Dom Joly has this appreciation of Tintin in the Independent which captures that essential quality of the reporter – it makes you want to discover the world. (Sans dog in my case as I prefer cats.) In the main, Tintin is pure escapism and his world is rarely truly dark and dangerous (apart from the anti-Nazi sentiments of King Ottakar’s Sceptre).
The early books (Land of the Soviets and Congo) demonstrate the clear difficulties in writing political fiction for children Рyou need substance or it falls extremely flat extremely quickly. However Herg̩ managed to lose this and go for the boy adventurer before making a hard but ultimately catastrophic career choice: to keep working in Occupied Belgium. The post-War difficulties in finding a job lead to his losing control of his creation and ill-health.
I hope that the theatre production and the forthcoming films do Tintin proud.