The Seven Crystal Balls
The Seven Crystal Balls is the thirteenth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised daily in Le Soir, Belgium's leading francophone newspaper, from December 1943 amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. The story was cancelled abruptly following the Allied liberation in September 1944, when Hergé was blacklisted after being accused of collaborating with the occupying Germans. After he was cleared two years later, the story and its follow-up Prisoners of the Sun were then serialised weekly in the new Tintin magazine from September 1946 to April 1948. The story revolves around the investigations of a young reporter Tintin and his friend Captain Haddock into the abduction of their friend Professor Calculus and its connection to a mysterious illness which has afflicted the members of an archaeological expedition to Peru.
The Seven Crystal Balls was a commercial success and was published in book form by Casterman shortly after its conclusion, while the series itself became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. Critics have ranked The Seven Crystal Balls as one of the best Adventures of Tintin, describing it as the most frightening installment in the series. The story was adapted for the 1969 Belvision film Tintin and the Temple of the Sun, the 1991 Ellipse/Nelvana animated series The Adventures of Tintin, the 1992-3 BBC Radio 5 dramatisation of the Adventures, the 1997 video game Prisoners of the Sun, and a 2001 musical in Dutch and French versions.
Synopsis
Young reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, meet with their old friend Captain Haddock at his country estate. The naturally humble Haddock is attempting to fit the role at his newfound family château, becoming a socialite and dressing formally. The three spend an evening at a music hall, where they witness the performance of a clairvoyant, Madame Yamilah, who predicts the illness of one of the Sanders-Hardiman expedition members; this expedition has recently returned from an archaeological venture to the Andes mountains. The evening's entertainment also includes the act of a knife thrower whom Tintin recognises as General Alcazar, former President of San Theodoros. Having befriended Alcazar during one of his previous adventures, Tintin reunites with him backstage after the show. Alcazar introduces Tintin and Haddock to his Quechua assistant, Chiquito, and explains that he is in exile after being deposed by his rival, General Tapioca.The next day, Tintin and Haddock learn that members of the Sanders-Hardiman expedition are falling into comas, with fragments of a shattered crystal ball found near each victim. Tintin, Haddock, and their friend Professor Calculus visit the only expedition member yet to be affected, Professor Hercules Tarragon, who is an old friend and former classmate of Calculus'. Under police guard, Professor Tarragon shows his visitors one of the expedition's discoveries from Peru: the mummified body of Inca king Rascar Capac. That evening, a lightning storm strikes the house and sends ball lightning down the chimney and onto the mummy—which evaporates. Worried, Tarragon states that this reflects the culmination of Capac's prophecy, which declares that punishment will descend upon those who desecrate his tomb. Spending the stormy night at Tarragon's house, Tintin, Haddock, and Calculus are each awoken by a nightmare involving Capac's mummy throwing a crystal ball to the floor. They find Tarragon comatose in his bed, with the accompanying crystal shards nearby; the attacker had bypassed the guards by climbing in via the chimney. The next day while Tarragon is being examined by a doctor, Calculus is walking on the grounds of Tarragon's house when he discovers one of the mummy's bracelets, which he places on himself.
Tintin and Haddock later realise that Calculus has gone missing, and surmise that he has been kidnapped by the same individual who placed Tarragon in a coma. The police set up road blocks, but the kidnappers switch cars and are able to evade them. Tintin visits a hospital where the seven stricken members of the Sanders-Hardiman expedition are housed; he is astonished that at a precise time of day, all awaken and scream about figures attacking them before slipping back into their comas. Haddock is dejected by Calculus' abduction, but upon learning that police have spotted the kidnapper's car at a port, he and Tintin race there to Westermouth, believing that the abductors seek to board a boat with Calculus and take him abroad. At the docks, they spot Alcazar boarding a ship to South America; he reveals that Chiquito was one of the last descendants of the Inca and has disappeared. Tintin surmises that Chiquito must be one of Calculus' captors.
Having lost Calculus' trail, Tintin and Haddock decide to pay a visit to Haddock's old friend Chester, who has docked at another nearby port. They miss Chester, but instead discover Calculus' hat on the docks, indicating that he was taken to sea from here. Investigating, they realise that Calculus must be aboard the Pachacamac, a ship headed to Peru, and board a flight, intent on intercepting its arrival.
