One of the best 14

Following more or less directly of Cigars Of The Pharaoh, The Blue Lotus, released in 1936 (black & white) and then redone in color exactly 10 years later, is one of the highlights of the entire series, and even an absolute peaks of the band International comic. Just that! Published in a striking red cover with black Chinese dragon (initially the color code was reversed, red dragon on a black background, but for clarity, Hergé had to change), this album is one of the most exotic of the saga, and he staged for the first time, an extremely important figure (although after, he will not return until late in the Volume 20, Tintin in Tibet). I speak of Chiang. Chiang really existed, it was a friend of Hergé, Chinese student with whom he had really hit it off, and that helped to make the Chinese characters of the album (Hergé has also never knew that Chiang had in ideograms, his name, but if he had known, he would not have been pained at all).

This is the album that, at the time, was the most politicized obvious allusions to the Japanese invasion of China (which really marked the beginning of the Second World War), referring to the Mukden Incident, that was the catalyst for the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 ... The fact that the ideograms were made by a Chinese is also important: it seems that a lot of texts in Chinese characters are politicized messages and non-fiction. Given that the probability that the album traverses the world to go to China or Japan were minimal, the risk was he too small ... The album, which has hardly been redesigned for version 1946 (only the first pages were, and it shows, but the rest was just colorized), committed and powerful.

Wonderful from start to finish, making Brown the Thompsons (with, this time, their real names, not X33 and X33-bis), with wonderful drawings of a perfect realism and remarkable plot, The Blue Lotus is definitely part of the top 5 albums of the series Tintin Hergé. An album as indispensable cult!