All The Asterix and all the Tintin

There was no graphic novel section in any library I ever got to join as a kid. There was no Dog Man books, and certainly nothing as vulgar and crass as Marvel or DC super-hero comic books. No comics for the kids. 

Except of course, for all the Asterix books, and all the Tintin books. They had all of those.

Me and all my mates at Temuka Primary School absolutely devoured all the albums in both series, and they were just brilliant comics to be reading as a child, helping to build a love of the medium that has still never faded. 

Asterix comics were always funny as hell, with gorgeous clear storytelling and a wide range of settings that saw our heroes travel all over the ancient world. And while the crude generalizations of the peoples they meet on their escapades really stand out to an unfortunate degree in the year 2024, I still wish I could eat something that looks as delicious as those boars they would roast up for the big feast at the end.

The Tintin books didn't have the kinetic energy of the Asterix albums, and the title character was always more white-bread than anybody in that one small village in Gaul, but Herge's comics were more snidely funny, (especially when the Thompson Twins got involved), and the action was always more precise, more detailed, with occasionally stunning vistas on the turn of the page

Besides, while Tintin was a bit of a dweeb, so was Asterix, and everyone knew the greatest characters were the best friends - everybody cared more about Obelix and Captain Haddock than anybody else.

The hardest part of getting your hands on particular books was that other kids would always have them on loan. Everybody read them, so you got what you could get, and it might be an eternity before you get to The Shooting Star, or The Mansions of the Gods.

But all the books maintained a ridiculously high quality, so every one was a treat, although some stood out for obvious reasons - the Tintin books featuring space travels and pirate treasures were total highlights, while any Asterix book that had them face off against Julius Caesar himself were always the best.

Remarkably, I still have some of those actual copies that we all got out from the primary school I went to -  a mate of mine snapped them up when they were sold off for fundraising purposes and passed them on to me when he upgraded. 

And they are beat to hell, man. The cardboard covers are so crinkled and thin they are almost see through, and The Castafiore Emerald is missing large chunks of its cover, leaving it looking like a cat has been eating it (which may very well have happened at one point).

But they are still just about intact, and just as much fun to read as they were when I picked them up off the primary school library shelf, all those years ago.