Dugout Canoe (The Broken Ear)
The Broken Ear (French: L’Oreille cassée, originally published in English as Tintin and the Broken Ear) is the sixth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper 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 war and discovers the Arumbaya tribe deep in the forest.
– courtesy of Wikipedia
The finished model:
The story:
What to say, what to say? The truth is, I don’t have much to say about The Broken Ear. I don’t really rank the Tintin albums according to my personal preference per se, but if I did, I think this one would be pretty low down on the list.
Maybe it’s because it follows hot on the heels of one of my personal favourites, The Blue Lotus, and so it feels like a bit of a let down. Or maybe it’s just because I’ve never had nearly as much interest in South America (especially one with fictional countries) as I have in Asia or Africa. Whatever the case, The Broken Ear was definitely one of the albums I gave a pass to in my schoolboy days.
Of course, with age usually comes a bit of maturity and perspective, and over the years I’ve come to appreciate the clever wit and high brow humour that Hergé injected into this early work. The suddenly revolutionary reversals, which just confused me as a child, now make my adult self chuckle at the germ of truth wrapped in the farce. I can also understand the subtle machinations of big industry, like oil and arms dealers, that push for a war on purely economic grounds, rather than a simple fight between the “good guys” and the “bad guys” my child’s mind craved. So the story has grown on me, to be sure.
Of course there was also no doubt in regards to its inclusion in my Tintin build project, the only question was what to build? There’s not a great many mechanical vehicles to choose from, but the green 1936 Ford Model 48 that Tintin commandeers, the black Citroen 7CV Traction Avant that spirits Tintin away after he’s been kidnapped, and Basil Bazaroff’s yellow Junkers Ju52 all come to mind easily enough.
But sometimes inspiration hits you when you least expect it.
The build:
Honestly, I didn’t really set out with a plan to build the dugout canoe from the cover of The Broken Ear, but while I was building the Arabian dhow from The Cigars of the Pharaoh, I discovered that the 1/75 Heller boxing of the Niña that I was using as the base also contained a little… boat.
I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be some kind of rowboat to bridge the ship-to-shore gap, but all I could think of was how much it looked like the dugout canoe. So, even though it wasn’t “on the list” who am I to argue if fate wants to put a small little side project directly into my hands.
Fortuitously, the dhow project had already helped inspire me to build the flaming Karaboudjan lifeboat, and I was already playing with silicone caulk as water substitute, so it was a very quick little build indeed.
I knew almost the only thing I needed to do was extend the ends, so after a false start using some sheet polystyrene, I settled on some 2-part epoxy putty. I even had enough left over to make a few bags for the cargo. I was also able to scavenge and modify a couple of paddles from the life boat kit – at 2 boxes with eight paddles each, I had plenty to spare.
A bit of dark brown paint, and boom… all done. As a silly little side project, I think it was a roaring success, but feel free to let me know what you think.
