Tintin and Alph-Art (French: Tintin et l'alph-art) is the twenty-fourth and final book in the Tintin series. It is a striking departure from the earlier books in tone and subject, as well as in some parts of the style, due to Hergé having lost interest in telling more stories in the mold of his earlier 'Tintin'-books.
Hergé worked on the book until his death in 1983, and it was published posthumously (despite its unfinished status) in 1986 by Casterman in association with La Fondation Hergé, and was republished in 2004 with further material.
In 1976, a few months after the publication of Tintin and the Picaros, Hergé told the journalist and author Numa Sadoul that he was contemplating the next adventure of Tintin — setting an entire story in an airport departure lounge. This idea was eventually dropped, and in 1978, he decided to set the story in the world of modern art. He had grown tired of his creation, and the pressure he was under to produce new adventures, and in an attempt to rekindle his passion for writing and drawing the adventures of Tintin, chose to incorporate his love of avant-garde artwork into the new story. Hergé was inspired by the Ferdinand Legros and Elmyr de Hory affair, and incorporated a second element, anew age sect and a phoney guru. He planned to cast Rastapopoulos as the villain, but according to Harry Thompson, dropped the idea in 1980 when he introduced the alphabet art element.
The story opens with Captain Haddock having a nightmare of being visited by Bianca Castafiore, who demands that he take his "medicine" (a bottle of Loch Lomond). When he refuses, as he still cannot stand it after the events of the previous book, Castafiore turns into a huge bird-like creature which then attacks Haddock. Fortunately Tintin manages to wake him up, and then receives a telephone call from the real Castafiore, telling him that she is in Belgium for a few days, and tells him about the man she is with, Endaddine Akass, a famous mystic. In town, Captain Haddock comes across Castafiore, and to avoid her, dashes into the nearby Fourcart Gallery, meeting avant-garde artist Ramó Nash and owner of the gallery, Henri Fourcart. Fourcart shows an interest in meeting Tintin. Haddock purchases a perspex letter 'H' (Personalph-Art). Back at Marlinspike, Haddock and Tintin watch a news report about their old friend Emir Ben Kalish Ezab, who plans to buy Windsor Castle from the British government, and the Beaubourg Centre (the Pompidou). Following this is a report on the suspicious death of art expert Jacques Monastir, who is presumed drowned off the coast of Ajaccio.
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