The Crab with the Golden Claws (1941)

The Crab with the Golden Claws Review

The Crab with the Golden Claws is the 9th volume of The Adventures of Tintin comics series by Belgian cartoonist Herge. It was published in 1941 and it is one of the best entries in the entire series.

Tintin and his dog Snowy travel to Morocco to pursue a gang of international opium smugglers. The history behind this volume is an interesting one. This was written and illustrated during WWII when Belgium was occupied, which resulted in Herge being banned to write any political stories, instead focusing on a pure adventure with no special commentary.

You’d think that this would affect the story badly, but you’d be mistaken as the opposite happened. Because Herge did not have to worry about being historically or culturally accurate to the extreme, he could let loose here, which led to by far the most purely entertaining Tintin comic released up until this point.

Yes, the overall story with drug smuggling is a familiar setup that we’ve seen before in the series. Yes, the third act is also quite rushed. However, there is a brisker pace to this volume that made it much more enjoyable to read than the previous stories. Herge included those large one-page panels to lengthen the story, but not only did I not find that to be a flaw, but I actually thought it elevated the story to a more cinematic status as those big panels were gorgeously illustrated and added a lot of scale and immediacy to the story.

So this is a wonderfully illustrated book that is beautifully adventurous and charming, benefitting strongly from Tintin and Snowy’s excellent character moments throughout. But there is one additional element that propelled this comic to a masterpiece status and that is the introduction of the great Captain Haddock. A man who is a drunk but a good-natured one, this comic not only instantly developed this character superbly, but Herge also gave him an emotional arc.

You feel for the guy as he really has a drinking issue. His friendship with Tintin is from the first moment genuine and just beautiful to witness. The surreal sequences with the two were particularly memorable. Haddock is also just a hilarious creation as all of his scenes were very funny with the highlights being his hallucinations, him fighting and cursing enemies and that ending where he had to drink water and got sick because of it. Herge managed to make him both funny and endearing, which was no easy task.

With all that said, The Crab with the Golden Claws is a Tintin classic. It’s not perfect, but it came awfully close. This was the moment in the series where Herge finally got loose, focusing more on sheer adventure, humor and scope than political commentary. This was also the entry where Captain Haddock was introduced for the first time, which instantly rejuvenated the entire series.

My Rating – 4.8