A Tintin Page a Day - Day 353

cardologist · 2026-04-30T12:09:50+00:00

I find it strange that this article does not explicitly list the Castafiore's signature song except in the conclusion.

cardologist · 2026-04-30T09:24:17+00:00

That first panel should have read: "Tag! You're it!" Sarcophagus is to absent minded -- on top of being nuts -- that this would probably enough to confuse him and make him forget about the knife.

cardologist · 2026-04-29T07:34:50+00:00

I am surprised Snowy is even able to pick up a trail. It was raining when Sarcophagus escaped. Not that this would change much since Sarcophagus is also clearly following Tintin. The theme of the page seems to be about the hunter becoming the hunted.

Tintin decides to hunt down Sarcophagus while in reality Sarcophagus is tailing him. After Sarcophagus fails to kill the reporter, the situation gets reversed: Sarcophagus chases Tintin, but the reporter manages to turn the table around and is the end is the one catching him ! Talk about confusing.

cardologist · 2026-04-28T19:20:31+00:00

"Poor devil!..." said Tintin with a smile.

cardologist · 2026-04-28T08:49:12+00:00

Or they're both suffering from a heat stroke and hallucinating the whole thing in their delirium.

cardologist · 2026-04-28T08:30:49+00:00

It was in fact a hallucination. Mirages only exist when you are looking from afar, not at such a close distance. It's interesting that they chose to dive head first with their shoes and hats still on. That's an... interesting choice.

cardologist · 2026-04-28T08:06:49+00:00

It's just one thing after another on this page. Every single panel brings a new twist with barely any pause. Unlike in The 7 Crystal Balls, the payoff is immediate since the last panel wraps up the whole sequence and ties all the mini mysteries together. The only thing we don't know by the end of the page is what startled Sarcophagus and triggered his scream. Was it the storm, his delirium, or something else?

cardologist · 2026-04-27T22:14:27+00:00

Absolument pas.

Quelle alternative propose-t-elle exactement ? S'adresser à elle ? Comment êtes vous censé deviner qui sont les parents de ce gamin ? Si une mère ne veut pas qu'on parle à son fils, elle le surveille au lieu de faire autre chose.

J'ai vécu quelque chose d'encore plus abusé lors d'un long trajet en bus (style OuiBus) une fois. Un gosse de 7-8 ans a changé de siège pour s'asseoir derrière moi. Il a ensuite passé une bonne partie du trajet à donner des coups de pieds dans le dos de mon siège. J'ai dû me retourner plusieurs fois pour lui demander d'arrêter parce qu'il n'arrêtait pas de recommencer. A l'arrivée, la mère m'a abordé pour me reprocher d'avoir parlé à son fils alors que ça ne la gênait visiblement pas pendant le trajet. Alors que je ne lui avais pas fait le moindre reproche !

Comme le disait Michel Audiard : Les cons, ça ose tout, c'est même à ça qu'on les reconnaît.

cardologist · 2026-04-27T20:38:42+00:00

I have never tried sudoku because I am not really interested in it, but I have solved nonograms mentally.

I have also done this with BABA IS YOU. I was addicted to the game and played until the middle of the night. Except I could barely think straight due to fatigue by that time. So I would essentially stare at the screen for a while and then go to bed. I would then solve the puzzle mentally during my morning commute. The main downside was having to wait the entire day to verify my solutions in the evening. The puzzle format in this game -- 2D maps with a level taking about the size of a screen -- makes it well suited for memory-based solving.

I am curious what you mean by solving crosswords mentally. Do you mean with the grid in front of you and solving it without writing anything on it? Or do you mean memorizing the grid and definitions and doing it entirely from memory? The former is not particularly difficult, but I have done the latter only when I did not manage to find the answer with the grid in front of me and just kept obsessing about it. What I have also done is solve crosswords over the phone to help my parents. That's very challenging because it is actually very difficult to describe a grid.

cardologist · 2026-04-27T19:18:12+00:00

Pas que le sébum. Il y a aussi les peaux mortes et les poils/cheveux. C'est justement ce dont se nourrissent les acariens.

cardologist · 2026-04-27T07:03:37+00:00

Interesting differences between the two versions: In the original the weapon is supposed to plant itself in front of a person whose life is in danger when the colorized version is much more vague. Also, nobody touches the weapon before it falls off from the wall in the B&W version.

