The Blue Lotus

Blurb

The Blue Lotus is the fifth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from August 1934 to October 1935. Continuing where the plot of the previous story, Cigars of the Pharaoh, left off, the story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who are invited to China in the midst of the 1931 Japanese invasion, where he reveals the machinations of Japanese spies and uncovers a drug-smuggling ring.
The Blue Lotus was a commercial success and was published in book form shortly after its conclusion. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with The Broken Ear. In 1945, The Blue Lotus was coloured and re-drawn in Hergé's distinctive ligne-claire style for republication by Casterman. The Adventure introduces the recurring characters J.M. Dawson and Chang Chong-Chen. The story was adapted for a 1991 episode of the Ellipse/Nelvana animated series The Adventures of Tintin. Critical analysis has argued that The Blue Lotus is Hergé's "first masterpiece".