The Adventures of Tintin: "Tintin and the Broken Ear": The original Tintin comic book by Herge, Series 6.

Tintin and the Broken Ear, is the sixth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by Le Vingtième Siècle for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from December 1935 to February 1937. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who pursue the thieves of a South American fetish identifiable by its broken ear. In doing so, he ends up in the fictional nation of San Theodoros, where he becomes embroiled in a civil war and discovers the Arumbaya tribe deep in the forest.

In this classic graphic comic novel. A sacred tribal statue has been stolen from the museum! Tintin and Snowy are on the case! Clues lead them straight into the heart of the jungle.

An idol originally belonging to a Native American tribe in South America is stolen from the Museum of Ethnography in Brussels. The next day it is returned the museum, along with a note apologizing for the inconvenience cause and stating the reason for the theft had been a bet. Tintin, who was among the reporters looking into the story, realizes that the replaced fetish is a fake, the distinction being an ear broken on the original but the replacements is whole.

Tintin examines a book from his own collection with an image of the idol, drawn by an explorer: it confirms that one of the ears is damaged, while the one in the museum is not. Tintin then reads that a wood carver called Jacob Balthazar had died. Suspecting that Balthazar made a duplicate of the idol and was murdered, Tintin tries to obtain Balthazar's Parrot in order to get a clue of the killer's identity. He soon discovers that a pair of South Americans — Alonso Perez and Ramon Bada — are also searching for the idol, following the same clues, albeit employing more ruthless methods. They go as far as to make attempts on Tintin's life.

The parrot eventually repeats the last words of his late owner, naming a man called Rodrigo Tortilla as the killer. Ramon and Alonzo are acquaintances of Tortilla, and Tintin, having tracked them down, overhears their conversation. This takes the three men, and their attempts to outwit each other, to South America, where the plot thickens. During the journey by ship, Alonzo and Ramon manage to murder Tortilla. It was he who stole the idol from the museum and murdered Balthazar after getting him to produce the copy that was placed in the museum. Among his luggage is yet another replica of the stolen idol. Tintin, who was also on the ship in disguise, has Alonzo and Ramon arrested as they dock in Los Dopicos, the main port of the republic of San Theodoros. But when soldiers arrive on board to take them away, they are led by a colonel who knows Ramon and Alonzo and, once ashore, lets them go. He then helps them to lure Tintin to shore where he is framed for terrorism and sentenced to death.

In San Theodoros General Alcazar and his rebels were fighting against the ruling General Tapioca and his dictatorship. Just as Tintin finds himself at the gun tips of the firing squad, General Alcazar's rebels manage to save him. Unusually, Tintin has been drinking heavily because, at the start of the execution, the soldiers found out that their guns had been tampered with so the commander treated him to a "little aperitif" of aguardiente, the national drink. Thus, in a drunken state, Tintin proclaims his support for Alcazar in front of the firing squad, interrupted by an uprising. Now in command of the country, General Alcazar honours Tintin.
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About the author

'Hergé' was born Georges Remi on 22 May, 1907 in Etterbeek, a suburb of Brussels, in Belgium. After leaving school, he worked for the daily newspaper, Le XXe Siècle (The 20th Century). He was responsibe the for the section of the newspaper designed for children. Tintin, the main character in his works, was introduced on January 10, 1929 in a story entitled 'Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.' Each story ran as a comic.