Happy birthday Tintin: Our favourite comic character turns 90;here is a look at his most famous adventures

Blessed are those who grew up reading  Hergé’s, The Adventures of Tintin, because some books are better left ‘felt’ and ‘experienced’ than explained. Comprising 24 volumes published between 1930 and 1986, the Belgian-produced The Adventures Of Tintin and their thrilling, globetrotting exploits of the intrepid boy reporter, Tintin, with his ever-loyal White Fox Terrier, Snowy, and his quirky band of comrades gives us an endless love-affair with adventures. While the Adventures of Tintin gives us an equal adventurous journey, we look back at some of his most memorable adventures that the world will never forget.

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The Black Island: Volume seven of the Tintin, The Black Island series first came out in the papers in 1937. Then in 1986 it got a superlative upgrade all thanks to Hergé’s decision to send an assistant, Bob De Moore on a fact-seeking mission to the UK to help produce some wonderful and authentically detailed backgrounds, The Black Island has all the thrills of an adventurous ride. With cliff-hanging car chases and a fiend gorilla as the ever-mystery-solving Tintin trying to foil a forgery plot without detectives Thompson and Thomson and Snowy’s love affair with Scotland's Scotch, The Black Island is always a good memory to revisit.

Cigars of the Pharaoh: One of Hergé’s greatest virtues is his ever-thirst for adventures and his portraying of Tintin and Snowy that takes us to another dimension. Here he takes the Egyptian craze and the Curse of Tutankhamen occasioned by Howard Carter’s 1922 discoveries and weaves an intricate, funny and sometimes ridiculous plot from it, plucking in drug smugglers, mad professors and Octopussy like supervillain as well as the world’s greatest and very funny salesman.

The Secret of the Unicorn: The eleventh volume from the Tintin series, The Secret of the Unicorn takes you to a world of sea-faring pirates. Captain Haddock formerly an alcoholic pain in Tintin’s behind, now a funny alcoholic boon companion comes into his own as he discovers his heroic ancestor Sir Francis and Tintin finds a mystery which could reveal what pirates do best-treasure of Francis’s sworn enemy Red Rackham. The Haddocks’ famous way with an oath, often whiskey or rum fuelled, is one tongue-twisting, rhythm like Fancy dress freebooter! Freshwater pirate” Pithecanthropus!” which you can’t ridiculously get over with.

The Calculus Affair: Hergé was an avid fan of Alfred Hitchcock, the master of thriller movies and it shines through here in a chase thriller-cum-spy mystery. And this eighteenth volume of the Tintin series is no different. Hergé’s skill with a running joke is given full airing from the get-go. In this adventure, the roguish Bordurians are at it again – this time by The Taschists! Kidnapping Cuthbert Calculus in the midst of a war is spiced up with thoughtful moral dilemmas about the use of science and weapons of mass destruction. Tintin and Snowy’s journey to solve the great mystery by stealing papers that will secure Calculus' release from the fortress of Bakhine have you sitting at the edge yet not falling, by the whiskers of Kurvi Tasch.

Explorers of the Moon: Paying homage to the man who first trotted the moon, Neil Armstrong, Herge’s search of adventure takes us even to the moon and back. Starting off to explore the scientific payload and explore Earth's natural satellite to the unfortunate cutting off of the journey because of oxygen supply then adding the broached Destination Moon as revealed to be Wolff, who has been working for Colonel Jorgen, a secret agent from the brutish and autocratic republic of Borduria. This series has all the love for an adventure packed in a book.