Adventure on the Roof of the World
A lot of people seem to like this one but I felt that it was a little lacking compared to Herge's previous two albums: The Calculus Affair and the Red Sea Sharks. This album sees Tintin and Captain Haddock travel to the remote country of Tibet in search of a friend of Tintin's who was on a plane that had crashed in the Himalayas. Now, I found it a little interesting that the plane Chang caught when he was travelling to Europe from China seemed to double back to Tibet, but then I suspect that Tibet would be further to the north than to the east of some parts of India.
The year is 1959 so by this time China had come under Communist rule but so far they had not invaded Tibet, so Tibet was still an autonomous country. I have noticed in particular in this one that Herge seems to concentrate a lot more on the artwork, and also has Tintin travel around New Dehli visiting the sites before setting off to Nepal on the trek to Tibet.
What sort of put me off this story were a couple of things: the first being the telepathic messages that Tintin receives from Chang that causes him to travel halfway around the world and then to travel even further across dangerous terrain to attempt a rescue. In the end it turns out that Tintin is right, and all of the people who were trying to persuade him were wrong, but even then there are a few more 'mystical' pushes from the monks in Tibet, as well as a few other clues, that lead him to conclude his mission.
In any case, Tintin is an adventurer and will never turn down a dangerous adventure, particularly when a good friend is involved. Captain Haddock is quite the opposite though. He is not an adventurer, but he drags himself along to protect Tintin. However in many cases he turns out to be the one requiring assistance. I notice that a lot of the jokes regarding tobacco and alcohol have been dumped from the TV series, which was a little disappointing.
The Thompson Twins don't appear in this one, and Calculus only makes a brief appearance. I have noticed that in these later albums the Thompson Twins are suddenly relegated to minor characters, in a similar way to Jolyon Wagg, who will make the occasional cameo appearance. Herge seems to have moved away from some of the styles in the older albums, particularly since the Thompson Twins were major characters in the early ones. However, I suspect it is because Herge may have been running out of jokes for these characters and decided to shift them away from the centre of the action rather than have the audience become tired and annoyed with them. However, the role that the Thompsons used to play is now being taken over by Captain Haddock.
