Tintin in the Congo
Encyclopedia
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 later that year. Hergé would later redraw and colour the work for a new edition in 1946, and then made alterations to one of the pages for republication in 1975. The story was designed to encourage children to learn more about what the Abbé Norbert Wallez (editor of Le Vingtième Siècle, in which Le Petit Vingtième appeared) felt were the positive aspects of the Belgian occupation of the Congo
.
The plot revolves around the young reporter Tintin
and his dog Snowy
, who travel to the Belgian Congo to report on the situation of the country there. Once in the central African nation, the duo get into various adventures, encountering wild animals, angry natives, and American diamond smugglers in the employ of Al Capone
.
Following on from the success of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
(1929–30), Tintin in the Congo also proved popular with the Belgian public, allowing Hergé to continue the series with a third installment, Tintin in America
(1931–32). In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, however, the book came under criticism for its racist
portrayal of the Congolese people. It has also been criticised for its portrayal of big game hunting and the mass slaughter of African wildlife. Hergé himself was embarrassed by the work because of these elements, for which he expressed regret in later life, referring to the book as an error of his youth. It is because of its controversial nature that its publication in English
was delayed until 1991.
and his faithful dog Snowy
travel to the Congo, where the pair are greeted by a cheering crowd of natives. Hiring a native boy, Coco, to assist him in his travels, Tintin has to rescue Snowy from being eaten by a crocodile
prior to recognising a stowaway who had been aboard the ship that had brought them to the continent. The stowaway attempts to kill Tintin, who is saved by monkeys throwing coconuts down from a tree, knocking the villain unconscious. He then finds that Snowy has been kidnapped by a monkey
, and rescues him.
The next morning, Tintin, Snowy, and Coco crash their car into a train, which the reporter subsequently fixes and then tows to the Babaorum's village, where he is greeted by the king and accompanies him on a hunt the next day. During this, Tintin is knocked unconscious by a lion
, but is rescued by Snowy, who bites the carnivore's tail off. Tintin gains the admiration of the natives, making the Babaorum witch-doctor Muganga jealous; with the help of the stowaway, he plots to accuse Tintin of destroying the tribe's sacred idol. Imprisoned by the villagers, Tintin is rescued by Coco and then shows them footage of Muganga conspiring with the stowaway to destroy the idol, something which incenses them. Tintin goes on to become a hero in the village, with one local woman bowing down to him and stating "White man very great! Has good spirits… White mister is big juju
man!"
Angered, Muganga starts a war between the Babaorum and their neighbours, the M'Hatuvu, whose king leads the attack on the Babaorum village. Tintin outwits them and the M'Hatuvu people subsequently cease hostilities and come to idolise Tintin too. Muganga and the stowaway then plot to kill Tintin by making it look like a leopard
kill, but again Tintin survives, even saving Muganga from being killed by a boa constrictor
, for which Muganga pleads mercy and ends his hostilities. The stowaway attempts to capture Tintin again, eventually succeeding disguised as a Catholic missionary. In the ensuing fight across a waterfall, the stowaway is eaten by crocodiles. After reading a letter that the stowaway had in his pocket, Tintin finds that a figure known only as A.C. has ordered that he be killed. Capturing a criminal who was trying to rendezvous with the now dead stowaway, Tintin learns that it is the American gangster Al Capone
who has ordered his death. Capone had "decided to increase his fortune by controlling diamond production in Africa", and feared that Tintin might be onto his plans. With the aid of the colonial police, Tintin arrests the rest of the diamond smuggling gang.
(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
. As Tintinologist Michael Farr
noted, Wallez believed that the Belgian colonial regime in the Congo needed to be promoted at a time when memories "were still fairly fresh" of the publicised 1928 visit of the Belgian King Albert
and Queen Elisabeth to the colony. Hergé would later characterise Wallez's instructions by sarcastically claiming that he referred to the Congo as "our beautiful colony which has great need of us, tarantara, tarantaraboom".
Just as in Land of the Soviets, where Hergé had based his information about the Soviet Union almost solely on a single source, in Tintin in the Congo he again made a very limited use of source material to learn about the central African country and its people. As literary critics Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier noted, the comic was based almost entirely upon the literature written by missionaries, with the only added element being that of the diamond traffickers, which they thought was probably adopted from the "Jungle Jim
-type serials".
