Boats always have been compatible with comics. When comics were mainly designed for young people, heroes were adventurers who used to tramp around the world. Either only rich people could travel by plane, or planes didn’t exist yet. Shipping was a central means of transportation.

A lot of characters have narrow connections with ships, when there aren’t sailors themselves, such Corto Maltese. Links between Hergé, Tintin and ships are well known and leaded to an exhibition a few years ago. Long is the list of the ships whose decks have been stepped by the famous reporter: the Aurora, the Sirius, the Karaboudjan, the Unicorn, the Pachacamac, the Ramona, etc. without referring to nameless, modest or imposing boats, mere sambouks or ocean liners, whose sterns sliced through the streams of the Red Sea or the Chinese Sea.

You’ll be awe-stricken at the evocation of dreadful life conditions on board of XVIIIth Century ships. Slavery and transportation of “Ebony wood”, referring to the fifth book, are evocated at the end of the collection; first parts show the life on board of vessels of the King of France and His Gracious Majesty’s; you’ll be mixed with ship apprentices – young children who were often recruited by force – mere sailors, free-riders, a military surgeon, a lot of characters whose destinies will met each other, mix up and split up to melt into the Caribbean Sea. With the service of a spotless documentation and a talented drawing, the work has nothing to envy to Dumas or Hugo’s great history novels.

The case of “Theodore Poussin” is peculiar. His adventures in the Far-East, between Malaysia and the Celeb Sea, were published in the 90’s. They make think to “The Lady From Shanghai”, by Orson Welles. There, one be mixed with merchants, villains, crooks, pirates, pearl hunters, a sunk gunboat, and Fate Himself (under the enigmatic Mister November’s features and black coat). The author has very likely grown up in Tintin’s universe, for the story has a lot of quotes, tags, references, allusions, tributes to Hergé’s work. One of the characters is the exact copy of Szut, the aviator of “Coke in stock” and “Flight n° 714 to Sydney”; and with one of the albums named “The treasure of the white rajah”, how not to think of the one of Red Rackham?

This is not an isolated example: references to Tintin in nowadays’ comics are many. May be some day I’ll write an article on them.

Theodore’s Poussin’s adventures are more than a tribute to Hergé’s world. It’s a collection whom the main character, in the beginning a mere, young white-collar dreaming of escape, in the course of the books will forge his personality, build his own destiny, and succeed in getting away from the fate that the author had stuck to him. The hero is likeable, albums are divided in two cycles; between them the author’s had the good idea of dedicating a whole album to young Theodore’s childhood memories. It smells like tenderness and happiness, it’s as good as a jam pot.

Have a good reading.

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