1966 / Ebook / 50 pages / UK***
A decent budget tie-in, especially for the time, interrupting the compulsory plot summary as it goes along with relevant and much more interesting behind-the-scenes insights. I would have appreciated some of the latter in my childhood Thunderbirds comics that kept things tediously in-universe, getting to know the talent involved and F.A.B. trivia like the meta decadence of Lady Penelope's real mink coat.
Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin: Flight 714 to Sydney (Vol 714 pour Sydney, a.k.a. Flight 714)
1966-1967 (collected 1968) / Ecomics / 62 pages / Belgium***
Tintin's been around so long that we've seen the evolution of leisure travel from long-winded trains and boats to supersonic round-the-world flights. The return of the self-described most evil villain makes this one of the meaner ones, until we head underground and things take an unexpected sci-fi turn that beats Erich von Däniken to the punch. It's not that weird for the series, but the fortuitous ending's no doubt infamous.
2008 / Ebook / 122 pages / UK
***
He draws as much as he can out of a film about nothing, but this joins Casablanca as another superlative classic I don't get. Maybe the relatable ordeal hit too close to home. You have to let these things go.
2011 / Ebook / 131 pages / USA
**
One of the more annoying books in the series, from its teenage fixation on one band member and preoccupation with sales figures to the worthless autobiography strand, maybe this was a simulation of the album's divisiveness or something clever like that.
2014 / Ebook / 320 pages / UK
***
My short-story-spoiled attention span tends to drift off during longer works, but the author does his best to reel me back in when this uncharacteristically straight tour through various historical pastiches abruptly goes bananas, around the time the narrator becomes an undead skeleton.
