Tintin in America
Encyclopedia
Tintin in America is the third title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin
, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Hergé
. Originally serialised in the Belgian children's newspaper supplement Le Petit Vingtième
between 3 September 1931 and 20 October 1932, it was subsequently published in book form in 1932.
The plot revolves around the young reporter Tintin
and his dog Snowy
who travel to the United States
, where he plans to report on the crime syndicate then active in Chicago
.
's gangster
s in his last adventure, Tintin in the Congo
, Tintin is sent to Chicago, Illinois to clean up the city's criminals. He is captured by gangsters several times, soon meeting Capone himself after he is dropped through a trapdoor in the street and knocked out by two thugs. Al Capone pays the two, ordering the second one to eliminate Tintin. However Snowy knocks a vase onto his head as he fires, knocking him out. Tintin listens at the door where Capone and the other crook went. However the other one, revealed to be called Pietro, recovers and throws a vase at Tintin. But the door is opened at that moment, causing te vase to hit Capone's face, though the door makes Tintin drop his gun. However he then headbutts Pietro in the waist and runs out, hiding behind a curtain to evade the other crook. Tintin then gags Pietro and binds him, as well as gagging and binding Capone. He then knocks the other gangster out with a chair as he enters. However the policeman he calls to help arrest the gangsters does not believe his story and tries to capture him instead (Tintin's failure to capture Capone reflects the fact that Capone was still active when the comic strip was written). Snowy later comes along, revealing someone else came and untied the other three, despite his efforts.
After several attempts on his life, Tintin meets Capone's rival, the devious Bobby Smiles, who heads the Gangsters Syndicate of Chicago(GSC) who tries to persuade Tintin to work for him, but Tintin declines. Tintin spends much of the book trying to capture Smiles, pursuing him to the Midwestern town of Redskin City. There he is captured by a Blackfoot Indian
tribe (fooled by Smiles into thinking Tintin is their enemy), and discovers oil
. This unintentionally causes the expulsion of the tribe, as unscrupulous oil corporations take over their land, depriving them of any share in the oil profits (see Ideology of Tintin). Finally, Tintin captures Smiles, and ships him back to Chicago in a crate.
After Smiles is captured, an unnamed bald gangster kidnaps Tintin's dog, Snowy. Tintin manages to save him after hiding in a suit of armour and knocking out the gangster and two of his henchman. He discovers Snowy with his leg manacled in a dungeon. However the gangster sends his 15 bodyguard after Tintin. He tells them he wants them back in 10 minutes, with Tintin bound and gagged. Tintin locks them in the Keep, but the leader escapes. The next day the bald gangster orders a subordinate named Maurice Oyle to invite Tintin to a cannery, where Tintin is tricked into falling into the meat grinding machine. However, because the workers at the cannery are on strike, the meat grinder is deactivated and Tintin escapes. Tintin later tricks and captures both Maurice and the bald gangster.
After this escapade, Tintin is invited to a banquet held in his honor, where he is kidnapped by Chicago gangsters who have decided to wreak revenge upon him for his crackdown upon the city's criminals. The gangsters tie Tintin and Snowy to a weight and throw them into Lake Michigan
. However, the gangsters mistakenly used a block of wood as a weight, and thus Tintin and Snowy are saved by what is ostensibly a police patrol boat. It soon transpires that the crew of the boat are not policemen, but more gangsters, and they attempt to kill Tintin. However Tintin overpowers them, and later leads the police to the gangsters' headquarters. A grateful Chicago holds a ticker-tape parade
for Tintin, after which he returns to Europe.
(The 20th Century), a Catholic and conservative
Belgian newspaper. Run by the Abbé Norbert Wallez
, the paper described itself as a "Catholic Newspaper for Doctrine and Information". Wallez later decided to begin production of a children's supplement, Le Petit Vingtième
(The Little Twentieth), which was to be published in the paper every Thursday, and he decided to make Hergé its editor. Hergé would also go on to begin writing and illustrating his own comic book series, The Adventures of Tintin, which was printed in Le Petit Vingtième.
Following the success of the first story in this series, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
, which had been serialised through 1929 and 1930, Hergé had wanted to send his protagonist, the boy-reporter Tintin
, to the United States of America, but Wallez had other ideas, and commanded Hergé to write a story set in the Congo, a country then controlled by the Belgian imperialist government
.
