丁丁历险记：蓝莲花 The Adventures of Tintin The Blue Lotus

Picking up where he left off in the Egyptian adventure Cigars of the Pharaoh, Tintin travels to China in The Blue Lotus, a tale which is generally considered Herge's first masterpiece. It's also Tintin's only foray into actual history, specifically the Sino-Japanese conflicts of the early 1930s. The political tensions combined with the chilling threats of drugs give the story an especially high and realistic sense of danger. Herge's interest in China was spurred by a friendship with a young Chinese student named Chang Chong-chen, a relationship that Tintin mirrors with a Chinese boy also named Chang Chong-chen. Herge paints a vivid picture of China and takes the opportunity to denounce ethnic prejudices (though ironically his artistic depiction of the Japanese businessman Mitsuhirato is quite grotesque). Years later, Tintin's relationship with Chang would become the basis of Tintin in Tibet. --David Horiuchi

Herge was born in Belgium in 1907. The first Tintin story appeared in 1929 in the children’s magazine Le Petit Vingtieme. The Adventures of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets followed shortly thereafter. It was the first book in a series of 23 full length Tintin adventures. Herge died in 1983. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.