Tintin's Clothes
Do we read Tintin books in the correct order?
Most Tintin fans think that the correct order should be in the sequence Hergé produced the books. Is that right?
No, I don't think so. You can read the books in that order, but the English language editions that are so popular today do not necessarily correspond to the early French language originals. Hergé remade a lot of the books; therefore, the books we buy from the bookstores today are revised versions of the original books that Hergé wrote much earlier. It would not be a bad idea if we read the books in the order these new editions were published ... it would at least be a new experience!
The order in which the Tintin books were published
- The Shooting Star (1942)
- The Secret of the Unicorn (1943)
- The Broken Ear (1943)
- Red Rackham's Treasure (1944)
- The Crab with the Golden Claws (1944)
- Tintin in America (1945)
- The Blue Lotus (1946)
- Tintin in the Congo (1946)
- King Ottokar's Sceptre (1947)
- The Seven Crystal Balls (1948)
- Prisoners of the Sun (1949)
- Land of Black Gold (1950)
- Destination Moon (1953)
- Explorers on the Moon (1954)
- Cigars of the Pharaoh (1955)
- The Calculus Affair (1956)
- The Red Sea Sharks (1958)
- Tintin in Tibet (1960)
- The Castafiore Emerald (1963)
- The Black Island (1965)
- Flight 714 (1968)
- Tintin and the Picaros (1976)
How is Tintin dressed?
If you ask those who have read Tintin books how Tintin is dressed, they usually will say that he always dresses the same. This is not correct. Unlike other cartoon heroes, Tintin changes his clothes not only from book to book, but sometimes within the same book. If you counted all of Tintin's different outfits, the total number would probably exceed the number of all the Thomson and Thompson's different outfits. In the early books, Hergé was inclined to dress Tintin in the local costumes, for instance, in America, Tintin looks like a cowboy, in Congo he is dressed in safari suit. As the series develops, the role of wearing local outfits is permanently taken over by Thomson and Thompson.
However, it is not just the local clothes that Hergé liked to dress his hero in. Especially in the early books, Tintin often changes his clothes -- he takes off his jacket or drops his tie. Sometimes he even changes his shirt. Then what makes us think that Tintin wears the same clothes all the time? Though Tintin has always worn brown shoes and brown plus fours. (Except in Picaros, the plus fours were replaced by trousers), his shirt and socks change over the years. At a certain stage in the process of creating Tintin, Hergé found the classic style of Tintin and kept to it for the rest of the books: The white shirt, the blue sweater and the white socks.
How has Tintin's style changed throughout the years? This is not an easy question to answer. It depends largely on the order in which one is looking at the books. If we examine the "official" order, the following conclusion will emerge: At the beginning, Hergé did not seem to care much about Tintin's clothes. They change from book to book. The usual ensemble is a yellow shirt and black socks, but it could easily have been a brown jacket or a cotton coat. In my copy of King Ottokar's Sceptre, Tintin wears a light blue shirt and blue tie!
When did the classic look first emerge? As far as I can see it emerged in The Secret of the Unicorn from page 58 to 60. Tintin starts off wearing a yellow shirt, but later changes this to the blue sweater and white shirt, which he keeps throughout the series. If you look at the official order the change happens exactly here. The black socks changed to white in The Seven Crystal Balls. From then on Tintin wears his classic outfit. You can read the second and third editions of The Black Island published in 1943 and 1965 and see the difference. In the 1943 versions Tintin wears a yellow shirt and black socks. In the 1965 edition, he wears a blue sweater, a white shirt and white socks.
If you look at the official order the change happens in 1943, but what about the socks? Looking at the books in the official order leaves a confusing impression of Tintin's choice of socks. They change from book to book. If you place the books in the order that the current editions has been finished, another picture emerges. In this order the change socks happens between 1945-46. Prior to 1945, Tintin has black socks. In the books made after 1946, the socks are white. I believe that Hergé decided to change Tintin's look when he was working on The Secret of the Unicorn. He had a problem when he had to redo old books in which Tintin originally appeared in different outfits. E.g., It would be strange if Tintin wore his classic outfit in Cigars of the Pharaoh because it is from the early Tintin period. On the other hand Hergé did not seem to care if Tintin's socks had been changed, even if they were out of date (as in Cigars of the Pharaoh). All the books remade after 1945 feature Tintin with white socks, despite the black socks in the originals. The following table shows the two different sequences in which you can read the Tintin books. They are annotated with descriptions of Tintin's outfits.
The Proper Order
| Book | Top | Socks |
|---|---|---|
| The Shooting Star ('42) | yellow shirt | black |
| The Secret of the Unicorn ('43) | yellow shirt -> blue sweater/white shirt | black |
| The Black Island ('43) | yellow shirt | black |
| The Broken Ear ('43) | jacket | black |
| Red Rackham's Treasure ('44) | blue sweater/white shirt | black |
| The Crab with the Golden Claws ('44) | white shirt-> yellow shirt | black |
| Tinting in America ('45) | yellow shirt | black |
| The Blue Lotus ('46) | yellow shirt | white |
| Tinting in the Congo ('46) | beige shirt | white |
| King Ottokar's Sceptre ('47) | jacket | white |
| The Seven Crystal Balls ('48) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Prisoners of the Sun ('49) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Land of Black Gold ('50) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Destination Moon ('53) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Explorers on the Moon ('54) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Cigars of the Pharaoh ('55) | yellow shirt | white |
| The Calculus Affair ('56) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| The Red Sea Sharks ('58) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Tinting in Tibet ('60) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| The Castafiore Emerald ('63) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| The Black Island ('65) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Flight 714 ('68) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Tinting and the Picaros ('76) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
The Official Order
| Book | Top | Socks |
|---|---|---|
| Tinting in the Congo ('46) | beige shirt | white |
| Tinting in America ('45) | yellow shirt | black |
| Cigars of the Pharaoh ('55) | yellow shirt | white |
| The Blue Lotus ('46) | yellow shirt | white |
| The Broken Ear ('43) | jacket | black |
| The Black Island ('43) | yellow shirt | black |
| The Black Island ('65) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| King Ottokar's Sceptre ('47) | jacket | white |
| The Crab with the Golden Claws ('44) | white shirt-> yellow shirt | black |
| The Shooting Star ('42) | yellow shirt | black |
| The Secret of the Unicorn ('43) | yellow shirt -> blue sweater/white shirt | black |
| Red Rackham's Treasure ('44) | blue sweater/white shirt | black |
| The Seven Crystal Balls ('48) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Prisoners of the Sun ('49) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Land of Black Gold ('50) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Destination Moon ('53) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Explorers on the Moon ('54) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| The Calculus Affair ('56) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| The Red Sea Sharks ('58) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Tinting in Tibet ('60) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| The Castafiore Emerald ('63) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Flight 714 ('68) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
| Tinting and the Picaros ('76) | blue sweater/white shirt | white |
Postscript: After this tedious examination, I will just share two little discoveries I made while researching for this article: In The Crab with the Golden Claws, Tintin's shirt changes from white to yellow (Page 43 frames IV to VI). In Explorers on the Moon, Tintin shows us how fast he is. He gets his magnetic boots on and off in no time (Page 12, frame VIII).
Text © Jesper Jühne. Used by permission.