In his psychoanalytical
study of the series, "Tintinologist" Jean-Marie Apostolidès highlighted that in the Congolese adventure, Tintin represented progress and the Belgian imperialist
state, being a model for the natives to imitate so that they could become more European and hence civilised in the eyes of Belgian society. In the 1970s Hergé, in his interview with Numa Sadoul
, admitted the errors in his understanding of the Congo, stating that:
, however, held a differing opinion, believing that "Congo is almost a regression from Soviets", having no plot or characterisation, and he therefore defined it as being "probably the most childish of all the Tintin books."
Visually, Tintin in the Congo is very similar in style to Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, being once more in black and white. In the first installment of the story, Hergé featured a cameo of Quick and Flupke, two young boys living in Brussels whom he had only recently developed for their own comic strip in Le Petit Vingtième, which had begun serialisation on 23 January 1930.
The story would prove, like Land of the Soviets before it, to be popular among its Belgian readership and, as such, Wallez decided to repeat the publicity stunt he had used when Soviets had come to the end of its serialisation. In July 1931 he employed an actor to dress up as Tintin in colonial gear and to publicly appear in Brussels and then Liège
, accompanied by 10 African bearers and an assortment of exotic animals hired from a zoo. The event was hugely popular, with the Brussels stunt attracting a crowd of 5,000. In 1931, the serialised story was then collected together and published in a single volume by the Brussels-based company Editions de Petit Vingtième, while a second publication was brought out by the publisher Casterman
in 1937.
, so that they visually fitted in with the new Tintin stories that he was creating. Tintin in the Congo was one such of these books, with the new version being published in 1946. As a part of this modification, Hergé also cut the page length down from 110 plates to the standard 62 pages, as suggested to him by the publisher Casterman. For the 1946 version, Hergé also made several changes to the actual story, for instance cutting many of the references to Belgium and colonial rule. This decision, Farr claimed, was made to broaden its appeal to readers in nations other than Belgium and not because Hergé believed that imperial rule would come to an end, something which only occurred in 1960. For example, in the scene where Tintin teaches Congolese school children about geography
, he states in the 1930-31 version that "My dear friends, today I'm going to talk to you about your country: Belgium!" whereas in the 1946 version, he instead gives them a mathematics
lesson, asking "Now who can tell me what two plus two make?... Nobody". In another change, the character of Jimmy MacDuff, the owner of the leopard that attacks Tintin, was changed from a black manager of the Great American Circus into a white "supplier of the biggest zoos in Europe."
In the 1946 colorised version, Hergé also included a cameo by Thomson and Thompson
, the two detectives that he had first introduced in the fourth Tintin story, Cigars of the Pharaoh
(1932–34), which was chronologically set after the Congolese adventure. Adding them to the first page, they are featured in the backdrop, watching a crowd surrounding Tintin as he boards a train and commenting that it "Seems to be a young reporter going to Africa..." In this version, Hergé also inserted illustrated depictions of both himself and his friend Edgar P. Jacobs (who was the colorist who worked with him on the book), into the frame, as members of the crowd seeing Tintin off.
Farr believed that the 1946 color version was a poorer product than the black and white original, having lost its "vibrancy" and "atmosphere" with the new depiction of the Congolese landscape being unconvincing, appearing more like a European zoo than the "parched, dusty expanses of reality." Another Tintinologist, Benoit Peeters
, took a more positive attitude towards the 1946 version, commenting that it contained "aesthetic improvements" and a "clarity of composition" due to Hergé's personal development in draughtsmanship, as well as an enhancement in the dialogue, which had become "more lively and fluid."
, fills it with dynamite, and then blows it up. They asked Hergé to replace this page with an alternate, less violent scene which they believed would be more suitable for their young readership. Hergé, who had come to regret the scenes of animal abuse and big game hunting in the work soon after producing it, eagerly agreed, and the subsequently altered page involved the rhinoceros accidentally firing Tintin's gun while he was asleep and then running off scared as a result. This altered scene was subsequently used in other language publications as well.
