The Cigars of the Pharaoh

Herge

The Cigars of the Pharaoh was the beginning of Tintin's adventures leaving, at least for the big picture, the realm of the episodic and getting into big story arcs with returning characters (this is the book that introduces Thomson and Thompson, who would become two of the series' most beloved characters). The adventure itself still has much of the episodic feel one tends to find with things that are serialized, with lots of mini-cliffhangers and miraculous escapes, but this is where Herge really started to find his feet; it's still early work, and reads like early work, but it's good early work.