REVIEW
TITLE:
The Silence Of Unicorns (A Tara Togs Adventure)
WRITER/ARTIST:
Stref (Stephen White)
FORMAT:
66 Pages A4 Full Colour
PUBLISHER:
Comics Scene
AVAILABLE
FROM:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tara-Silence-Unicorns-Stephen-White/dp/1739681975
REVIEW:
This
is a charming all-ages adventure comic in the style of Herge's Tintin
books of the 1930s and 1940s. Set in the present-day and starring
Tara Togs, a teenage female would-be photo-journalist protagonist who
gets mixed up with art thieves and forgers. Set in a fictional corner
of writer/artist, Stref's, native Scotland.
Although
Herge and Tintin aren't mentioned anywhere on the support material or
advertising for this European-style 'album', their influence is worn
very clearly on it's sleeve. As such I feel it's justified to compare
this comic to that series of books when that might normally come
across as an unjustifiable and unfair yard-stick to measure someone's
work by. I have loved Tintin since childhood, no doubt sucked in by
those terrible Belvision cartoons of the 1960s where that booming
American voice would announce, 'HERGES ADVENTURES OF TINTIN!' at the
start of every ten minute episode, shown daily in every school
holiday of the 1970s. Well, that and the fact that every library
(including my school libraries) would have a selection of hard-backed
Tintin books to choose from. I now own all 24 Herge Tintin books and
read them so many times during my youth and I can practically resite
all of them word for word. They are of course masterclasses in comic
storytelling. I can't begin to measure how much I have learnt from
them about the craft. Funny, exciting and clever.
If
you enjoyed the books of the second great era of the Tintin stories
(where stronger mystery/quest plots came in, after the more aimless
wanderings of the first few books) you will like this too. Even
though this book is set in the twenty-first century, so strong is the
influence of those pre-World War Two books that The Silence Of Unicorns
often feels like it's taking place in a surreal otherworldly age
where these periods are mixed together (similar to how the 1990s
Batman Animated series occupied another undefined time.) This is no
bad thing for me, but might be slightly off-putting for younger
readers who might be unfamiliar with those early Tintin works.
Even
the title of this work is clearly paying tribute to Herge's 'The
Secret Of The Unicorn' – a book very firmly from the era that this
book is styled after. The story too, features elements from another
of Herge's other 1930s books 'The Broken Ear' – as both stories
start when thieves steal something from a museum, only for it to be
seemingly returned the next night. There are parallels too from a
much later Tintin book – the one that remained incomplete on
Herge's death 'Tintin And Alph Art' – as both feature art forgers.
Of
course it's hugely ironic and presumably deliberate that this story
is all about art forgers! When all's said and done Stref's art-style
is an amazingly accurate recreation of Herge's style and in most
cases, if you pulled out random pictures and mixed them with Herge
ones I would have trouble picking out which was by whom. There are
however some places where Stref doesn't quite manage to have Herge's
eye for framing a shot... Sadly one of these places is the cover of
'The Silence Of Unicorns', which just looks very empty and a bit dull
compared to the more dynamic covers of the Tintin books. (Sorry!)
Story-wise
this is also a fairly faithful riff on Herge's style. There is plenty
of jeopardy, mystery and story-twists here. Mostly it hangs together,
although there's at least one redundant dead-end plot thread here
that is clearly just padding (where Tara goes to a car hire firm to
try and discover if the villains rented their van? You could cut it
without affecting the rest of the story at all and doesn't quite fit
the logic of the plot either... If the villains rented the van in
their own names, the police would have them bang to rights – story
over!)
My
biggest criticism however is the way that Stref handles the numerous
exposition scenes here. There are far too many of these and they go
on for too long, with too much dialogue in too many balloons which
just make some parts of this drag a little too much. In fact I think
Stref has made his lettering smaller than that which appears in the
Tintin books (the English language ones anyway) just to cram it all
it. Herge had a way of keeping his exposition scenes short and
lively, often by lacing the scenes with jokes, background business
(Snowy chasing a cat or something) and other visual tricks to keep
young minds engaged. And I'm reminded of one important lesson taught
to me by an old friend of mine about writing... After you have
finished a script, go back and see how much dialogue you can strip
out of it and still keep it understandable... I feel this would have
been a valuable exercise here.
Some
might say Tara herself is a little low on personality, but I feel
this is deliberate and quite similar to the Tintin character. It has
the effect of allowing the reader (especially in this case young
girls) to put themselves into the place of Tara. Of course Herge
surrounded the bland Tintin with a cast of colourful characters to
liven things up and provide humour. Snowy is naughty but brave.
Captain Haddock is a drunken rogue, but loyal. Professor Calculus is
deaf, eccentric and doesn't much like being compared to a goat.
This
is something Stref is a little uneven on. Tara's main adult co-star
and Captain Haddock substitute is something of a dud. Even by the end
of the story I couldn't really get a handle on his personality. Mr.
Lemmens is a little more successful as the Calculus stand-in, but he
hasn't much beyond his hay-fever to pick him out. The real break-out
funny/helpful/characterful side-kick here is Major the myna bird.
With his old-fashioned military-style dialogue he's a lot of fun as a
kind-of Snowy-if-Tintin-could-understand-his-dialogue-style
character. If only he had met up with Tara earlier in the adventure,
instead of the last few pages?! Oh well, maybe next time?
When
Herge died in 1983 I was heartbroken. Although there were a few more
of his books still due to come out in English at that stage, I knew
there wasn't much and I had seen the best of it. No new Tintin books
were to follow. And they had been so good in that last golden era of
the 1960s and 70s. Getting more and more clever and funny and
exciting. I hate that there isn't a new Tintin book out every year
for me to read. So was very pleased to see the coming of Tara Togs.
If
you love Tintin like me, then I think you'll find this a pleasure to
discover. This deserves to sit on the shelf next to your Herge
collection and I hope Comics Scene can get it into school libraries
(if such things exist now) not to mention every bookshop in the
country. I hope it's translated into French in particular and can be
taken into the hearts of future generations of children like the
Tintin books were in the past (but there's so many rivals out there
now for kid's attention, so I don't know what the chances are.)
I'm
aware this review has been a bit too eschewed towards the negative as
on the whole I hugely enjoyed this book. It's caused by the fact that
it's far easier to articulate what things have gone wrong, than what
has gone right... And most of this has gone very right. I hope my
criticisms are taken as constructive not destructive.
To
put it into perspective let me rate this next to Herge's works...
This is at least the equal of Herge's non-Tintin books (like the Jo,
Zette & Jocko books) and it's clearly better than Herge's early
'travelogue'-style Tintin adventures (Soviets, Congo & America) I
might even put it above 'The Shooting Star'? I hope that's taken as
the high praise it's meant to be.
Brilliant,
but not perfect.
I
hope there's more to come.
John
A. Short 2024
