The Broken Ear (originally L'Oreille Cassée) is a one of a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. The Broken Ear was serialized in 1935, and first collected in book form in French in 1943. Although the publishing history of the Tintin books is complex, it is generally considered the sixth in the Tintin series.

The storyline

The plot begins when an Amerindian fetish is stolen from the Museum of Ethnography. Tintin rushes to the museum, finding out it was replaced with a note saying that the person who stole it was sorry for the inconvenience caused, and had only stolen it for a bet. But after Tintin reads a book with an image of the fetish drawn by an ancient explorer who disappeared into the jungle. Tintin follows many clues, including a parrot who tells that a man called Balthazar was killed, and goes to South America. He finds the Indian village where the explorer is, obtains the fetish and goes aboard a ship, Tintin eventually returns the fetish to its owner.