My review, as posted in Tintin Books

I seem to have a much more complex relationship with this album than many do. As a child, I never enjoyed "The Black Island" (and I read Tintin every day for a while) - in fact, it was one of a rare few albums that I didn't try and adapt into a play (pretentious child that I was). I guess I didn't appreciate the Hitchcock feeling, and I found the climax with the gorilla "silly". I suspect it is partly because, as I'm not British, this album had no special sway over me compared to any other "foreign setting". "The Black Island" wasn't exotic like [b:The Blue Lotus|146144|The Blue Lotus|Hergé|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172178189s/146144.jpg|1928886], nor did it possess the wealth of characterisations like, say, [b:The Secret of the Unicorn|179174|The Secret of the Unicorn (The Adventures of Tintin)|Hergé|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172468324s/179174.jpg|1275077]. Perhaps I don't enjoy a book that relies so much on Snowy's physical comedy, or perhaps I just associated it too much (for some intangible reason) with the similar homespun chase of the (far superior) [b:The Shooting Star|146107|The Shooting Star (The Adventures of Tintin)|Hergé|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172178127s/146107.jpg|173095].

As an adult, I can appreciate it somewhat more: the texture of the Scottlish landscape, for example. I'm still not overly fond of this work though. It probably has more to say to British people, particularly those who grew up in the '60s and '70s, because you always read reviews by people saying "I never realised Tintin wasn't British!". To those of us born and raised in the post-modern world, this is one of only 24 Tintin albums, and by far not the best.

On the other hand, Tintin gets to show off his legs in a kilt, which is great fun! It's particularly nice to see someone get the better of Tintin. In this case, Ranko's owner sees Tintin (after a close shave with death) and goes crazy, saying "I've seen a ghost!". This is a typical Herge formula from the time, but this time - the villain is faking it, and gets one up on Tintin! Already, Herge is messing with the formulas he has cleverly devised, and that's why we love him. ( )

Une aventure fondée sur un événement fortuit qui va pousser Tintin à se lancer dans une enquête finalement plus compliquée que prévu. Son acharnement à progresser n'aura d'égal que celui de ses adversaires à se débarrasser de lui (un peu comme le duo de malfrats de l'Oreille cassée) et il échappera à la mort plus souvent qu'à son tour, parfois par chance, parfois avec de l'aide, mais aussi grâce à de l'astuce et une vista bien mises en avant.
Un album dynamique, plein d'entrain et parsemé de quelques running gags (les chutes des Dupondt) et un peu plus didactique que les premiers, avec notamment la volonté de fournir les explications nécessaires à la construction d'une intrigue qui se tient. ( )

Nachdem die ersten Bände in - aus europäischer Sicht - weiter Ferne spielten und darunter die eigentliche Geschichte meist sehr litt und zudem sehr häufig Verharmlosung imperialistischer, kolonialistischer und auch rassistischer Vorgänge betrieben, ist dieser Band nun wohltuend anders: Hier kommt Tim zufällig einer Geldfälscherbande auf die Spur und verfolgt diese durch Europa bis nach Schottland.

Weite Teile des Albums werden allerdings von der puren Verfolgung eingenommen, die zwar nett, aber - zumindest aus heutiger Perspektive - nicht wirklich besonders ist.

Zur Einordnung: Ursprünglich erschien “Die schwarze Insel” von 1937 bis 1938 wie seinerzeit üblich in einer Zeitschrift. Eine bereits modifizierte Neuauflage erfolgte 1943 und eine letzte große Überarbeitung endete 1965 mit einer modernisierten und “aufgehübschten” Fassung. Diese bis heute meistverbreitete Version habe ich gelesen.

1965 liegt aber heute bereits 57 Jahre zurück - und das merkt man. Dennoch gelingt es diesem Band, mich wieder ein wenig mehr an die Serie anzunähern, nachdem ich während der ersten fünf Bände bereits befürchtete, mir eine schöne Erinnerung zu zerstören.

Der liebenswerte Humor (Schulze und Schultze in Handschellen) und die einfach nur netten “running gags” (Struppi und der Knochen) haben mich schmunzeln lassen.

Drei von fünf Sternen.

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Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam ( )

Somehow Tintin passed me by as a kid. The books were there in my local library alongside the Asterix ones, but I never wanted to check them out and read them. No idea why that was.

However, my seven year old son did want to read them, probably because he saw the movie first. So having devoured The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure he wanted to read the rest of Tintin. So I took him to the library and we borrowed Tintin and the Black Island.

It is an entertaining and engaging story. Tintin is an action hero and despite the setbacks he saves the day. It isn't all action though, there's loads of humour all through the book, almost every page has at least one gag, many of which are visual and in the background.

Anyway, we liked it so much we've used the online catalogue to order up some of the other Tintin stories that our local library doesn't have on its shelves. ( )

The art is pretty cool and there's a lot of slapstick humor. Not my favorite.