A fetish for Tintin

“The Broken Ear” is an early and relatively good Tintin adventure, filled with allusions to contemporary events and real people. It was originally published in 1935-37. The current, “canonical” version is from 1943.

Tintin investigates the theft of an Amerindian fetish at a Belgian museum (the fetish, too, was based on a real artifact) and soon finds himself in South America, where he experiences an absurd military coup and a war for oil provoked by foreign multinationals. The “Gran Chapo War” between the fictional South American nations of “San Theodoros” and “Nuevo Rico” has obvious similarities to the Gran Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay. The scheming arms dealer who sells cannons to both sides is based on a real person, a certain Basil Zaharoff. Hergé parodies pretty much everyone in this story: Latin American palace “revolutions”, Western oil companies and arms dealers, Latino gangsters and head-hunting Natives. Unfortunately, a stereotyped “greedy Jew” has been included, as well.

“The Broken Ear” introduces the colorful character General Alcazar for the first time, who would became a recurring feature of the Tintin universe. It also contains one of the more peculiar (and to some, shocking) frames of all Tintin stories, in which two villains are taken to Hell by literal devils! Otherwise, it's an old fashioned adventure and detective story. I consider it to be one of the better Tintin comics, probably because I never had a fetish for Captain Haddock (who is blissfully excluded from this story, not having been invented yet).