History
Background
The Seven Crystal Balls began serialization amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. Hergé had accepted a position working for Le Soir, Belgium's largest Francophone daily newspaper. Confiscated from its original owners, Le Soir was permitted by the German authorities to reopen under the directorship of Belgian editor Raymond de Becker, although it remained firmly under Nazi control, supporting the German war effort and espousing anti-Semitism. Joining Le Soir on 15 October 1940, Hergé was aided by old friend Paul Jamin and the cartoonist Jacques Van Melkebeke. Some Belgians were upset that Hergé was willing to work for a newspaper controlled by the occupying Nazi administration, although he was heavily enticed by the size of Le Soir's readership, which reached 600,000. Faced with the reality of Nazi oversight, Hergé abandoned the overt political themes that had pervaded much of his earlier work, instead adopting a policy of neutrality. Without the need to satirise political types, entertainment producer and author Harry Thompson observed that "Hergé was now concentrating more on plot and on developing a new style of character comedy. The public reacted positively".Following the culmination of his previous The Adventures of Tintin story Red Rackham's Treasure, Hergé had agreed to a proposal that would allow the newspaper to include a detective story revolving around his characters, Thomson and Thompson. Titled Dupont et Dupond, détectives, Hergé provided the illustrations, and the story was authored by Le Soir crime writer Paul Kinnet. While this was being serialised, Hergé began contemplating ideas for his new Tintin adventure, toying with the idea of a story surrounding a dangerous invention that Calculus had developed. The story was probably inspired by an article authored by Le Soir science correspondent, Bernard Heuvelmans, and while Hergé did not use this idea at the time, he revived it a decade later as the basis for The Calculus Affair.
As with Hergé's two previous stories, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure, The Seven Crystal Balls was designed as part of a twofold story arc, to be concluded with the then yet unnamed Prisoners of the Sun. Hergé planned for the former story to outline a mystery, while the latter would see his characters undertake an expedition to solve it. His use of an ancient mummy's curse around which the narrative revolved was inspired by tales of a curse of the pharaohs which had been unearthed during the archaeologist Howard Carter's 1922 discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb. This was not the first time that Hergé had been inspired by this tabloid story, having previously drawn from it when authoring Cigars of the Pharaoh.
In autumn 1943, Hergé decided that he wanted Edgar P. Jacobs, a fellow cartoonist, to collaborate with him on The Adventures of Tintin. Although initially hesitant, Jacobs eventually agreed, adopting the paid position in January 1944. The two became close friends and artistic collaborators, as Jacobs aided Hergé in developing various aspects of the plot, such as the idea of the crystal balls and the story's title. Although stylistically the two men were different both in forms of illustration and narrative, they influenced each other greatly. Hergé used Jacobs as a life model from whom he drew various poses that characters adopt in the story. He also used Jacobs as a researcher, sending him to the Cinquantenaire Museum to study its collections of Incan material. Like Jacobs in "The U-Ray", he used as a basis for the creation of Rascar Capac the drawing of a Chachapoya mummy from the Larousse encyclopaedia and not, as was widely believed, a mummy from the Cinquantenaire Museum.
The museum's director, Professor Capart, exhibited similarities with Professor Tarragon, a new character that Hergé had developed for the story. Hergé also included a number of characters who had previously appeared in earlier adventures, among them Professor Cantonneau from The Shooting Star, General Alcazar from The Broken Ear, and Bianca Castafiore from King Ottokar's Sceptre.
The scenery and background of the story was meticulously copied from existing sources; car model types like the Opel Olympia 38 in which Calculus' abductors escaped the police were drawn from real examples, while Hergé closely adhered to the reality of the port and docks at Saint-Nazaire. Professor Tarragon's house was drawn from a real house in Avenue Delleur, Boitsfort, which Jacobs had identified for Hergé's purposes. Hergé and Jacobs stationed themselves outside the house and completed a sketch of the building. Immediately after, two grey cars containing German soldiers pulled up; the house had been requisitioned by the Schutzstaffel. Hergé realised that, had he and Jacobs been discovered sketching, they would have been interrogated.