" on September 3, 1931. It was then published in a black and white album in 1932. In 1945, the album was reworked and shortened to a standard 62-page format, and published in colour.
Its first English translation was the 1962 UK edition. The first American edition was issued in 1973, for which some panels were redrawn in order to remove some stereotype
d portrayals of African American
s. These include the doorman at the bank being built on Indian land and the woman holding the screaming baby.
Tintin in America is the earliest Tintin album that is readily available in English translation; the two previous ones have been published in English, but in limited editions.
, and the brief depiction of Al Capone
is the only notable appearance of a real person in a Tintin album. A member of the Irgun
whom some have identified as Menachem Begin
appears very briefly in Tintin in the Land of Black Gold but his name is not given. Indeed, he is encountered in only the early editions of the graphic novel and vanishes in later ones (as the story was moved from historical Palestine
to fictitious Khemed
).
found there; and whereas Tintin, a white man, was offered thousands of dollars for the oil rights, the Indians are given a mere $25 and half-an-hour to leave.
However, the most overt aspects of American racism are omitted from the English translation. For example, in the original French version, there is a bank robbery (page 34). A panel shows a bank worker explaining to the police that, after sounding the alarm "on a immédiatement pendu sept nègres, mais le coupable s'est enfui." Translation: "We immediately lynched seven Negroes, but the guilty party fled." The English translation changes this to "we hanged a few fellers right away". The worker's admission of vigilante justice is met with indifference by the police. Two pages later, on page 36, a radio broadcast refers to the lynching of "44 nègres", with no accompanying explanation, implying that such events were typical. Other edits include a frame on page 47 where Tintin hears a wailing baby and thinks it's his kidnapped dog. In the original version, the baby and its mother are drawn as stereotypical negro caricatures. In later translations, the negro family has been replaced by whites.
makes his first appearance in this book (albeit simply in a one-off cameo). A man who looks like him can be seen sitting next to Tintin at the banquet from which the hero is then kidnapped. Next to him is a young blonde-haired woman: in the 1932 black-and-white edition of the book this woman is referred to as "Mary Pikefort", a thin disguise for the actress Mary Pickford
; this is significant because Rastapopoulos is a movie mogul when he appears in Cigars of the Pharaoh
. The reference was dropped from the redrawn coloured edition, presumably because Pickford's name would not have been recognized by the new generation of Tintin readers.
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist , who wrote under the pen name of Hergé...
, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Hergé
Hergé
Georges Prosper Remi , better known by the pen name Hergé, was a Belgian comics writer and artist. His best known and most substantial work is the 23 completed comic books in The Adventures of Tintin series, which he wrote and illustrated from 1929 until his death in 1983, although he was also...
. Originally serialised in the Belgian children's newspaper supplement Le Petit Vingtième
Le Petit Vingtième
Le Petit Vingtième was the weekly youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle from 1928 to 1940. The comics series The Adventures of Tintin first appeared in its pages.-History:...
between 3 September 1931 and 20 October 1932, it was subsequently published in book form in 1932.
The plot revolves around the young reporter Tintin
Tintin (character)
Tintin is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. Tintin is the protagonist of the series, a reporter and adventurer who travels around the world with his dog Snowy....
and his dog Snowy
Snowy (character)
Snowy is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. He is a white Wire Fox Terrier and Tintin's four-legged companion who travels everywhere with him...
who travel to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where he plans to report on the crime syndicate then active in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
.
Plot
It is the year 1931. Having encountered Al CaponeAl Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
's gangster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....
s in his last adventure, Tintin in the Congo
Tintin in the Congo
Tintin in the Congo is the second title in the comicbook series The Adventures of Tintin, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Originally serialised in the Belgian children's newspaper supplement, Le Petit Vingtième between June 1930 and July 1931, it was first published in book form...
