\'The Adventures of Tintin (丁丁历险记)\'

The first time I heard about Tintin was in China/>/>, at Beijing Hongqiao market (also known as the Pearl Market overseas) in 2005. A shop was selling lacquer art. While Dave and I were inside looking around, a foreign girl came in and asked for a specific Tintin lacquer art to complete her Tintin collection. The shop owner said she had it, and she would sell the 12" x 16" one for 300 RMB ($37.5), or the 8" x 12" one for 200 RMB ($25). We thought lacquer art looked cool but we weren't ready to buy yet, so we left.

A couple of days later, we happened to walk into another shop selling lacquer art in Panjiayuan Antique Market. They had tons of Tintin lacquer art and their prices were much cheaper - 200 RMB ($25) for the 12" x 16" one. The shop owner briefly introduced us to lacquer art and the Tintin book series, both sounded interesting. So after a little haggling, we walked out with four Tintin lacquer art at 160 RMB ($20) a piece.

After coming back to U.S./>/>, we read almost all the Tintin books. It turns out "The Adventures of Tintin" is a hugely popular series of comic books created by Belgian artist Hergé. The series main characters are:
- Tintin (front, center), a young Belgian reporter and traveler.
- His faithful dog Snowy.
- Captain Haddock (next to Tintin on the left), who loves to say "billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles" or "ten thousand thundering typhoons" to express his feelings. :)
- Detectives Thomson and Thompson (next to Tintin on the right), who look and act like twins even though they are not related at all.

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Image from Internet

The series has a total of 24 books, with the 24th published unfinished after Hergé's death in 1983. Book 5: "The Blue Lotus (1934-1935)" and book 20: "Tintin in Tibet/> (1960)" are related to China/>/>. All the lacquer art we bought came from book 5 drawings.

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Book 10, 12, 16 and 17 are my favorite because of their fun stories and colorful drawings. Next time I go back to China/>/>, I'll see if I can buy these in lacquer art.

6. Book 10: The Shooting Star (1941-1942).

Image from Internet

7. Book 12: Red Rackham's Treasure (1943–1944).

Image from Internet

8. Book 16: Destination Moon (1950–1953).

Image from Internet

9. Book 17: Explorers on the Moon (1950–1954).

Image from Internet

From Internet:
Lacquerware products begin with a selected piece of wood, rose, cherry or walnut for furniture and jewelry boxes and plywood for paintings. The wood then will be filled with a layer of natural lacquer which gradually seeps through to the core of wood to make it harder and resistant to rotting by insects. The wood is then covered with a piece of cotton cloth soaked in clay and glued to it using the sap of the lacquer tree. This protects it from cracking. Several more layers of black lacquer are added to cover the cloth and prepare it for painting. The board is then sand papered and recoated with several more layers of lacquer and hand polished smooth to give it a stunning finish.