The Crab with the Golden Claws
| The Crab with the Golden Claws (Le Crabe aux pinces d'or) | |
|---|---|
| File:Tintin cover - The Crab with the Golden Claws.jpg Cover of the English edition | |
| Date | 1941 |
| Series | The Adventures of Tintin (Les aventures de Tintin) |
| Publisher | Casterman |
| Creative team | |
| Writers | Hergé |
| Artists | Hergé |
| Original publication | |
| Published in | Le Soir (first part in Le Soir Jeunesse) |
| Date of publication | October 17, 1940 - October 18, 1941 |
| Language | French |
| ISBN | 2-203-00108-9 |
| Translation | |
| Publisher | Methuen |
| Date | 1958 |
| ISBN | 1-4052-0620-9 |
| Translator | Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | King Ottokar's Sceptre, 1939 |
| Followed by | The Shooting Star, 1942 |
The Crab with the Golden Claws (French: Le Crabe aux pinces d'or) is the ninth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. It is also the first to feature Tintin's longtime friend, Captain Haddock.
Synopsis
Tintin is informed by the Thompsons of a case involving the ramblings of a drunken man, later killed, found with a scrap of paper from what appears to be a tin of crab-meat with the word Karaboudjan scrawled on it. His subsequent investigation and the kidnapping of a Japanese man interested in talking to him leads Tintin to a ship also called the Karaboudjan, where he is abducted by a syndicate of criminals who have been hiding opium in the crab tins. Escaping from his locked room, Tintin encounters Captain Haddock, an alcoholic who is manipulated by his first mate, Allan, and is unaware of his crew's criminal activities. Escaping the ship in a lifeboat in an attempt to reach Spain, they are attacked by a seaplane. They hijack the plane and tie up the pilots, but a storm and Haddock's drunken behaviour causes them to crash-land in the Sahara.
After trekking across the desert, Tintin and Haddock reach a Moroccan port, but the Captain is kidnapped by members of his old crew. Tintin tracks them down and saves the Captain, but they both become intoxicated by the fumes from wine barrels breached in a shootout with the villains. Upon sobering up, Tintin discovers the necklace with the Crab with the Golden Claws on the now-subdued owner of the wine cellar, Omar Ben Salaad, and realizes that he is the leader of the drug cartel. After capturing Allan, the gang is put behind bars.
Publication history
The Crab with the Golden Claws was first published in serial comic strip form in 1941.
The story was written after Hergé had been forced to abandon his previous story, Land of Black Gold, also set in the desert, when Nazi Germany took over Belgium. After the invasion, publication of Le Petit Vingtième, the children's newspaper supplement that had published his previous Tintin adventures, was stopped and Hergé had to look for another means of publication. In addition, Land of Black Gold featured controversial political matter, depicting the conflicts between Jews, Arabs and the British troops in the British Mandate of Palestine. Hergé was asked by the newspaper Le Soir to create a weekly supplement, similar to that of Le Petit Vingtième, called Le Soir Jeunesse, and he began work on a new story about the less controversial subject of drug smuggling.
The Crab With the Golden Claws appeared for the first time on October 17, 1940, and every week Hergé published two full pages. But the supplement disappeared again after September 3, 1941, due to paper shortage during World War II, when only 98 pages had appeared. The interruption continued until September 23 1941, when Hergé and Tintin got a daily strip in Le Soir. It continued for 24 days until the story was finished on October 18. This meant a major change in the method of working of Hergé, with a daily instead of a weekly publication, and a consequent rethinking of the layout of the comic and the rhythm of the storytelling. This version was republished as an album in 1941.
The strip was completely redrawn in colour for publication as an album in 1943.
In the 1960s, the book was published in America with a number of changes. In the original, the sailor Tintin leaves bound and gagged in Captain Haddock's cabin, and the man who beats Haddock in the cellar, are black Africans. These were changed in the 1960s to a white sailor and an Arab due to objections by American publishers of having blacks and whites mixing together. [1] However, Haddock still refers to the man who beat him as a "Negro" in the English version. Also at the request of the Americans, scenes of Haddock drinking directly from the bottles of whisky on the lifeboat and the plane were taken out.[2]
In an interview, Hergé sarcastically stated that these moves were "justified" because "Everyone knows that Americans never drink whisky(!)" and "that there are no blacks in America(!)".[3]
Film
The Crab with the Golden Claws was adapted into a stop motion-animated feature film of the same name in 1947, produced by Wilfried Bouchery for Films Claude Misonne. It was the first ever film adaptation of Tintin and reproduces the story of the original comic almost exactly. It was first shown at the ABC Cinema on January 11, 1947 for a group of invited guests. It was screened publicly only once, on December 21 of that year, before Bouchery declared bankruptcy and fled to Argentina. All of the equipment was seized and a copy of the film is currently stored at Belgium's Cinémathèque Royale.[citation needed]. The story is also to be added in the upcoming, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn", in 2011.
In popular culture
In The Simpsons episode In the Name of the Grandfather Lisa Simpson mentions Ireland is on the forefront of Europe's "tech-boom". Bart Simpson mockingly adds: "Up yours, Belgium!", whereupon Marge threatens Bart with the words: "Bart! If you hate Belgium so much, maybe I should take away your Tintin books!" This scares Bart, who clutches a copy of the album "The Crab with the Golden Claws", promising he'll be good.[4]
References
- ^ Tintin: The Complete Companion by Michael Farr, John Murray publishers, 2001
- ^ Tintin Crosses The Atlantic: The Golden Press Affair by Chris Owens at www.tintinologist.org
- ^ Translation of an interview with Hergé previously available on youtube.com
- ^ [1]
External links
- The Crab with the Golden Claws at Tintinologist.org
