On this episode of Totally Tintin, Ian and Dave take a look at what is probably the most controversial and problematic of Hergé’s books – Tintin in the Congo.
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On this episode of Totally Tintin, Ian and Dave take a look at what is probably the most controversial and problematic of Hergé’s books – Tintin in the Congo.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
A minefield nicely navigated… For what it’s worth, the 2005 Egmont English edition has the ‘scandinavian’ rhinoceros sequence. In these early books, Herge seems to be struggling to find a reason for Snowy, I think. Not too long before Tintin stops being able to understand him. A pretty ‘blah’ book this one.
BTW, Wikipedia mentions a psittacosis scare in the US in 1929, so maybe a current reference for the time?
There is a long history of colonisation by private companies (usually with royal consent), the Hudson’s Bay Company for a Canadian example. The British East India Company owned much of India before the India Mutiny and the things the Dutch East Indie Company did to control the nutmeg trade would turn your hair white. Often these private companies were the most abusive of colonisers. See the book “Merchant Kings”. I find it interesting that “Tintin in the land of the Soviets” was not redrawn for colour and this was. I read a story that in the 1960’s there were plans to film a live action Tintin movie and a young Congolese boy wrote in to say he would be perfect for the lead part, it didn’t seem to occur to him that Tintin wasn’t black. It shows you the power of projection in comics, people seeing themselves as cartoon character.
So I just got a notice from the Vancouver Public Library that the copy of Tintin in the Congo I put on hold is now available. I thought it was banned, but I guess not in the library.
Tintin in the Congo has only been banned in the Winnipeg public library system…so far.
Chapters (the largest chain bookstore in Canada, for our non-Canadian listeners) was asked to remove it from their shelves, but they felt it did not meet the criteria for a ban. However, it was moved into the adult “graphic novel” section.