Following initial thoughts, as mentioned in my first post about Tintin geographies, I am in the process of working through the Tintin books, and designing exercises to incorporate them into classroom teaching. But in the meantime I came across a map which shows all of the locations included in the books (not always the correct names for places, but have been identified by landmarks etc).
Tintin Map, from Travels of a Boy Reporter
While Hergé has been known for his accuracy and detail with regards to the content of the Tintin comics, his geography in some cases has been questioned.
”The carefully referenced images of foreign countries, the painstakingly researched planes or the spacecraft he designed are as much part of the adventures of Tintin as the Tintin himself. Yet when I came to look at the geography behind Tintin’s stories, it became apparent that Herge had a very relaxed view of where things were in the world.
Take, for example, the question of where Tintin lives. In Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, it is clear that Tintin lives in Brussels. However in the Crab with the Golden Claw, The Shooting Star and The Secret of the Unicorn our hero regularly pops out to visit the docks. A neat feat because Brussels is 30 miles from the coast. Many similar problems exist. In the Cigars of the Pharaoh, how did Tintin fly from Khemed to Gaipajama, a distance of not less than 1000 miles, in a 1930’s airplane without refueling?” (Travels of a Boy Reporter)
I’ll be looking out for any more geographical anomalies as I work my way through the collection.
eternalexploration 