Revolution In The Head

Fan of comic books that I am, one of the most amusing little items I've found in recent years was a re-imagining of Tintin called Breaking Free.

As a pastiche goes, it's incredibly faithful to the original artwork, which makes it all the more odd when we see Tintin not as a idealistic young journalist but as an unemployed young thug who likes nothing better than smashing up the staff at a wine bar when they ask him to leave. Captain Haddock (referred to as "The Captain", even by his wife, strangely enough) is a committed family man rather than chronic alcoholic seadog. No sign of Snowy though, sadly.

Set in 80s Britain, it sees our intrepid duo secure work on a building site. However, when a lack of good old Health and Safety sees a tragic accident, so begins an unlikely series of events that see the tufty haired one emerge as a potential leader of the revolution.

Believe me when I say I'm not making this up - you can read the whole thing for yourselves here: http://tintinrevolution.free.fr/pages/image001.html

It's amusing stuff for the main part, once you put aside that it was probably written by some young Herbert with an 'A' level in Sociology and a few too many copies of Socialist Worker in their paper rack. It kind of reminds me of why the Left hasn't been taken too seriously in this country for a while and we ended up with Tony Blair: always that element honking on about revolution, Marx, Trotsky etc etc while failing to see that the goalposts haven't just moved since old Karl was around, they've been dug up and put in a different stadium.

Yet I digress - take a look and prepare to chuckle at the sight of Tintin looting a branch of Tescos.