Previously, Tintin showed up in America and then there were racist depictions of Native Americans.

With those wacky Injuns out of the way, Tintin turns his head back to a powerful conundrum.

As we have previously mentioned: Tintin? Is lucky.

So Tintin gives chase to Bobby Smiles! And how does he gives chase? Why, only in the most logical and rational manner possible…

…by hijacking a train.

Unfortunately, Tintin has stolen a broken train without working brakes. (This is because he is an idiot.) And… well.

OH NOES! How will Tintin get out of this one? Well, those nice cowboy miner people will see him coming and save his ass by blowing up the rock with dynamite. Tintin is so lucky!

Oh, but maybe he is NOT lucky!

In any case, Tintin survives the explosion (of course), and he wanders off into the badlands, because there’s nothing quite as intelligent as wandering into the wilderness in pursuit of a notorious criminal while unarmed and without so much as a bottle of water.

Tintin takes a nap, and a horrible bandit who is on the run from the law happens past. It so happens that this bandit has very distinctive boot-tracks due to his particular spurs. So he switches his boots with Tintin, to more effectively run from the law.

In Tintin’s world, boots sometimes simply magically switch themselves. Perhaps the Boot Fairy is involved.

Anyway, the law catches up with Tintin, and mistakenly they take him back to town to lynch him.

This is actually the second of multiple failed lynching attempts. Because Tintin is lucky.

Eventually, Tintin escapes, and he finds the notorious Bobby Smiles. Guess what happens!

You knew it was coming.

How will Tintin escape this situation?

Yes, Tintin this time was saved not by resourceful cowboy men or armed police, but indeed by a whining big-city liberal animal rights activist.

THRILLING CLIFFHANGER TIME!

Who will save Tintin this time? FIND OUT REAL SOON NOW!

For a mere ten thousand dollars, I will take a polygraph test which will completely prove that John McCain had his gay mansexual way with me and an illegal immigrant in a torrid homo-pervert three-way. Then, he spat on the Bible and affirmed his dual loyalties to the Democratic Party and Osama Bin Laden.

Ten thousand bucks, Mr. Huckabee. How can you pass up a bargain like that? Eh? Eh?

I recently got a couple of the new collected editions of the Tintin books that Little, Brown are putting out – nice thick hardcovers, three Tintin books collected per volume. They’re a bit smaller than normal Tintin books, but Herge’s art is still gorgeous and easy to appreciate even at the slightly reduced size.

But, because I am anal in some ways, I got the first two Tintin volumes – the early books, before Herge really hit his stride during the first appearances of Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus. And I am bearing in mind that these were written for children (although Tintin, much like Asterix, was originally serialized in newspapers and enjoyed by adults as well as children right from the get-go).

And even keeping all that in mind, Tintin In America, the “first” adventure of Tintin (since the Congo adventure never happened, you understand, and if you think it did, you’re wrong), is totally fucking bugshit crazy.

Don’t believe me? Well. Here is the second panel of the book.

Understand the following things:

1.) Tintin coming to America is apparently front-page news in Chicago, where honestly I would have thought they would have more interesting things to write about. “BELGIAN BOY COMES TO CHICAGO” is right up there with “IDENTICAL TWINS JOIN CHRONICLE STAFF” for underwhelming headlines. (Points for recognizing the reference.)

2.) Al Capone (who is sitting in the chair) is so angry about this that he wants to make sure that this intrepid boy reporter gets whacked. You know he is serious because he tells his crime friends (Four Eyes, Dapper Dan, Big Irish Albert, “Icepick” Salvatore and The Negro) and gives them orders.

So what cunning plan do they come up with?

They trick out a taxi and trap Tintin in it.

What would have happened if Tintin had gotten into a different taxi? Would they just have sat around, getting all depressed? “Gosh, we done spent five thousand bucks to turn this taxi into a rollin’ death trap and our sucker didn’t even get inta it. How will I ever make my dead father proud of me now, huh?”

