1950-1952 (collected 1953) / Ecomics / 62 pages / Belgium****
Recent stories had become repetitive and formulaic, so Hergé throws in a Moonraker to keep us on our toes. As this is aiming for more realism than Wallace & Gromit, we have to sit through some dull chemistry lessons before we can get to the silver-age sci-fi, but the sense of countdown makes it a page-turner more than the dawdling espionage plot.
Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin: Explorers on the Moon (On a marché sur la Lune)
1952-1953 (collected 1954) / Ecomics / 62 pages / Belgium****
It looks like the weird outlier of the series on the back covers, and it probably is, but a whole book of build-up and attempted scientific accuracy like those serious '50s space films sell it. I was more aware of the serial cliffhangers than I've been before, maybe because they felt more manufactured than usual or because there were some literal cliffhangers in there. I like how specifically dated these ones are, and Hergé's enthusiasm for history in the making comes through in his astronomical renderings and exhausting walls of dialogue.
1994 / Audiobook / 378 pages / USA
***
Maybe the pervading sense of disappointment and failure held me back from appreciating the ingenuity, but Robert Kurson's Apollo 8 book was my preferred Lovell adventure.
2007 / Ebook / 120 pages / USA
**
I was pleased that romanticising the artist's death didn't overshadow the music discussion as much as might be expected. I was less pleased by the final third being an extended car advert.
2011 / Ebook / 222 pages / USA
****
Detailed build-up and breakdown of a classic album and interesting deconstruction of punk origin myths, even if he does makes the 'tell a vision' pun twice.