Although the 1946 colored version had become the predominant version of the work that was publicly available, Tintinologists and collectors became interested in the original 1931 version, and so it was reissued, in French, in the first volume of the Archives Hergé collection, where it was featured alongside Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in America. This volume of Archives Hergé was published by Casterman in 1973, who then also released Tintin in the Congo as a stand-alone tome in 1982.
Although it had been published in a wide range of languages, including French, Swedish, and German, English publishers refused to publish Tintin in the Congo for many years due to its controversial nature. In the late 1980s, Nick Rodwell, then agent of Studio Hergé in the United Kingdom
, told reporters of his intention to finally publish it in English and noted his belief that, by publishing the original 1931 black and white edition, it would cause less controversy than its later 1946 counterpart would. After much debate, it was agreed to publish the 1931 version, 60 years on in 1991, making it the last of the Tintin books to appear in English. The 1946 colour version finally saw publication in English in 2005, when it was released by Egmont Publishing
.
attitude towards Congolese people, portraying them as infantile and stupid, and drawing them in a stereotypical manner. Farr highlighted that such accusations against the book only came about decades after its original publication because it was only following the collapse of European colonial rule in Africa during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s that the average western attitude towards Africans changed, becoming less patronising and racist. Tintinologist Harry Thompson argued that Tintin in the Congo should be viewed in the context of European society in the 1930s and 1940s, and that Hergé had not written the book to be "deliberately racist", but merely reflected the average Belgian view of Congolese people at the time, one which was more "patronising" than malevolently racist. Similarly, Tintinologist Jean-Marie Apostolidès maintained that Hergé was not intentionally racist, but that he portrayed the Congolese as being like children, displaying friendliness, naivety, cowardice, and laziness.
Both Farr and literary critic Tom McCarthy
noted that Tintin in the Congo was the most popular Tintin adventure among readers on the African continent, particularly in the French-speaking countries. In a similar assessment, Thompson noted that the book remained hugely popular in both the Belgian Congo and, after it achieved independence in 1960, in its successor nation-state, Zaire
. This however has not prevented it being viewed with anger by certain Congolese people; for example, in 2004, when the Congolese Information Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi described remarks by the Belgian foreign minister critical of the chaos in the Congolese government as "racism and nostalgia for colonialism", he remarked that it was like "Tintin in the Congo all over again."
In July 2007 the United Kingdom's equal-rights body, the Commission for Racial Equality
(CRE), called on high-street shops to remove the book from shelves after a complaint by David Enright, a human rights lawyer who came across the book in the children's section of the high-street chain Borders
while shopping with his African wife and two sons. The shop later moved the book from the children's section to the area reserved for adult graphic novels. Borders said that it was committed to let its "customers make the choice." Another major British retailer, WHSmith, said that the book was sold on its website but with a label that recommended it for readers aged 16 and over. The CRE's attempts at banning the book were criticised by Conservative Party
politician Ann Widdecombe
, who remarked that the organisation had more important things to do than regulate the accessibility of historical children's books.
In August 2007 a complaint was filed in Brussels
by a Congolese student named Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo, who was studying political science
and claimed that the book was an insult to the Congolese people. Public prosecutors investigated, but the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism
warned against political over-correctness
. Mondondo later extended his action to France, demanding that the comic be removed from the shelves of bookstores, and it was announced that he would go as far as the European Court of Human Rights
in order to make his case. Tintin in the Congo also came under criticism in the United States of America; in October 2007, in response to a complaint by a patron, the Brooklyn Public Library
placed the book in its Hunt
Collection for Children's Literature, a special collection of 7,000 rare children's books that can only be accessed by appointment.
In November 2011, UK book sellers Waterstones removed the book from its children's section amid fears it may "fall into the wrong hands". Publisher Egmont UK also responded to concerns surrounding racism by placing a protective band around the book with a warning about its content, and writing an introduction explaining the historical context of the comic. The moves have been met with a mixed reception.
