I love the humor and the characters. Captain Haddock is a sight to behold, he is so flawed with his short temper and his blatant drinking problem but he's a straight up determinator and the best voice of reason Tintin could ask for, and he's such a nice guy underneath all the yelling.

Then there's Thompson and Thomson, the most hilarious incompotenent cops you'd ever seen, the things that happen to them I cannot even begin to describe, but they're such nice guys even though half the time they're going after the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.

The adventures are always amazing and spectacular, Tintin can take you anywhere, Asia, South America, Turkey, you'd think the moon would be too far but they made it work. And the bad guys are truly dastardly. Pragmatic, scheming and always some step ahead of our hero but each of them unique.

You forgot about Snowy! I love Snowy. Snowy is my favorite character. I mean, he's very clever for a dog, but still acts like a dog... I especially like that time in Tintin in Tibet where he gets really high...

You see, THAT'S better. Now I actually have some interest in seeing it

edited 14th Feb '12 4:53:04 AM by gingerninja666

Indeed, I love Sow, Snowy was my favorite before Haddock came along.

And you all know how I harp on about varied character design and laziness *coughjohnjosecocough* but Herge had character design in spades, each and ever single face is unqiue, and so is the character of each individual face, and he probably has the highest beard quotient of any artist I know of.

...Now I want to write a MLP/Tintin crossover...

I pretty much agree with everything Mousa said. In addition, the many phrases of Haddock are the reason why he's my favourite character.

Billions of blistering blue barnacles!

Thundering Typhoons!

edited 14th Feb '12 5:01:08 AM by ApplelightLimited

Oh yeah! I love how creatively they get around swearing. Like, seriously, there is not a single swear word anywhere.

What kinds of villains are there?

I love how it looks like Ginger's leading a "How to give Recommendations" seminar.

It's hard to describe them. Hmmm... Clever? Treacherous? Human? Cruel? There are few I love to hate except for the ones that liberally use the poison of madness.

edited 14th Feb '12 5:27:12 AM by MousaThe14

Yeah, I think I might check it out. At least the film. I mean, it's got Edgar Wright and Steven Moffat in the writing chairs after all

I just noticed, Applejack has so far been in every episode but two across both seasons, and the two episodes she hasn't been in were the 17th episode of each respective season.

If you like the film, you will like the comics, guaranteed. The movie was just made to be perfectly in line with the comics, imo...

@Ginger (Concerning Tin Tin villains): I liked the recurring villain Rastopopulos for actually being mostly successful and actually evading death quite a few times, although he clearly gets less competent by the last few books due to villain decay.

The one-shot villains like the gangsters from America and the Japanese Imperial-Military officials who were clerly part of the WW 2 pre-occupation of China in The Blue Lotus were fairly lame, although the racist guys from that story made for surprisingly effectively obstructive jerks. There are also some fairly stereotypical period villains like the Banana Republic Generalissmo.

It'd be interesting to have a recurring villain pony like ol' Rasto, only he degrades because his escapes from death have caused some degree of brain damage from repeated oxygen loss (A consequence of near-drowning several times, surviving getting crushed and falling off cliffs, and so on).

edited 14th Feb '12 5:47:06 AM by AceOfScarabs

ugh, I hate Villain Decay

Your tastes are very particular. There's some pretty good villains in Tin Tin, only I can't remember all of them. Rasto was my fvourite, because he's always a genuine threat.

I only accept Villain Decay if it's a consequence of plausible long-term damage (like surviving head injuries or suffocating situations resulting eventually in some degree of brain damage). Given the kind of crazy things Rasto survived, brain damage was almost certainly going to be inevitable at some point.

edited 14th Feb '12 5:58:58 AM by AceOfScarabs

I should note that the Villain Decay is actually intentional on the part of Hergé as a part of him Deconstructing the series as a whole...

edited 14th Feb '12 5:56:47 AM by deathpigeon

I just said I can't stand Villain Decay, not that I automatically hate any show that has it. I liked Vlad Plasmius a lot, and he went through a LOT of decay in season 3.

Hiding behind the "Oh, it's a deconstruction so it's ok" card are we?

edited 14th Feb '12 6:12:37 AM by gingerninja666

No, I'm just saying that the Villain Decay actually served a purpose in to the story beyond making the villain easier to defeat.

HEY

HEY

....I could've done better, if you gave me the time.

Well, they've got to lose sometime if the author wants a happy ending, Ginger. =) And if the villain is smart, competent and well-equipped enough to stay two steps ahead every time he shows up, then it's going to take a boost to the protagonist or a deus ex machina to bring him down for good without employing some measure of Villain Decay.

But that's just it, Red. Don't write the villain to be able to stay two steps ahead of the hero unless you can think of a believable way for the hero to best him in the end.

There's a difference between the hero becoming better and the villain becoming worse

@Ginger But you've made it very clear that you hate heroes that are more powerful than the villains, as well as a distaste for heroes who are better at planning than the villains. That pretty much leaves winning through blind luck and not winning at all for resolutions, neither of which are very satisfying.

I have nothing against heroes who BECOME stronger or better at planning than the villains, they just can't be like that throughout the whole thing, and the eventual victory can't be easy. The heroes should always just barely be good enough to beat the villans.

edited 14th Feb '12 6:35:27 AM by gingerninja666

Unfortunately, if villains are too competent, heroes are less likely to spare them. There's a whole plot about this in the Discworld's The Last Hero.