An Epilogue as a Thumbed Nose

There are lots of illustrative and narrative similarities shared by Tintin and Adele Blanc-Sec, and while it’s nice to see Herge’s influence appear again, the moments in which Jacques Tardi twists some trope made familiar by Herge into something all his own are the ones I like best. Look, for example, at the conclusion of The Eiffel Tower Demon. Tardi has just concluded a two-volume caper that places its eponymous protagonist in darker, more frank versions of Tintin-esque predicaments, but instead of seeing off Adele as she walks into a beautifully illustrated sunset as an exalted victor over evil, he employs a different plan of conclusion. Caponi, despite his bumbling heroics, is demoted, Dugommier receives no punishment (and is in fact commended for his takedown of the cult of Pazuzu), and while Adele escapes imprisonment, she is forced into hiding (Tardi 96). This ending is another display of the moral ambiguity present in Tardi’s stories. ‘Good characters’ are far from unimpeachable, and ‘bad characters’ go unpunished (sometimes). It’s refreshing to read a comic in which the moral center is deliberately smeared or even voided in favor of Tardi’s controlled chaos. Things stay interesting this way.