The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free

Plot

HE'S BACK... AND HE'S BAD! The press called him "perverted." The police called him "sick and beneath contempt." Even the Prime Minister [Thatcher] was "utterly revolted". But he's proved them all wrong. Now Tintin's back with his pals, battling it out against the State and bringing the old world to its knees, in a classic full-length story of love, struggle and revolution. Tintin's earlier adventures during the Wapping dispute are also included in this edition.

From the introduction: Breaking Free is a product of its times. First published in 1989, it's set against a backdrop of ten years of open class warfare. More than twenty years later, it's amazing how much of the book still makes sense. For all the enormous changes we've lived through, the world is fundamentally the same: the rich get richer, the poor get shafted, and our lives are still dominated by the rule of money. So it's no surprise that the adventures of Tintin and his mates still seem to strike a chord. Constantly reprinted, they've been translated and distributed around the world. And a few of the frames crop up again and again on leaflets, in fanzines, as avatars. If we'd known back then that the book would survive so long, we might just have spent a little more time on it... Yes, Breaking Free is clumsy, simplistic and a shameless steal from Mike Gilliland's The Free. But as Tintin would say, "Lighten up, mate!" If you're looking for a detailed exposition of revolutionary politics or a nuanced critique of advanced capitalism, then you've come to the wrong place. But if you want a gutsy, funny and fast-moving story of how quickly the world can be turned upside down, you can't go far wrong. The contacts page is always changing, but the fundamental theme is as valid as ever: love, class struggle, solidarity and revolution