The Seven Crystal Balls
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| Tintin: The Seven Crystal Balls (Les Sept boules de cristal) |
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The Seven Crystal Balls (Les Sept boules de cristal) is the thirteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero.
[edit] Synopsis
A mysterious illness is afflicting members of a scientific expedition recently returned from the Andes where they had unearthed the tomb of the Inca, Rascar Capac. One by one, the expedition members fall into a coma. The only clue is shards of crystal found near each victim, which are fragments of shattered crystal balls. Concerned, Tintin, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus go to stay with Calculus' old friend, and expedition member, the ebullient Professor Tarragon, who is keeping Rascar Capac's mummy in his house. But the mummy soon disappears when a lightning storm sends a ball of fire down the chimney, and, after each being visited in their nightmares by the mummy, the three wake to find Tarragon comatose, with the telltale shards of crystal by his bed.
Tarragon later wakes up but screams about mysterious figures attacking him. Tintin later visits a hospital where all the other stricken explorers go through the same horrors at a precise time of day.
The plot thickens even further, however, when Calculus, taking a stroll around Professor Tarragon's house, discovers a striking gold bracelet, puts it on (remarking on how nicely it goes with his coat), and then mysteriously disappears. The bracelet had previously been worn by the now-vanished mummy.
While looking for Calculus, Tintin and the Captain are fired upon by an unseen gunman who gets away in a black car, with Calculus in it. The alarm is raised and the police set up road blocks, but the kidnappers switch cars and slip through the net.
Tintin and Haddock find clues that lead them believe that Calculus is on board a ship called the Pachacamac which is bound for South America, and resolve to meet his ship there.
The story is continued in Prisoners of the Sun, the next volume in the series, although that did not appear until 1946, due to problems Herge got into following the liberation of Belgium at the end of World War II, when he and other members of the Le Soir were investigated for working for a collaborationist newspaper.
[edit] Background
The Seven Crystal Balls was written during World War II. With Belgium under German occupation, Hergé decided to avoid the overt political content that he had included in previous Tintin stories, such as The Blue Lotus, The Broken Ear and King Ottokar's Sceptre.
The Seven Crystal Balls and its theme of an ancient curse was inspired by the Curse of the Pharaohs, the speculation that members of the Howard Carter expedition, discoverers of the tomb of Tutankhamun, had died in tragic and mysterious ways.
The original serial version began regular publication in the Belgian newspaper Le Soir on December 16, 1943. It was suspended on September 3, 1944, following the liberation of Brussels, when Herge and many of his colleagues had to answer for working for a collaborationist newspaper.
[edit] Spinoffs
A video game has been released based on this book and Prisoners of the Sun.
| The Adventures of Tintin | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creation of Tintin · Books, films, and media · Ideology of Tintin | ||||
| Characters: | Supporting · Minor · Complete list | |||
| Miscellany: | Hergé · Marlinspike · Captain Haddock's exclamations | |||
