Michael Farr is perhaps the ultimate English-language Tintinologist. This book - although, like any equivalent "complete companion" will leave individual fans clamoring for more on their favoured issues - is startlingly well-written, lovingly researched and put-together. Each album gets a chapter (combined, in the case of the two-parters) which details its conception, creation and reception, alongside details about Herge's life, and the political and social context in which the story was written.

Particularly notable, for me, were his thoughts on the translations to English, and where jokes are lost or effectively rewritten for a different audience. (Sometimes the changes are completely arbitrary, other times you can see the logic.) It's also fascinating to see how - even though almost all the volumes have avoided becoming tied to their political contexts - Herge's life was one of constant upheaval, and Tintin himself faced numerous threats over the years thanks to wars and the transmogrification of Europe during his 50 years on the job.

As I said at the start, any fan will take issue with any "complete companion". For me, I occasionally felt that Farr's personal opinions intruded too much; no one is expected to like all 24 albums, and you can see my reviews of them as proof of this, but the criticisms were unevenly weighted, in my opinion. Beyond this, the book exhaustively chronicles the making-of, and the artistic merit of, the series. There is certainly room for the next generation of Tintinologists to add their own voices to the fray (and for this we should be thankful) but Farr is a great place to start for oh so many reasons. ( )

Gives à good overview of how Tintin came to be, how he his character was formed like George Remi (Hergé) and that he also evolved.
( )

Interesting background, especially on how much research Herge did for Tintin, but probably more detail than I was looking for. The Complete Guide to Asterix, with its Latin contextualizations, is more my speed. ( )

Beautifully presented. ( )

The concept behind this officially-sanctioned book is mouth-watering. Hergé Foundation/Moulinsart gave Michael Farr free reign of Hergé's archives, allowing him to show the reference images and sketches that sat behind the final Tintin artwork. A real behind-the-scenes experience for fans!

Unfortunately, the actual book fails to live up to this possibility.

A large part of the problem is the formatting of the book...

...which divi-
des the book
into three col-
umns per page,
with text of-
ten broken up
with hypens ac-
ross multiple
lines.

But the problems are larger than formatting. Michael Farr's text is, for the most part lifeless, uninspired and uninformative. There is a confusing blend of information about the events of Hergé's life, with the storyline of the comics, and oddly-chosen photographs and illustrations. The overall effect is muddled and unsatisfying. A missed opportunity.

For the record, Harry Thompson's Tintin: Hergé and His Creation is the best analytical book I have read on Tintin, to this date. Somehow, without illustrations or access to official archives, Thompson's book manages to be more informative that Farr's account. Though slim and concise, Thompson's book is my recommended Tintin companion, along with the 2003 documentary Tintin and I. ( )