This is the first Tintin comic. And, its good! Real good! It's a lot better than "Tintin in Congo". However, communist sympathisers may not relish the depiction of soviets as blood-thirsty criminals... but then again... it's just a reflection of the times back then. If Herge was a Russian and so were Tintin, then the book would've probably been full of Capitalist bashing.
This book is rather funny and has some excellent humorous situations. This is a good book and there shouldn't be any trouble with kids reading it. Pretty funny! There is a nice little joke about British communists(*from Oxford, I expect!*)
In short: A must buy for all Tintin fans.

Any successful series tends to spawn a Guide and most of the time they add minimal value to the original series. Not so here. Farr and Remi have collaborated to produce a companion to Tintin that actually enhances the comic strip and makes you re-read them with a new awareness. The layout of the book makes it easy for you to focus on individual adventures, providing a four to six page commentary on the development, accuracy and major plot points. There is an opening section on Herge himself and how Tintin developed over forty-odd years.
It is only after reading this I have realised how accurate Herge was with his subject matter. Again and again you suddenly realise that all the backing images, all the characters are founded on intricate real detail and people to create authenticity.
Quite simply, any fan of Tintin must read this book. It supplies answers to questions you'd never think of and opens you to a whole new side of the hero and his creator.

Well, now that you have hungrily read and collected all the titles of Herge, the marvelous artist & story teller, this book completes your appetite, as a slurping dessert!.

Contains detailed background on each and every title that Herge published upto the unfinished 'Alph Art'. Contains several sketches and reference photographs the artist used. You live through the mind of Herge, the times and his efforts. How carefully he chooses realism, timely topics and authenticity to spin those wonderful tales of Tintin! It is fascinating to go behind the scenes of the favourite stories. contains tons of information.

This ought to serve as a wonderful reference for artists.

If you are a diehard fan of Tintin & Herge, this book is a must! Great paper quality & print too!

If you are even mildly interested to know how Herge choose his name or those of his characters, if you are kind of interested in the historical background to your favorite adventure or if you are a crazy Tintin fan and hunger for anything you can get your hands on, this book is for you!

I have enjoyed it a great deal and I know you will too!

I am a big fan of the Tintin series. But in my mind, this is one of the worst. The drawing is not as good as some of the other books, and the storyline isn't as good. I found that in this book, Tintin narrowly escapes death and gets out of tough situations a few times too many.

I read "Tintin in America" relatively late in my journey through the Adventures of Tintin, which might not be fair since this early work by Herge certainly pales in comparison to some of our beloved heroes later and greatest adventures (e.g., "Land of Black Gold" or "Explorers on the Moon"). From that perspective you notice that the art is a bit more cartoonish than what comes later but the most important difference is that this is basically Tintin and Snowy on their own. The wonderful cast of colorful supporting characters that end up populating the Tintin universe are not to be seen at this point, which might explain why Snowy "talks" a lot more in this early Tintin adventure than is his habit in later volumes.

While this is not a great Tintin adventure, "Tintin in America" is certainly an interesting one because of the way Herge presents America to his readers. In a manner that reminds me of Babe's fanciful vision of the big city in "Babe: Pig in the City," Herge presents the U.S. as half Chicago gangsters and half Wild Wild West cowboys and Indians. Tintin arrives in Chicago to clean up the city ruled by gangster bosses and Al Capone is not happy to see the world famous reporter. Tintin survives so many attempted gangland hits that you lose count of them, and it is a toss up whether there are more last second escapes or scenes where Tintin pulls a gun on a gangster. The perils of Tintin continue even when our hero and his faithful terrier companion make their way out West and become involved with some of the quaint customs of the local natives.

The final word would be that if you have heard people raving about Herge and Tintin, and then you start at the "beginning" (in terms of what is readily available of the Adventures of Tintin) you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. Do not fear. "Tintin in America" represents the early days when Herge was still finding his way and learning his craft. The best is yet to come after this one and the best is pretty good. Get with the program and stick to it.

Although it begins with a precise date (1931) and location (Chicago) and features a real historical figure (Al Capone), 'Tintin In America' is Herge's tribute to the mythical America of dime novels and silent serials (especially gangster stories and Westerns). There's a real 'Perils Of Pauline' quality to Tintin's misadventures, which see the young reporter and his faithful terrier Snowy attempt to clean Chicago of gangsters, and which includes trapdoors, underground passages, falls from cliffs broken by handy branches, tetherings to railway lines etc. On their arrival, the pair are plunged into a hectic series of mishaps - they are kidnapped by a mob stooge in a steel-shuttered limousine; sawing their way out, they are met by police, and give chase; just as the nabbed hood is about to squeal, he is knocked out by a boomerang, whose owner they pursue in a gun-stuttering chase which ends in the first of many vehicular accidents. Throughout, Tintin will be gassed, dumped into Lake Michigan, shot at by a professional sniper, captured by Red Indians, have his brakeless train dynamited, and be thrown into a mincer. Welcome to America!

The simple-minded pleasures of these melodrama cliches are supplemented by a sophisticated and often quite savage critique on modern America (having tackled Bolshevik Russia in the previous adventure), an America on the brink of globalising superpowerdom, a critique that invokes the past to indict the present. The Red Indian sequence at first seems in dubious taste, with the warriors easily manipulated by a gang leader into mutilating Tintin - their knee-jerk savagery and comical rituals are the sad cliches of many a Western. But in the book's most perturbing sequence, Tintin accidentally hits oil on their land; they are speedily thrown off the reservation, and oil wells, banks and a new city erected in its place; a brilliant, shocking encapsulation of the long and terrible history that underlies bright modern America. The gangster epidemic is linked to police and presidential corruption, while the tendency of famed American democracy and justice to degenerate into mob rule and lynching is unflinchingly pinpointed, as are the ecological crimes of big business. In fact, Herge sees American capitalism as a form of cannibalism - a sausage-grinding plant is a front for disposing of gangland enemies, their flesh mingled with animal meat for sale (the leader of the gang is a dead ringer for Foucault!). Conversely, Tintin is at one point rescued by a labor strike! One frame must have registered on the young Jean-Luc Godard, in which Tintin passes a landscape of car-wreckage overlooked by advertising hoardings. The irony of the story is that America, once so new, innocent, a beacon of hope where the world's oppressed could find refuge, has become as corrupt as the Old World, to which Tintin must return ito protect HIS innocence.

Herge's satirical instinct does not preclude a great love for the LOOK of America, with its precisionist skyscraperscapes, and vast prairie spaces. Herge deliberately streamlines his animation, drawing in bold, uncluttered strokes and strong, bright colours, giving some indication of the size and modernity of America, as well as its anonymity, conformity and assembly line mentality. The nocturnal scenes, in which the overall brightness becomes deeply mysterious, are particularly beautiful. I dare anyone who views the flabbergasting scene of Tintin clambering across an endless skyscrapter not to feel dizzy. Within his frames, Herge creates an extraordinary dynamism of movement. I particularly love it when characters walk on the border of the frame, as if getting ready to leap from it.