The Crab with the Golden Claws

Belgian artist Herge wrote many adventures for his cartoon hero, the young journalist Tintin. "The Crab with the Golden Claws" dates from the 1950's and features Tintin on the trail of a mysterious smuggling operation. The highlight of the book, however, is the introduction of Captain Haddock, here first met as a drunken ship captain, who would go on to be Tintin's stalwart companion in subsequent adventures. As the story begins, Tintin becomes involved in an investigation by the bumbling detectives Thompson and Thomson. Pocket litter from a drowned sailor leads Tintin to a suspicious merchant ship, where he is shanghaied by the First Mate, the infamous Allen. Allen is running a smuggling operation under the nose of the drunken Captain Haddock. Tintin and Captain Haddock make their escape from the ship, but they are pursued by the smugglers. Tintin and Captain Haddock will survive the sea, an air crash, and the Morroccan desert before a final confrontation with the smugglers in the cellars of a sea coast town. In truth, the plot line isn't as well developed as some of the later adventures, but it certainly has its share of thrills, and the introductions of Captain Haddock and recurring bad guy Allen more than make up for any shortfalls. "The Crab with the Golden Claws" is highly recommended to fans of Tintin of all ages.

On a visit to his friends the detectives Thomson and Thompson, Tintin recognizes a piece of paper torn from the label of a can. Earlier in the day Snowy had found the can with the rest of the label attached on the street. The label shows a picture of a red crab on a golden background and is evidence in an investigation into counterfeit money. Written on the back is the name of the ship. When Tintin accompanies the detectives on a visit to the ship, he is kidnapped and held in the hold as the ship leave port for an unknown destination. This Tintin adventure is notable for the first appearance of Captain Haddock. He is a major repeat character in subsequent adventures, with cries of artificial profanity like "blistering barnacles". This book, unlike previous books in the series, has four pages in which a single frame fills a page, each showing a particularly dramatic or humorous moment in the story.

The adventure every re-reader of Tintin waits impatiently for, Captain Haddock's debut. We first meet him on board the merchant ship Karaboudjan, his alcoholism being fuelled by a nefarious mate, the hatchet-faced Allan, who is smuggling opium in tins of crab meat. It is curious that such a weak, defeated, decadent figure should become such a beloved, even heroic character for generations of readers - in the context of the Nazi-Occupied Europe in which the book was written, the resonance of Haddock's spiritual progress - from manipulable weakling to tortured prisoner to victim of (collaborationist?) police brutality to ferocious resistant - is easier to fathom. Besides his inability to resist bottle-sized tipples, the captain is famous for a bellicosity unleashed in an inexhaustible gust of arbitrary, all-inclusive epithets ('Rats! Ectoplasms! Freshwater swabs! Bashi-bazouks! Cannibals! Caterpillars!'); his rage often sufficient to ward off enemies. Beneath these terrifying outbursts, however, and the tendency to Thom(p)son-like imbecilities (such as the drunken kindling of a fire on a longboat), Haddock is really a kind of human Snowy, someone whose essentially good instincts are led astray by appetite, someone who needs the affection, reassurance, security and stability offered by Tintin's tolerant friendship. He is a brave man of an earlier, more chivalrous age, stranded in a modernism blighted by criminals and the counterfeit.This marvellously funny episode begins as a mystery story, with Thompson and Thomson investigating the death by drowning of a sailor whose remains include clues that prompt Tintin to investigate the Karaboudjan. In terms of incident and visuals, 'Crab' harks back to the earlier 'Cigars Of The Pharoah' (another introductory adventure, that time the Thom(p)sons), with its drug-smuggling plot, its misadventures at sea, its awesome African sandscapes and the delight offered by Thom(p)sonian buffoonery. The depiction of French Morocco, its eternal sunlight riven with omnipresent shadows, echoes the Metaphysical/Surrealist world of de Chirico, while there are many jokes inspired once again by silent cinema, especially two 'Gold Rush'-quoting hallucinations in which a thirst-crazed Haddock imagines Tintin as a bottle of champagne. An added bonus are four full-page plates you will be sorely tempted to rip from the page and hang on your wall - a looming airplane terrorising our capsized heroes bobbing in a Hokusai sea; a panting Tintin and Haddock trekking an endless desert, happy Snowy chomping the massive bone of a dromedary skeleton and acknowledging the 'camera'; the trio in pursuit down a crowded Moroccan alley, amazingly detailed and coloured, and seemingly on the brink of collapse; and an archway-framed composition of the Thom(p)sons shadowing a suspect in one of their hapeless attempts at blending in with the locals, bournos failing to hide their ever-distinctive black suits, bowlers and moustaches. As ever, Tint

After six comics Captain Haddok gets intruduced. And in this adventure Tintin fights drug smuggling. This book is interesting because Herge draws so well and so presise. This is truly a book for Tintin fans of all ages.

We are first introduced to Captain Haddock in this wonderful Tintin adventure. The Captain's introduction is hysterical, smart and witty. Herge's introduction of Haddock shows us how the Captian evolves from a pathetic drunk to a respectable man when we look at him in later adventures.