tintins atleast 50 times each over the last 20 years. in my opinion the broken ear is right at the top in the tintin canon! the mystery, the action, the adventure, the humour - it is simply superb. and this opinion is shared by a large number of my friends too. in the tintin canon the broken ear is rivaled only the blue lotus.

After the artistic, technical and emotional peak of 'The Blue Lotus', Herge wisely decided to take things down a gear, rather than attempt to somehow out-marvel that seminal book. So 'The Broken Ear' is Tintin in a minor key - the undeviating single narrative is shorn of sub-plots; the spaces of South America, compared to the intricate detail of Japan and China in 'Lotus', are comparitively broad. A fetish originating with the Arumbaya tribe is stolen from the Museum of Ethnology, and replaced with a fake. Tintin knows it's bogus because the original had a broken ear, and discovers that two Spanish crooks are also interested in finding the thief. Heroes and villains end up in the small South American principality of San Theodoros where Tintin is set up and put in front of a firing squad. Saved by coup and counter-coup, Tintin is made Colonel and right-hand man of dictator General Alcazar, among whose officers appear those same two thieves.'Ear' is full of typical Herge incident, from the comic pursuit of a splendidly abusive parakeet, to a suspenseful downriver kayak-trip in search of a mysterious, hostile tribe. Herge's satiric sense shows how the political instabilities of many South American countries, with their seemingly daily military coups, are fanned by greedy European and American arms manufacturers and oil companies. The European plunder of other civilisations, so memorably a feature of previous adventures, is once again shown to be disastrous, even fatal. There are some wondrous visual conceits, in particular the Arumbaya rainforest sequence, which, set against an abstract, gren backdrop, frames its physical movements (fights, chases etc.) into a mysterious Matissean dance. The representation of landscape and settlements, with the eye on revealing detail, is as resonant as ever. All this is fine, but one can't help feeling the lack of density, the rather perfunctory nature of the whole.

One of the better one's. Titin travels to South America and meets, as usual, characters that stay with us throughout the series. This is a great read, and wonderful pictures of the jungles in South America.

I've enjoyed the Adventures of Tintin series since I was a child. The combination of good art, interesting plots, and local detail which looked (to my untravelled eye) authentic, got and kept my attention through all 21 titles in the series.In _The Broken Ear_, Tintin investigates the theft from a museum of a small statue with a broken ear. His investigations take him to South America, where the rain forest tribe that originally made the statue lives.Unlike some of Tintin's adventures, which have fantastic or science fictional elements, this is a pure mystery / adventure comic which I highly recommend.If you like the Adventures of Tintin, you may also enjoy the Asterix series, by Goscinny and Uderzo.

Once you begin to read a Tintin book, you can't stop! I love how the author has so many ideas on how the plot can take twists and turns.