Tintin Forums

It's quite an interesting study, actually, to look at the change in Tintin's character over time: in the earlier albums he is pretty much a wandering adventurer, while in the later albums - specifically from The Secret of 'The Unicorn'/ Red Rackham's Treasure onwards - there is a different "feel" about Tintin, so to speak. His character is much more like a "Britisher" than in the earlier ones.

I think the turning point was Golden Claws, when he first meets Captain Haddock.

I think from then on, Tintin and Haddock actually have a mutually calming influence on one another.
While Haddock's respectability steadily increases, Tintin also slows down.

Compare Tintin from Tintin in America with the Tintin in The Castafiore Emerald. Distinctly different!

Just my thoughts on the evolution of Tintin through his series.

I would agree that Tintin starts to alter from when he meets Haddock, though I do think he might have gone that way anyway. He isn't quite so much the 'wandering adventurer' in The Black Island or King Ottokar's Sceptre, whereas the in The Broken Ear and prior to that he still had that feel to him. I think that the adventures Black Island-Red Rackham's Treasure (where Haddock buys Marlinspike), Tintin is kind of in transition.

I also reckon that the style of drawing may play a part to Tintin's feel (it does to me), even if it's on a subconscious level. The artwork from Crystal Balls onwards is richer than previous books and stays pretty much the same for the rest of the adventures. It did change in more or less every book before Crystal Balls.

What I'm trying to say is bascally that The Seven Crystal Balls marks the introduction of the 'new Tintin' as the drawings are the final style, all of the primary characters (Haddock, Calculus etc.) have been introduced and Marlinspike is firmly established as the residence of most of these charcters. All of these factors together play a part in Tintin's new feel.

I definitely agree that the Seven Crystal Balls introduces a different Tintin. As you say, it introduces a constant factor (the Hall) and Haddock's new "respectability" which also significantly alters Tintin.

Also the later drawing style shows Tintin slightly taller than before (or is this an illusion) and his muddy-brown coloured macintosh definitely makes him look more adult than kid.

I think that change in drawing style is partly because Hergé began to draw the characters from life, getting his assitants to assume the relevant poses. This is very evident in the new Chronolgie vol 5 which contains a lot of the sketches from Crystal Balls. It definitely makes the characters seem more solid and real.

It's also been pointed out in a few books how the charcters were sometimes a mirror to Hergé himself; he started out as the “armchair traveller” and later became the reluctant adventurer. Perhaps the respectabilty is tied in with that somehow.