Title: The Adventures of Tinitin: The Secret of the Unicorn
Author: Hergé (Georges Rémi)
Genre: Adventure comic book
Age category: 8-12 years

With the scheduled December 2011 release of Steven Spielberg’s movie, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, I thought I would review the classic 1959 middle-grade comic with the same title by the Belgian artist Georges Rémi (1907-1983), who created under the name Hergé.  The Tintin comics were some of my favorites as a child, and my kids have now started enjoying them too.  If you would like to see the trailer for Spielberg’s upcoming movie, click here.

Summary: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

The Adventures of Tinitin: The Secret of the Unicorn opens with a news report that incidences of petty thievery are on the rise in London, and that the police are using their “best men to put a stop to this public scandal.”  It turns out that London’s “finest” include Thomson and Thompson, two identical-looking and identically incompetent detectives who sport black suits and bowlers.  On their patrol of the Old Street Market—during which both of their wallets are stolen—they bump into their friend Tintin (a brave, sharp reporter, the protagonist of the story) and his white fox terrier, Snowy.  As Tintin buys a model ship for his friend Captain Haddock—a retired old salt who struggles (sometimes not too hard) with his taste for liquor—two men appear beside him and express interest in the ship he has just bought.  They offer dueling bids, but Tintin refuses to sell it.

Tintin takes the model home, where Snowy accidentally breaks the mast.  Never mind: Tintin easily repairs it.  When Tintin shows the ship to Captain Haddock, the Captain notices that the ship is a scale model of the Unicorn, the ship sailed by his distant relative Sir Francis Haddock.  However, soon after the model is stolen from Tintin’s apartment, which is ransacked in the process.  In the wake of the break-in, Ti