The Adventures of Tintin: Heading for the Moon

At the invitation of Professor Tournesol, Tintin and Captain Haddock fly to Syldavia and straight from the airport get to the Atomic Research Center, lost in the Skuropat Mountains. There they are surprised to learn that Professor Tournesol is working on creating an atomic engine for the first manned space flight in human history. But the most stunning news is different: it turns out that the professor is going to fly to the Moon himself! Moreover, he asks Tintin and Captain Haddock to accompany him on this journey. The friends begin preparing for the flight, but not everything goes smoothly. And then there is a leak of secret data and it becomes clear that, despite the strictest security measures, a traitor is operating in the Center!

The space theme had long excited Hergé, who had always been keenly interested in science. After two successful dilogies in a row, “Pirate” and “Inca”, the artist did not want to change such a successful (both from the creative and commercial points of view) format, especially since the next idea turned out to be too large-scale for one volume. On the other hand, Hergé understood perfectly well that it was unthinkable to start implementing it without careful preparation, so no other story required such a deep immersion in the subject from the author. The scientific side of the lunar journey had to look as realistic as possible on the pages of the album, but at the same time not become a brake for the reader, preventing him from following the development of the plot, because Hergé put ease of reading above all else, ruthlessly cutting off the unnecessary. Besides, “The Adventures of Tintin” are, first of all, adventures, and humorous adventures! This means that they should not only teach, but also entertain, delight, amuse, surprise... Hence the author's desire to compensate for the complexity of some dialogues, replete with technical details, with emphasized simplicity of visual solutions. What is one lunar rocket worth, the shape and (especially!) coloring of which is more reminiscent of a toy than a spaceship! However, even here the future showed Hergé's amazing foresight: very soon this rocket will become not only the most recognizable visual image of the series and the most popular souvenir, but also one of the main symbols of the 9th art in general. Let's note another important point. How many spaceships can we remember that any child can draw in just a couple of minutes? Maybe crookedly, maybe approximately (say, mixing up the number of red and white squares on the body), but recognizable!

Preparatory work on the lunar adventure of Tintin and his friends began in the mid-1940s, but the first publication in Tintin magazine took place only in March 1950. In the form of an album, "Course to the Moon" was released in 1953. In total, work on the dilogy took Hergé more than 4 years and cost him deep depression and nervous and physical exhaustion. The realities of that time no longer left comics authors the right to the slightest approximation: everything had to look as plausible as possible. It was categorically impossible to complete such a task alone, so Hergé surrounded himself with assistants from the very beginning - both in the scientific and script part, and in the artistic part, which we will dwell on in a little more detail. Edgar P. Jacobs, who had made a huge contribution to the graphic appeal of a number of previous albums, gradually switched to his own series, The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer, which almost immediately became a bestseller, and as a result, his work with Hergé soon came to naught. However, the author of Tintin was very lucky again: Jacobs was replaced by another young and incredibly talented Belgian artist (and future classic) Bob de Moor (1925–1992), who would remain a faithful companion of the master until the very end. We should also note the participation (primarily in the script) of another famous Belgian comic artist, Albert Wijnberg (1922–2011). Thus, during the work on the lunar dilogy, the Hergé Studio appeared, which was officially registered on April 6, 1950, a week after the publication of the first part of the two-volume work.  

Recommended reader age: 7+

Author: Hergé
Artist: Herge
Translation: Mikhail Khachaturov
Number of pages: 64
Publisher: Melik-Pashayev
Cover type: Hardcover
Dimensions: 290 × 217 × 10 mm
ISBN: 978-5-00041-541-2
Series: The Adventures of Tintin