But luckily, there’s no way out of those steel-plated windows that even the dog can’t chew his way through! Even that tire going flat means no escape!

Unless, of course, you are Tintin, never without your trusty silenced hacksaw, which allows you to saw through the roof without the driver hearing it.

So Tintin finds some cops and they catch the bad guy tax driver, who decides to talk, but…

A boomerang.

A boomerang.

A 1930s Chicago gangster using a boomerang to take down his enemies.

That is quite possibly the most random thing ever. I mean, this isn’t Tintin In Australia. He’s in Illinois. Illinois is not exactly famed for its Aborigine warriors. So one of Tintin’s enemies is now a boomerang-slinging criminal. I know what you’re thinking – “wow, this guy has to be a major antagonist for our hero Tintin.” But after his escape, we never see him ever again. My guess is Herge sat back, after plotting the whole thing out, and decided “hm. Bit dry. This needs a boomerang.” And he just kind of shoved a boomerang in there where he could make it fit.

Anyway. There’s a car chase, and a wreck, and Tintin spends a few days in hospital. Then:

Al Capone was such a powerful mob boss he installed a series of trap doors all over the Chicago streets just for this very purpose. No wonder he was so feared. I understand Robert de Niro used elements of this story when developing his performance of Capone in The Untouchables.

Understand that at no point during this story so far has Tintin said dick about his plans to take down Al Capone, or indeed anything other than “we’re here in America!” and “Ow! After him!” If I were Tintin, I would have replied “wait, you mean this isn’t Cincinnati? I was scheduled to take down the King of Cincinnati. Oh, gosh, this is embarrassing…”

Anyhow. Tintin of course gets free…

To be fair, this is probably what a real Chicago cop would do in the same situation. On the other hand, real Chicago cops probably wouldn’t get into the chase sequence that followed, complete with Keystone Kops-level running-into-one-another-ness.

But Al Capone, having learned his lesson, this time decides to send Tintin a polite note first before killing him.

“I am an intrepid boy reporter with a trusty dog sidekick and he is merely a crime boss commanding the loyalty of thousands of amoral killers, with his fingers corrupting every major civic institution this city has to offer! What can possibly go wrong?” Oh, Tintin.

Two attempted murders of Tintin later, the “police” show up to tell Tintin how awesome he is, and could he come give them some help?

What is wrong with this picture?

1.) Tintin is retarded enough to even consider the possibility that the police station is a room in an apartment building with a “Police” sign tacked hastily on to it.
2.) The gangsters are stupid enough to have a headquarters with a sign on it. “Hey, federal agents! Do not go here! You will find nothing! Sincerely, The Bad Guys.”
3.) ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Bonus section!

What does Tintin’s letter really say?

From a political blog’s comments after the Maine caucuses tonight:

Any word on the percent of african-americans voting for obama?

In Maine? I’m guessing Fred and Brenda voted for Obama, and Joe voted for Clinton.

You can’t do just one of these.

EDIT TO ADD: I note that this page has become popular on StumbleUpon, so it would be remiss of me not to point out the inevitable sequel.

THE NINE LEVELS OF HELL (AS APPLIED TO UNDERWHELMING THIRD ENTRIES IN MOVIE FRANCHISES)

To qualify for this list, a third movie in a trilogy must fit these qualifications:

1.) It must suck. Therefore, Back To The Future III, for example, doesn’t qualify.
2.) It must be a worse movie than its two predecessors. If Army of Darkness were a bad movie, hypothetically speaking, it wouldn’t qualify, because the original Evil Dead is pretty bad.
3.) Its two predecessors must at least have been okay, and preferably good (although it’s permissible for the first to be better than the second). This knocks out, for example, Austin Powers: Goldmember, because the second Austin Powers movie is just unwatchable crap. (If you liked it, tough noogies. My list.)
4.) Its two predecessors must have been somewhat notable. This cuts out most horror movie trilogies, which are mostly boringly bad and of a generally mediocre quality throughout.