, killing an ape to wear its skin, injuring an elephant, stoning a buffalo, and (in earlier editions) exploding a rhinoceros from within using dynamite. Big game hunting was very popular among affluent Europeans who visited Africa during the 1930s, and Tintin reflects this trend during his adventure. Hergé would in later years feel guilty about his portrayal of animals in Tintin in the Congo, becoming an opponent of blood sports, and by the time he had written Cigars of the Pharaoh several years later, he made Tintin meet and befriend a herd of elephants living in the Indian jungle, a far cry from the destruction wrought in his African adventure. When the book was first published in India by the India Book House in 2003, the Indian branch of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
issued a public criticism, with chief functionary Anuradha Sawhney stating that the comic was "replete with instances that send a message to young minds that it is acceptable to be cruel to animals".
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 June 1930 and July 1931, it was first published in book form later that year. Hergé would later redraw and colour the work for a new edition in 1946, and then made alterations to one of the pages for republication in 1975. The story was designed to encourage children to learn more about what the Abbé Norbert Wallez (editor of Le Vingtième Siècle, in which Le Petit Vingtième appeared) felt were the positive aspects of the Belgian occupation of the Congo
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...
.
The plot revolves around the young 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...
and his dog Snowy
Snowy
Snowy may refer to:* The condition of having snow; having to do with snow* Snowy , a dog companion of Tintin, a Belgian comics character* Snowy River, a river in Australia...
, who travel to the Belgian Congo to report on the situation of the country there. Once in the central African nation, the duo get into various adventures, encountering wild animals, angry natives, and American diamond smugglers in the employ 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...
.
Following on from the success of 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...
(1929–30), Tintin in the Congo also proved popular with the Belgian public, allowing Hergé to continue the series with a third installment, Tintin in America
Tintin in America
Tintin in America is the third title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Hergé...
(1931–32). In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, however, the book came under criticism for its racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
portrayal of the Congolese people. It has also been criticised for its portrayal of big game hunting and the mass slaughter of African wildlife. Hergé himself was embarrassed by the work because of these elements, for which he expressed regret in later life, referring to the book as an error of his youth. It is because of its controversial nature that its publication in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
was delayed until 1991.
Plot
Belgian reporter TintinTintin
Tintin, Tin-Tin or Tin Tin may refer to:* The Adventures of Tintin , the series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist Hergé...
and his faithful dog Snowy
Snowy
Snowy may refer to:* The condition of having snow; having to do with snow* Snowy , a dog companion of Tintin, a Belgian comics character* Snowy River, a river in Australia...
travel to the Congo, where the pair are greeted by a cheering crowd of natives. Hiring a native boy, Coco, to assist him in his travels, Tintin has to rescue Snowy from being eaten by a crocodile
Crocodile
A crocodile is any species belonging to the family Crocodylidae . The term can also be used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia: i.e...
prior to recognising a stowaway who had been aboard the ship that had brought them to the continent. The stowaway attempts to kill Tintin, who is saved by monkeys throwing coconuts down from a tree, knocking the villain unconscious. He then finds that Snowy has been kidnapped by a monkey
Monkey
A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...
, and rescues him.
The next morning, Tintin, Snowy, and Coco crash their car into a train, which the reporter subsequently fixes and then tows to the Babaorum's village, where he is greeted by the king and accompanies him on a hunt the next day. During this, Tintin is knocked unconscious by a lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
, but is rescued by Snowy, who bites the carnivore's tail off. Tintin gains the admiration of the natives, making the Babaorum witch-doctor Muganga jealous; with the help of the stowaway, he plots to accuse Tintin of destroying the tribe's sacred idol. Imprisoned by the villagers, Tintin is rescued by Coco and then shows them footage of Muganga conspiring with the stowaway to destroy the idol, something which incenses them. Tintin goes on to become a hero in the village, with one local woman bowing down to him and stating "White man very great! Has good spirits… White mister is big juju
Juju
A Juju is a supernatural power ascribed to an object.Juju may also refer to:-Geography:* Juju , one of seven districts on the island of Rotuma in Fiji* Juju , a village in the district of Juju on the island of Rotuma-Albums:...
man!"
