The adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko
The Secret Ray
Part one: the ‘Manitoba” No Reply
Part two: The eruption of Karamako
I was very excited when I found this collection of early Jo, Zette and Jocko adventures. This collection had been translated into English in 1994 but I had not seen the book available until recently. It is published by Sundancer and I bought it from the London Tintin shop. It is a good looking hardback edition with two pages of introduction and two pages of early artwork prefacing the story.
This is not a Tintin adventure but one based on another set of characters created by Herge. First written from 1936 these adventures are based on brother and sister Jo and Zette and their pet monkey, Jocko.
Three later Jo, Zette and Jocko adventures, The Stratoship H.22 part one: Mr Pump’s Legacy and part two: Destination New York (both artwork 1951, English translation 1987) and Valley of the Cobras (artwork 1957, English Translation 1986) have been readily available for some time in English and they are well drawn, well written adventures. These later adventures could easily be Tintin adventures if the characters were substituted for TIntin, Haddock and Snowy but The Secret Ray is too simplistic and illogical compared to the Tintin books. It is clearly written for a younger audience than the readers Herge was considering when writing Tintin.
All the books have been translated into English by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner as were all the Tintin books.
The covers of the two parts (part one on the front cover, part two on the back cover) are very well drawn but the inside artwork does not match this level of detail and colour. The artwork in this collection was redrawn in 1952 and while not as good as the drawing in Tintin adventures from around this time, is still recognisable as Herge’s style. Some backgrounds are often very sketchy or ignored and some occasional panels are very poor. In one occasion a dialogue caption is coming from the wrong character in a panel. The depictions of island-dwelling cannibals suffer the same criticisms as Herge’s drawing of Africans in TIntin in the Congo. Other panels and situations are almost exact duplications from earlier Tintin adventures.
The story is a rollercoaster ride of events that is similar to the early Tintin adventures Soviets, Congo and America. One situation after another drives the story filled with robots, submarines, crazy scientists, and children outwitting adults. It makes no sense and towards the end, the children’s father has to spend three panels explaining some of the plot. However it is 103 pages of fun and is as close to reading an early Tintin as you will ever get.