Thus:

FIRST LEVEL: Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Rocky III, Rambo III, Lethal Weapon 3, Max Max: Beyond Thunderdome

SECOND LEVEL: Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation, X3: The Last Stand, Friday After Next, Spy Kids 3D

THIRD LEVEL: American Wedding, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, The Naked Gun 33 1/3rd

FOURTH LEVEL: Alien 3, The Matrix Revolutions, Blade: Trinity, Major League: Back To The Minors

FIFTH LEVEL: Spider-Man III, The Godfather Part III, Speed Zone!, Scream 3

SIXTH LEVEL: Batman Forever, Scary Movie III, Hellraiser 3: Hell On Earth, The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift

SEVENTH LEVEL: Beverly Hills Cop III, The Bad News Bears Go To Japan, Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles

EIGHTH LEVEL: Shrek the Third, Rush Hour 3, Addams Family Reunion

NINTH LEVEL: Superman III, Look Who’s Talking Now

ME: So I need some new opponents for Scrabulous. Who wants to fall before me?
SARAH (ANOTHER LAW STUDENT): Ooh, me!
MIKE (ANOTHER LAW STUDENT): You might want to qualify that.
SARAH: …at Scrabulous.
MIKE: Much better.
(A pause.)
SARAH: Hah, “dispose.” Seven-letter start!
ME: Big deal, you managed a seven-letter word with three vowels, an S and a blank tile. Next up: baby brags about successfully breastfeeding.
MIKE: I don’t know if I approve of Scrabble smack talk.
SARAH: What’s wrong with it?
MIKE: It’s a game where you’re allowed to play two-letter words. You can’t play two-letter words in Boggle, you know.
SARAH: Oh, god, are you going to go on about Boggle again?
MIKE: Boggle is to Scrabble as quantum physics is to arithmetic.
SARAH: You just like Boggle because you get to shake the container.
MIKE: You just like Scrabble because you can play it during class when you’re bored.
ME: Fair point.
MIKE: How do you even pass the courses, anyway?
ME: Natural brilliance.

Tip of the hat to Jim Smith, without whom I totally would have missed this:

Over the past month a new Axis of Evil has emerged — not one based in Damascus, Tehran or Pyongyang — but instead in Cedar Rapids, Charleston, South Carolina, Derry, New Hampshire and Boca Raton, Florida.

No, seriously. He’s not kidding!

I can hear you saying, “surely you aren’t saying that South Carolina has gone liberal — are you?” Are you kidding me? Drive through the Carolinas and count the number of license plates from NJ, NY and Pennsylvania. There is not much Dixie in the Carolinas; it’s more like Trenton and Long Island with fireworks.

HOLY SHIT, YOU GUYS, HE IS SERIOUS WHEN HE WRITES THIS. This guy is actually theorizing, for reals, that the South Carolina primary was manipulated by out-of-state voters, who moved down to South Carolina to subvert it with their liberal values. You could not make this sort of person up if you tried.

“But”, you protest, “New Hampshire, is Live Free or Die, it’s been a backbone of conservatism since the 1950’s.” No longer my friends — NH has become an exurb of Boston, with Boston’s sensibilities and, ugh, their voting tastes. NH hasn’t been reliably conservative since Reagan’s first term. These voters would rather be loved by the Boston Globe, than respected by the Union Leader.

In fairness, he has a point here. I mean, just last week I got an email saying “dear Chris, I have a problem. As a native of New Hampshire, I know I should be rightly considerate of my local media’s respect of me. However, the Boston Globe has a bigger comics page and a crossword daily, rather than five days a week. I find myself torn. Do you think perhaps if I lobbied the Union-Leader to add more sudoku, I could remain loyal to my home state’s newspaper? Signed, An Imaginary Person Who Does Not Exist.”

“Iowa, that’s America, with small town values and homespun sensibilities.” Wrong again — Iowa is just a state brimming with farmers on the federal dole, college students and ex hippie professors looking to con, libs in training at Grinnell.

oh god i can’t breathe

make him stop

please

oh god

If liberals from Englewood Cliffs NJ want to vote liberal, it’s going to get cancelled out by conservatives in Chattanooga — who might actually get to vote for Fred.

