The Adventures of Tintin Flight 714 to Sydney

Tintin, Milu, Captain Haddock and Professor Tournesol are flying on Flight 714 from London to Sydney for the International Astronautical Congress, where they have been invited as guests of honour as the first to conquer the Moon. During their last stopover at Jakarta Airport, they meet the famous aircraft manufacturer, oil well owner and billionaire Laszlo Carreidas, "the man who never laughs". He is also heading to Sydney for the congress, and since he loves playing battleships during the flight, he makes the old sea dog Captain Haddock and his friends an offer they can't refuse - he invites them to join him. However, as soon as they take their seats on board the brand new three-engine business jet "Carreidas 160", Tintin realises that strange things are happening here and he needs to keep his ears open...

The publication of the 22nd volume in Tintin magazine began in September 1966 and ended in November 1967; the album version was released in 1968. After the chamber-like Jewels of Castafiore, limited by the space of Moulinsart, Hergé, in his own words, returned to "... adventure with a capital "A"". True, the appearance of the next volume was rather forced: Hergé was simply tired of Tintin, so tired that he decided to quit the series and take up his beloved painting. This is how it would have most likely turned out, if not for... Asterix! At first, Hergé was rather indifferent to the colossal commercial success of the little Gaul, but a couple of sharp articles, relegating Tintin to the category of heroes whose time had irrevocably passed, caused him serious rage. In addition, the publisher insistently demanded that a new story be finally released, thus showing that Asterix was, of course, great, but Tintin was Tintin, and his place at the top of the "bands dessine" was indisputable. Be that as it may, the work began to boil, and the 22nd story about Tintin soon took its place on the shelves of millions of fans: the first edition of the album alone exceeded 500,000 copies... although new "Asterixes" were already steadily exceeding a million and were published with a frequency of once every six months.

It is common among intellectuals to criticize the album, however, as one of its fans aptly put it, this is due to the fact that "they were unlucky enough to read it as children." Today, almost 60 years after its publication, it is safe to say that "714 to Sydney" looks like an absolutely coherent, exciting and well-constructed story. It remains to add that, together with the lunar dilogy, "The Mysterious Star" and "The Tournesol Affair", "714 to Sydney" makes up the top five most "science fiction" volumes of the series.

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: 978-5-00041-618-1
Series: The Adventures of Tintin