Kiddie version of Tintin

“The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko” is a relatively unknown comic, created by Hergé, the man behind “The Adventures of Tintin”. Only five albums were published. I've only read one of them, “Destination New York” (really the second part of a story that began with “Mr Pump's Legacy”). The comic looks like a children-oriented version of Tintin, the plot revolving around two brave tweens, Jo and Zette, and their intelligent pet monkey Jocko. As usual, the heroes are chased by gangsters and end up in various far-away lands. In “Destination New York”, the two kids have to fly a “stratoship” from Paris to New York in order to collect a 10 million dollar legacy. Naturally, the disinherited heirs try to stop the flight and collect the cash themselves. Greenland, Iceland and the Caribbean (sic) are some of the places where Jo, Zette and Jocko find themselves during their slightly erratic flight around the world…

“The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko” apparently take place in the same universe as the Tintin comics, the two kids and their monkey being featured on the back covers of many Tintin albums. While no Tintinesque characters are included in this adventure (unless we count a blond youngster on a ship), Captain Haddock's portrait is apparently featured in “Dr Pump's Legacy”, and in “The Eruption of Karamako”, Zette is harassed by the movie studio of Tintin's arch-enemy Rastapopoulos!

Overall, however, this is not a very exciting read, except perhaps for the youngest age cohorts.