, Tintin is sent to Chicago, Illinois to clean up the city's criminals. He is captured by gangsters several times, soon meeting Capone himself after he is dropped through a trapdoor in the street and knocked out by two thugs. Al Capone pays the two, ordering the second one to eliminate Tintin. However Snowy knocks a vase onto his head as he fires, knocking him out. Tintin listens at the door where Capone and the other crook went. However the other one, revealed to be called Pietro, recovers and throws a vase at Tintin. But the door is opened at that moment, causing te vase to hit Capone's face, though the door makes Tintin drop his gun. However he then headbutts Pietro in the waist and runs out, hiding behind a curtain to evade the other crook. Tintin then gags Pietro and binds him, as well as gagging and binding Capone. He then knocks the other gangster out with a chair as he enters. However the policeman he calls to help arrest the gangsters does not believe his story and tries to capture him instead (Tintin's failure to capture Capone reflects the fact that Capone was still active when the comic strip was written). Snowy later comes along, revealing someone else came and untied the other three, despite his efforts.
After several attempts on his life, Tintin meets Capone's rival, the devious Bobby Smiles, who heads the Gangsters Syndicate of Chicago(GSC) who tries to persuade Tintin to work for him, but Tintin declines. Tintin spends much of the book trying to capture Smiles, pursuing him to the Midwestern town of Redskin City. There he is captured by a Blackfoot Indian
Blackfoot
The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana....
tribe (fooled by Smiles into thinking Tintin is their enemy), and discovers oil
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
. This unintentionally causes the expulsion of the tribe, as unscrupulous oil corporations take over their land, depriving them of any share in the oil profits (see Ideology of Tintin). Finally, Tintin captures Smiles, and ships him back to Chicago in a crate.
After Smiles is captured, an unnamed bald gangster kidnaps Tintin's dog, Snowy. Tintin manages to save him after hiding in a suit of armour and knocking out the gangster and two of his henchman. He discovers Snowy with his leg manacled in a dungeon. However the gangster sends his 15 bodyguard after Tintin. He tells them he wants them back in 10 minutes, with Tintin bound and gagged. Tintin locks them in the Keep, but the leader escapes. The next day the bald gangster orders a subordinate named Maurice Oyle to invite Tintin to a cannery, where Tintin is tricked into falling into the meat grinding machine. However, because the workers at the cannery are on strike, the meat grinder is deactivated and Tintin escapes. Tintin later tricks and captures both Maurice and the bald gangster.
After this escapade, Tintin is invited to a banquet held in his honor, where he is kidnapped by Chicago gangsters who have decided to wreak revenge upon him for his crackdown upon the city's criminals. The gangsters tie Tintin and Snowy to a weight and throw them into Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
. However, the gangsters mistakenly used a block of wood as a weight, and thus Tintin and Snowy are saved by what is ostensibly a police patrol boat. It soon transpires that the crew of the boat are not policemen, but more gangsters, and they attempt to kill Tintin. However Tintin overpowers them, and later leads the police to the gangsters' headquarters. A grateful Chicago holds a ticker-tape parade
Ticker-tape parade
A ticker-tape parade is a parade event held in a built-up urban setting, allowing large amounts of shredded paper to be thrown from nearby office buildings onto the parade route, creating a celebratory effect by the snowstorm-like flurry...
for Tintin, after which he returns to Europe.
Background
Georges Remí — who would become better known under his pen name of Hergé — had been employed to work as an illustrator for Le XXe SiècleLe XXe Siècle
Le XXe Siècle was a Belgian newspaper that was published from 1895 and 1940. Its supplement Le Petit Vingtième is known as the first publication to feature The Adventures of Tintin....
(The 20th Century), a Catholic and conservative
Social conservatism
Social Conservatism is primarily a political, and usually morally influenced, ideology that focuses on the preservation of what are seen as traditional values. Social conservatism is a form of authoritarianism often associated with the position that the federal government should have a greater role...
Belgian newspaper. Run by the Abbé Norbert Wallez
Norbert Wallez
Abbé Norbert Wallez was a Belgian priest and journalist. He was the editor of the newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle , whose youth supplement, Le Petit Vingtième, first published The Adventures of Tintin.Wallez studied at the University of Leuven...
, the paper described itself as a "Catholic Newspaper for Doctrine and Information". Wallez later decided to begin production of a children's supplement, Le Petit Vingtième
Le Petit Vingtième
Le Petit Vingtième was the weekly youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle from 1928 to 1940. The comics series The Adventures of Tintin first appeared in its pages.-History:...
