Hergé

The world’s most famous travelling reporter discovers that Professor Calculus is building a space rocket. Tintin and Captain Haddock are amazed to find that Professor Calculus is planning a top-secret project from the Sprodj Atomic Research Centre in Syldavia. And before our intrepid hero knows it, the next stop on this adventure is . . . Space. Join the most iconic character in comics as he embarks on an extraordinary adventure spanning historical and political events, and thrilling mysteries. Still selling over 100,000 copies every year in the UK and having been adapted for the silver screen by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson in 2011. The Adventures of Tintin continue to charm more than 80 years after they first found their way into publication. Since then an estimated 230 million copies have been sold, proving that comic books have the same power to entertain children and adults in the 21st century as they did in the early 20th.

Destination Moon

The classic graphic novel. Professor Calculus is building a rocket, but Tintin quickly realizes that there are spies around every corner trying to steal the professor's design! When Professor Calculus' rocket finally takes off for the moon, Tintin and his dog Snowy are on board.

Sarah Sammis

In honor of the first moon landing that happened on this day in 1969, I'm reviewing Destination Moon by Georges Remi Herge. It was first written 19 years before the landing and translated a decade before.

Destination Moon starts where Land of Black Gold ends. Tintin is home but is soon sent to Syldavia to witness a test flight of a moon rocket that will go around to the darkside of the Moon and photograph it.

Destination Moon is better paced than Land of Black Gold, probably because it's not suffering from such a severe editing job. It also provides an interesting look at how space travel was imagined before there was space travel. It's quaint in places but no worse than a typical science fiction of this vintage.

The book balances 1950s hard science fiction with the usual Tintin goofiness. There are gags with Thompson and Thomson. The Captain needs to have his whiskey and his pipe. Snowy gets himself into trouble and Tintin out of it. Meanwhile the rocket ship is your typical pulp science fiction three-point deal.

The book ends with the space program advancing from the unmanned flight to one that will be manned by Tintin (why?), the Captain (again why?), Dr. Calculus (huh?) and some other guy. Of course they're needed to have the adventures in the next book, Explorers on the Moon.

Destination Moon

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