Tintin was one of the comic book heroes of my childhood. I'm going to read my way through the series again as I listen to a radio program about him, and his creator, Hergé. Red Rackham's Treasure begins right where The Secret of the Unicorn ends. Tintin, and Captain Haddock now have a treasure map, and intend to go look for what they can find.
In my opinion, the two books that make up this adventure, are the best in the whole series, or at least up until this point. Part of the reason is that there are no problems reading the story from page one in the first book until the last page of this book. It works as a single story, and it shows how far Hergé had got with his craft by that time.
But I think they also work because they are very different, and compliment one another. While The Secret of the Unicorn was a mystery set int Belgium, Red Rackham's Treasure is an adventure tale, where our two heroes go looking for a pirate treasure in southern seas. The plot moves briskly, but still logically, and there isn't as much silliness as in some of the volumes. There are perhaps more exciting storylines in some of the other volumes, but the whole thing still keeps moving at a good pace, and is interesting enough to keep one turning the pages.
The other part of the Tintin Formula is the humour, and there our cast is in excellent shape. Just as it was in The Secret of the Unicorn, the humour doesn't rest on one character, or a pair of them. Thomson and Thompson come along for the ride, and they are in quite a good comic form, but humour also rests on the all the main cast, Tintin, Captain Haddock, and Snowy all have their comic moments.
There is one more character who shoulders quite a bit of the humour burden, and that is Professor Calculous, the last of the usual cast of the Tintin books to appear. Even though there have been some dotty professors now and then up until this book, this is the first where Professor Calculous appears. Captain Haddock and Professor Calculous trying to talk to one another is absolutely wonderful. They make such a great comic duo on occasions.
There is one thing though. One thread isn't tied off at the end, and one could argue this is a flaw to the otherwise perfect two-book Tintin adventure, but there is a reason for this flaw. Hergé intended to use this at some point in the series. The idea was even to make this a recurring thread that might pop up now and then in the rest of the series, but then he never found the right angle for it in any of the books. So a flaw, but one that had its reasons.
I think I'm remembering this correctly when I say this was my favourite Tintin adventure when I first read the books, and I still think it is the best of the series, or at least up until this book. Lets see how the other half of the series turns out.