I love the hapless ill-fated villains in Tintin And The Broken Ear, Alonso and Ramon. There’s also a talking parrot, an amnesiac, and general Alcazar makes what I believe is his first appearance.
As usual there’s some beautiful ‘bandes dessinées’ artwork from Hergé, the lushly rendered jungle being very evocative, and he pays his usual attention to detail, basing the ‘Arumbaya fetish’ on a real statuette from an ethnographic museum that, I believe, he discovered in his home locality.
I think this one is perhaps really a four-star only affair. But as it was one of the very first Tintin adventures I acquired, and subsequently one of the first to fall apart from repeated readings, it has a special place in my heart.
The story is fine, if a bit of the run of the mill type, as Tintin adventures go. But it also belongs to the ‘first quarter’, one might say, during which the Tintin albums were growing into full maturity. So, despite the fact I did, I wouldn’t advise the Tintin newbie to start here.
Still, good solid globe-trotting adventuring fun, and, like all of ‘em, essential for the true Tintinologist!