And here we come to the crux of it – this is Angry Fred Thompson Voter Man #789. This is the man who just can’t get over the fact that most people think Fred Thompson is a lazy-ass bastard who, while he may be awfully good at saying things like “the Russians don’t take a dump without a plan, son!” is not actually a particularly impressive politician, thinker, or much of anything else other than a second-rate character actor.

Make every state vote on exactly the same day. Make every candidate compete in EVERY state at the exact same time and hold every single GOP primary and caucus on Super Tuesday.

There’s pros and cons to this idea, but dumbass here doesn’t seem to realize that this plan would have annihilated Fred Thompson, who entered the campaign with not a lot of money and hoped to build momentum from a couple of early victories – you know, the traditional route for candidates who don’t have a lot of money. That’s the advantage of the primary system – it allows good candidates with low resources to gradually gain them.

The other advantage of the primary system, incidentally, is that it allows voters to spot bad candidates over the course of the campaign, like Rudy Giuliani – or, to a lesser extent, Fred Thompson. Seriously, can you imagine Fred Thompson, the biggest verbal stumblebum in the entire 2008 presidential race, as the Republican nominee? Chris Dodd and Joe Biden would have eaten him for breakfast, let alone Clinton, Obama or Edwards.

But wait, I still haven’t given you the dramatic conclusion of this dimwit’s “voters I disagree with are the new terrorists” spiel:

RINOS and Liberals have taken the GOP plane hostage, and its time for us passengers to revolt…and do what has to be done — Let’s Roll.

*applause*

FACT. The Count lives in a large, Gothic-ish castle on a lonely hillside.

FACT. There are no large, Gothic-ish castles upon lonely hillsides in New York City.

FACT. The Count does not have a job in the city.

THUS. The Count has no actual reason to enter into New York City bar his own wishes.

FACT. The child cast of Sesame Street changes frequently and widely. You rarely see the same kids on the show for more than three or four episodes.

FACT. However, the adult cast of Sesame Street changes very, very rarely.

FACT. Everybody seems to take the fact that a vampire is wandering a New York City street with surprising calm.

THUS. We can extrapolate:

The Count travels into the city to feed upon the children of Sesame Street, and the adults of Sesame Street are his willing slaves.

Discuss.

1.) Is it just me, or does the cowboy star look uncannily like George W. Bush?

2.) Who, come to think, is also a fake cowboy.

3.) In the Golden Days of Hollywood, “pen” was a codeword for “heroin.”

4.) In 1948, $2.25 was “America’s best value” for a pen? I can get a perfectly good pen now for $2.25; maybe not a fancy one, like the Fineline presumably is, but then again, since when do fancy pens advertise on the back of comic books?

5.) So effectively the actual story here is “how Chuck’s crazy good luck got him in the movies.”

Well, examining my daily hitcount and reader totals as I am wont to do, I note that yesterday’s linkback from PvP better than tripled my usual readership.

In this spirit, I would like to announce the following upcoming posts:

“Are Gabe And Tycho Seditious Communist Agents? The Evidence”
“Joss Whedon: Serial Plagarist”
“Feist Is A Ho”
“Closeted Homosexual or Secret Bi Party-Bear: The Double (Or Triple) Life Of John Byrne” [1]
“Seriously, People, It’s A Movie About A Killer Fantasy Rabbit, Shut Up About Donnie Darko Already”
“Televisionwithoutpity: Illiterate Hillbilly Orgy”
“The Insane Clown Posse Are Actually Pleasant Gentlemen Who Are Nice To Grandmothers Everywhere”
“Perez Hilton: Fucking Shut The Fuck Up You Fucking Fat Fuckwad”

I look forward to total eventual domination of all media everywhere.

[1] Actually, I would write this one for real, every day, except I can’t figure out how you spell the noise one makes when one is slurping cock.