(The Little Twentieth), which was to be published in the paper every Thursday, and he decided to make Hergé its editor. Hergé would also go on to begin writing and illustrating his own comic book series, The Adventures of Tintin, which was printed in Le Petit Vingtième.
Following the success of the first story in this series, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets is the first title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Hergé...
, which had been serialised through 1929 and 1930, Hergé had wanted to send his protagonist, the boy-reporter Tintin
Tintin
Tintin, Tin-Tin or Tin Tin may refer to:* The Adventures of Tintin , the series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist Hergé...
, to the United States of America, but Wallez had other ideas, and commanded Hergé to write a story set in the Congo, a country then controlled by the Belgian imperialist government
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...
.
Publication and alternate versions
Tintin in America first appeared as a black and white comic strip in "Le Petit VingtièmeLe Petit Vingtième
Le Petit Vingtième was the weekly youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle from 1928 to 1940. The comics series The Adventures of Tintin first appeared in its pages.-History:...
" on September 3, 1931. It was then published in a black and white album in 1932. In 1945, the album was reworked and shortened to a standard 62-page format, and published in colour.
Its first English translation was the 1962 UK edition. The first American edition was issued in 1973, for which some panels were redrawn in order to remove some stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
d portrayals of African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s. These include the doorman at the bank being built on Indian land and the woman holding the screaming baby.
Tintin in America is the earliest Tintin album that is readily available in English translation; the two previous ones have been published in English, but in limited editions.
Relationship to real life
Tintin in America depicts the real-life problems of gangsterism in 1930s America during the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, and the brief depiction of Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
is the only notable appearance of a real person in a Tintin album. A member of the Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
whom some have identified as Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
appears very briefly in Tintin in the Land of Black Gold but his name is not given. Indeed, he is encountered in only the early editions of the graphic novel and vanishes in later ones (as the story was moved from historical Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
to fictitious Khemed
Khemed
Khemed is a fictional Arab emirate in The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé. It is located somewhere on the shores of the Red Sea and has been compared to Jordan, with its Emir resembling the Hashemite kings and Mull Pasha corresponding to the British General Glubb Pasha.The name means "got it!" in...
).
Politics
Although he depicts the Indians as bloodthirsty, Hergé also demonstrates sympathy for their plight. In the first black-and-white strip Tintin is shown photographing an Indian who is holding a begging bowl (the begging bowl has disappeared in the colour version). Hergé later depicts the Indians being driven off their land by armed soldiers so that the US Government may access the oilPetroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
found there; and whereas Tintin, a white man, was offered thousands of dollars for the oil rights, the Indians are given a mere $25 and half-an-hour to leave.
However, the most overt aspects of American racism are omitted from the English translation. For example, in the original French version, there is a bank robbery (page 34). A panel shows a bank worker explaining to the police that, after sounding the alarm "on a immédiatement pendu sept nègres, mais le coupable s'est enfui." Translation: "We immediately lynched seven Negroes, but the guilty party fled." The English translation changes this to "we hanged a few fellers right away". The worker's admission of vigilante justice is met with indifference by the police. Two pages later, on page 36, a radio broadcast refers to the lynching of "44 nègres", with no accompanying explanation, implying that such events were typical. Other edits include a frame on page 47 where Tintin hears a wailing baby and thinks it's his kidnapped dog. In the original version, the baby and its mother are drawn as stereotypical negro caricatures. In later translations, the negro family has been replaced by whites.
Connections with other Tintin books
It is a matter of debate among Tintin fans whether Tintin's arch-enemy RastapopoulosRastapopoulos
Roberto Rastapopoulos is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. He is the antagonist in many of Tintin's adventures....
makes his first appearance in this book (albeit simply in a one-off cameo). A man who looks like him can be seen sitting next to Tintin at the banquet from which the hero is then kidnapped. Next to him is a young blonde-haired woman: in the 1932 black-and-white edition of the book this woman is referred to as "Mary Pikefort", a thin disguise for the actress Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
; this is significant because Rastapopoulos is a movie mogul when he appears in Cigars of the Pharaoh
Cigars of the Pharaoh
Cigars of the Pharaoh is one of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero...
. The reference was dropped from the redrawn coloured edition, presumably because Pickford's name would not have been recognized by the new generation of Tintin readers.
External links
- Tintin in America at Tintinologist.org