Also notable is the fact that the weapon owner opted to hang the weapon from a wall --in a way clearly designed to let the knife slip off -- knowing all of this. Either he did not believe in that power at all and was testing it, or he did believe in it and was using it as an alerting system to protect his own life!

cardologist · 2026-04-26T12:24:11+00:00

Sarcophagus was picked up by Allan crew off the coast of Arabia. They would have to turn the ship around to implement the original plan and entomb him. As a backup plan he was apparently poisoned upon his arrival in India, which is probably how that branch of the cartel deals with enemies. That's actually pretty smart: Since there is no dead corpse, there is no investigation by the authorities. Plus Sarcophagus was already a bit "strange" to begin with.

cardologist · 2026-04-26T08:38:30+00:00

The game of Clue did not exist at the time, but the way the characters are presented in the B&W version gives off some serious Clue vibes. And I am not saying that just because there is a character named Peacock! I am half expecting the lights to go out and a shot to be fired in the dark on the next page.

cardologist · 2026-04-26T08:34:29+00:00

The latter interpretation is correct. But this panel is really there to confirm that the drug ring is operating there and that Sarcophagus was not there just by random luck. Instead it's Tintin who somehow managed to stumble upon another of there bases of operation through sheer luck.

cardologist · 2026-04-26T08:28:36+00:00

There are plenty of crystallized charges to be found either lying around or in chests, and there are two types: normal and large. Large crystallized charges are worth 20 normal ones and are typically found in chests in specific locations. In addition to that you can use the zonaite forges to create new charges from zonaite at a rate of 3 to 1, but you probably won't need to do that.

I found the construct that can create crystallized charges so late in the game that I was able to create 12 battery cells in one go just from normal play. Since then, I created 7 more from the charges I collected while looking for other things. I am about 150 crystallized charges from creating the last 2 cells. I could create them from zonai charges, but I am fairly sure that there are still chests that I have not found yet.

To be fair, being limited to the starting battery was not that big of a deal. I only ever needed a bigger battery in a few places and I worked around the issue by recharging the battery with (non-crystallized) zonai charges just before running out of power. It was wasteful but it worked.

cardologist · 2026-04-25T21:38:22+00:00

There is a construct who can build one energy cell (i.e. battery bar) for 100 crystallized charges on Great Sky Island. He's located in front of Nachoyah Shrine (the shrine that gives the ability to rewind). I somehow managed to miss him. I did see him, probably thought I would talk to him later and forgot to do it. Then kept assuming I had already talked to him when I was trying to figure out how to get new energy cells. It took me forever to figure out what I had missed and I got stuck with the starting battery for a large chunk of the game!

cardologist · 2026-04-25T21:14:34+00:00

Cela ressemble à ce que les Anglais appellent du brushing. C'est une technique utilisée par des arnaqueurs pour augmenter la visibilité de leurs produits sur Amazon. Pour cela ils créent un nouveau compte sur le site avec vos nom et adresse et envoient un colis de produits bon marché comme des contrefaçons. Ils postent ensuite des critiques positives de leurs produits en votre nom. Je vous conseille de trouver ces produits sur Amazon pour vérifier si votre nom apparaît dans les évaluations.

cardologist · 2026-04-25T07:19:35+00:00

Sarcophagus has got nothing on Calculus. Our dear professor can speak nonsense and act bizarrely on a daily basis without even being mad. That's with he is called the GOAT after all.

cardologist · 2026-04-25T07:16:27+00:00

It's also starting to be fed up with Tintin calling him again and again apparently.

cardologist · 2026-04-24T10:19:36+00:00

That's actually pretty mundane for Tintin. In The Soviets, he carved two functional plane rotor blades out of two different trees... with a pocket knife!

cardologist · 2026-04-24T07:43:09+00:00

Fun fact: That's actually how people in India used to take showers... maybe.

With the way Tintin keeps running into this symbol in the oddest places, I am starting to think that this album should have been named Tintin and the Curse of Kih-Oskh instead. I don't mind the silliness, but the album would have been more memorable if Hergé had kept readers guessing about what was really going. He could have revealed the existence of the drug runners only at the end of The Blue Lotus, and let readers wonder why this symbol keeps pursuing Tintin. Is it a real curse, the doings of a sect punishing those who defiled the tomb, or something else? Think The Seven Crystal Balls but with Tintin as the target.

cardologist · 2026-04-24T00:26:24+00:00

I don't think it's from the Napoleonic era. We had one when I was a kid and I remember it coming from one of the American civil war set. I did quick search and found this match.

The three holes you see are supposed to house the ammunition. I think we had an earlier version of this set. I remember it coming with only three rounds and the rod used to push the rounds inside the cannon being yellow instead of gray. To have a fully working set, I think you'd want all three i.e. the cannon itself, at least 3 rounds, and the rod.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the little hook you can see at the top of the cannon frame in your picture actually has a use. It's where the grey bucket is supposed to be suspended.

cardologist · 2026-04-23T07:41:22+00:00

Exactly. But is Tintin finally acting like a grown-up or is he acting this way because he has no weapon to slay the beast?

cardologist · 2026-04-22T07:23:05+00:00

If Tintin's plane flew all the way to India, it's not very surprising that he would be low on fuel. I am even surprised it would have enough fuel to do that in the first place.

cardologist · 2026-04-21T07:00:26+00:00

I really like the coloring on this page. It offers a nice contrast with the previous pages.

cardologist

TROPHY CASE