Original artwork, not a still
Blistering barnacles!
— The Adventures of Tintin · 1929
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Blistering barnacles is the sound of a seafarer with the swearing taken out and the colour left in. Hergé's trick was to let readers hear an oath without any offence, and the English edition's sea-flavoured nonsense sounds like a ship's hull giving way. It became one of the best-known comic exclamations in English, endlessly quoted by anyone who has had a very bad Monday.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for The Adventures of TintinShow the scene
Captain Haddock's oath is a running gag across The Adventures of Tintin rather than one scene. Haddock debuts in The Crab with the Golden Claws (1941), where Hergé gives him an alcoholic, short-tempered side. Because the strip ran in a Catholic children's magazine, his swearing is done with strange or difficult words that are not offensive but are hurled out as if they were. In his first anger scene he charges Bedouin raiders shouting words such as hydromeduse, troglodyte and ectoplasm. 'Blistering barnacles' is the English-edition form of the same trick.
Sources (1)
- Wikipedia: Captain HaddockLead, Character and Expletives sectionsReference checked
Context reviewed