Angered, Muganga starts a war between the Babaorum and their neighbours, the M'Hatuvu, whose king leads the attack on the Babaorum village. Tintin outwits them and the M'Hatuvu people subsequently cease hostilities and come to idolise Tintin too. Muganga and the stowaway then plot to kill Tintin by making it look like a leopard
Leopard
The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...
kill, but again Tintin survives, even saving Muganga from being killed by a boa constrictor
Boa constrictor
The Boa constrictor is a large, heavy-bodied species of snake. It is a member of the family Boidae found in North, Central, and South America, as well as some islands in the Caribbean. A staple of private collections and public displays, its color pattern is highly variable yet distinctive...
, for which Muganga pleads mercy and ends his hostilities. The stowaway attempts to capture Tintin again, eventually succeeding disguised as a Catholic missionary. In the ensuing fight across a waterfall, the stowaway is eaten by crocodiles. After reading a letter that the stowaway had in his pocket, Tintin finds that a figure known only as A.C. has ordered that he be killed. Capturing a criminal who was trying to rendezvous with the now dead stowaway, Tintin learns that it is the American gangster 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...
who has ordered his death. Capone had "decided to increase his fortune by controlling diamond production in Africa", and feared that Tintin might be onto his plans. With the aid of the colonial police, Tintin arrests the rest of the diamond smuggling gang.
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...
. As Tintinologist Michael Farr
Michael Farr
Michael Farr is a British expert on the comic series Tintin and its creator, Hergé. He has written several books on the subject as well as translating several others into English...
noted, Wallez believed that the Belgian colonial regime in the Congo needed to be promoted at a time when memories "were still fairly fresh" of the publicised 1928 visit of the Belgian King Albert
Albert I of Belgium
Albert I reigned as King of the Belgians from 1909 until 1934.-Early life:Born Albert Léopold Clément Marie Meinrad in Brussels, he was the fifth child and second son of Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders, and his wife, Princess Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen...
and Queen Elisabeth to the colony. Hergé would later characterise Wallez's instructions by sarcastically claiming that he referred to the Congo as "our beautiful colony which has great need of us, tarantara, tarantaraboom".
Just as in Land of the Soviets, where Hergé had based his information about the Soviet Union almost solely on a single source, in Tintin in the Congo he again made a very limited use of source material to learn about the central African country and its people. As literary critics Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier noted, the comic was based almost entirely upon the literature written by missionaries, with the only added element being that of the diamond traffickers, which they thought was probably adopted from the "Jungle Jim
Jungle Jim
Jungle Jim is the fictional hero of a series of jungle adventures in various media. The series began in 1934 as an American newspaper comic strip chronicling the adventures of Asia-based hunter Jim Bradley, who was nicknamed Jungle Jim...
-type serials".
In his psychoanalytical
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
study of the series, "Tintinologist" Jean-Marie Apostolidès highlighted that in the Congolese adventure, Tintin represented progress and the Belgian imperialist
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
state, being a model for the natives to imitate so that they could become more European and hence civilised in the eyes of Belgian society. In the 1970s Hergé, in his interview with Numa Sadoul
Numa Sadoul
Numa Sadoul is a French writer, actor, and director, who has been a resident of France since 1966....
, admitted the errors in his understanding of the Congo, stating that:
Original publication, 1930-1931
The result of Wallez's command to send Tintin to the Belgian Congo was Tintin in the Congo, serialised in Le Petit Vingtième from 5 May 1930 through to 11 June 1931 and subsequently serialised in the French Catholic newspaper Coeurs Vaillants from 20 March 1932. Drawn in black and white, Tintin's "second adventure follows almost exactly the formula set in the first", remaining "essentially plotless", and instead consisting of a series of largely unrelated events that Hergé thought up and wrote each week. Unlike in the previous Tintin adventure however, Michael Farr felt that some sense of a plot emerges at the end of the story, with the introduction of the American diamond-smuggling racket. The Tintinologist Harry ThompsonHarry Thompson
Harry William Thompson was an English radio and television producer, comedy writer, novelist and biographer....
, however, held a differing opinion, believing that "Congo is almost a regression from Soviets", having no plot or characterisation, and he therefore defined it as being "probably the most childish of all the Tintin books."
