The Adventures of Tintin: The Calculus Affair / The Red Sea Sharks / Tintin in Tibet (3 Complete Adventures in 1 Volume, Vol. 6)

I read these adventures as a kid, and some twenty years later I still find myself enjoying these as much. I also enjoy HTML and CSS books now, but some things are too good to grow out of :)

A word of warning - try and buy the bigger versions of these adventures. The 3-in-1 format is convenient to be sure, but the big print of the indivudal comics is that much more satisfying!


Tintin is awesome   April 29, 2003
Anil Raghavan (Stillwater, OK United States)
2 out of 6 found this review helpful

I love the Red Sea Sharks and Tintin in Tibet. Calculus Affair is full of coincidences and looks amateurish. But hey, when you read Tintin, you cant be too old or critical!


A rich part of this bilingual Canadian's heritage   September 9, 2006
John Bleau (Quebec, QC Canada)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

My highest recommendation goes to this volume.

Volume 6: The Calculus Affair (1956), The Red Sea Sharks (1958), Tintin in Tibet (1960). This is the sixth instalment of my reviews of each of the seven volumes.

Oh, what a trifecta in this volume! Tintin is not so well-known in the USA and the American who might give it a try would do well with this volume. The artwork has become draftsman-like, the lines are clean and brisk, the composition of the panels is endlessly pleasing, and the pace of each adventure always just right. The bottom right panel is the teaser panel, inciting us to turn the page and read on. Bear in mind that before being in book form, these adventures came out two pages at a time in Tintin magazine, with the teaser keeping us in suspense until the following week's edition.

"The Calculus Affair" was, for a child, a dauntingly adult-sounding title, and the story a little less accessible than the others. But what a cold war story! - with a plausible scientific gizmo, kidnappings, car chases, an Eastern bloc-style military junta set in fictional Borduria with an iconography based on the regime's founder (just look at the cars' bumpers), and with Tintin's determined aplomb and Haddock's ever-entertaining slapstick, riding a crackling plot from beginning to end. Castafiore earns an added dimension for her character and the insufferable Jolyon Wagg takes his first bows. Regarded by many as the best of the series.

The cover of The Red Sea Sharks shows the heroes marooned on a raft in the eponymous setting, seen through a telescope. What brought them there and what lies next is an adventure that involves depth charges, jet attacks, torpedoes, a burning ship, clandestine commerce handled by a villain we've seen before. The French title (Coke en Stock) gives a clue as to what this commerce is, but I won't give it away. A great adventure with a tremendous amount of action and some hilarious moments, showing Herge's mastery of the visual narrative, but the author's own favourite comes next...

Tintin in Tibet. Herge's personal favourite; the cover shows the explorers confronted with huge humanoid footprints in the Himalayan snows. The teaser is already set for an adventure that shows the deep bond between friends, the loneliness of conviction against all odds, a surreal dream sequence, misunderstanding, Eastern mysticism, and intense solitude. In my review for Volume 4, I said that the Temple of the Sun was a pinnacle in the Tintin series, but this may be THE pinnacle of the whole series. The settings and drawings are positively stunning. I also mentioned elsewhere that Haddock took some of the limelight off Snowy, but in this story, after character parallels are drawn between the two, with some tension, a panel of surpassing sensitivity shows the Captain's deep affection for the dog, after Snowy himself showed the extent of his own devotion to Tintin. Humour is superbly developed, in one notable case around a theme of making faces as a greeting and, of course, the irascible Haddock's misinterpretation of this. The final, poignant panel strikes a chord of empathy in anyone with feeling. This is a story to read to your children: the richness, the interconnectedness, and the humanity of the whole are a stimulus to any child's experience.


A great value!   October 13, 2002
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

For reasons unknown, at almost 43 years old, I suddenly had this strange desire to read some of the Tintin stories I read when I was about 12. As a kid I spent countless hours reading Herge's books over and over. If memory serves, I only had 5 or 6 titles, and they were big books with hard covers.

This book is a great value since it contains 3 stories. Oh what memories they bring back. If you ever read Tintin as a kid, get some of these books. The only caveat is that the text is hard to read as these collections are smaller in size and both the drawings and text have been shrunk proportionately.

And yet another "warning." You may start buying the bigger individual stories once you read one of these. I should know. I am now hooked again and "collecting" all 23 volumes.

Thank you, Herge. We miss you.


Great stories, well executed   January 14, 2007
Juerg Gassmann-Keeley
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I grew up with Tintin books, and my kids are now at an age where they are beyond "See Spot Run" but don't always have the patience for a full-length book. The stories are always great, and the research is meticulous. Most of the story subjects were highly topical at the time, and reading the books regularly provide history refresher.

"The Calculus Affair" is a typical cold-war cloak-and-dagger story of espionage and intrigue. How the world has changed, but the Litvinenko Affair is a reminder that the Cold War was a reality not so long ago.

"The Red Sea Sharks" deals with gun-running and slavery in the Middle East, a subject that is still topical (as the UN's efforts attest).

"Tintin in Tibet" is one of my favourites, a great Tintin story used by Herge to draw attention to Red China's invasion and annexation of Tibet, and the cultural heritage the Communists set about to destroy.