Visually, Tintin in the Congo is very similar in style to Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, being once more in black and white. In the first installment of the story, Hergé featured a cameo of Quick and Flupke, two young boys living in Brussels whom he had only recently developed for their own comic strip in Le Petit Vingtième, which had begun serialisation on 23 January 1930.
The story would prove, like Land of the Soviets before it, to be popular among its Belgian readership and, as such, Wallez decided to repeat the publicity stunt he had used when Soviets had come to the end of its serialisation. In July 1931 he employed an actor to dress up as Tintin in colonial gear and to publicly appear in Brussels and then Liège
Liège
Liège is a major city and municipality of Belgium located in the province of Liège, of which it is the economic capital, in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium....
, accompanied by 10 African bearers and an assortment of exotic animals hired from a zoo. The event was hugely popular, with the Brussels stunt attracting a crowd of 5,000. In 1931, the serialised story was then collected together and published in a single volume by the Brussels-based company Editions de Petit Vingtième, while a second publication was brought out by the publisher Casterman
Casterman
Casterman is a publisher of Franco-Belgian comics, specializing in comic books and children's literature. The company is based in Tournai, Belgium.Founded in 1780, Casterman was originally a printing company and publishing house...
in 1937.
Second version, 1946
In the 1940s, when Hergé's popularity had increased, he decided to redraw many of the original black and white Tintin adventures in color using his newly developed drawing style of ligne claireLigne claire
Ligne claire is a style of drawing pioneered by Hergé, the Belgian creator of The Adventures of Tintin. It uses clear strong lines of uniform importance. Artists working in it do not use hatching, while contrast is downplayed as well...
, so that they visually fitted in with the new Tintin stories that he was creating. Tintin in the Congo was one such of these books, with the new version being published in 1946. As a part of this modification, Hergé also cut the page length down from 110 plates to the standard 62 pages, as suggested to him by the publisher Casterman. For the 1946 version, Hergé also made several changes to the actual story, for instance cutting many of the references to Belgium and colonial rule. This decision, Farr claimed, was made to broaden its appeal to readers in nations other than Belgium and not because Hergé believed that imperial rule would come to an end, something which only occurred in 1960. For example, in the scene where Tintin teaches Congolese school children about geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
, he states in the 1930-31 version that "My dear friends, today I'm going to talk to you about your country: Belgium!" whereas in the 1946 version, he instead gives them a mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
lesson, asking "Now who can tell me what two plus two make?... Nobody". In another change, the character of Jimmy MacDuff, the owner of the leopard that attacks Tintin, was changed from a black manager of the Great American Circus into a white "supplier of the biggest zoos in Europe."
In the 1946 colorised version, Hergé also included a cameo by Thomson and Thompson
Thomson and Thompson
Thomson and Thompson are fictional characters in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. Thomson and Thompson are detectives of Scotland Yard, and are as incompetent as they are necessary comic relief...
, the two detectives that he had first introduced in the fourth Tintin story, 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...
(1932–34), which was chronologically set after the Congolese adventure. Adding them to the first page, they are featured in the backdrop, watching a crowd surrounding Tintin as he boards a train and commenting that it "Seems to be a young reporter going to Africa..." In this version, Hergé also inserted illustrated depictions of both himself and his friend Edgar P. Jacobs (who was the colorist who worked with him on the book), into the frame, as members of the crowd seeing Tintin off.
Farr believed that the 1946 color version was a poorer product than the black and white original, having lost its "vibrancy" and "atmosphere" with the new depiction of the Congolese landscape being unconvincing, appearing more like a European zoo than the "parched, dusty expanses of reality." Another Tintinologist, Benoit Peeters
Benoît Peeters
Benoît Peeters is a comics writer, novelist, and critic. He has lived in Belgium since 1978.His best-known work is Les Cités Obscures, an imaginary world which mingles a Borgesian metaphysical surrealism with the detailed architectural vistas of the series' artist, François Schuiten...
, took a more positive attitude towards the 1946 version, commenting that it contained "aesthetic improvements" and a "clarity of composition" due to Hergé's personal development in draughtsmanship, as well as an enhancement in the dialogue, which had become "more lively and fluid."
Later alterations and releases
When the Scandinavian publishers of the Adventures of Tintin decided to first release Tintin in the Congo in 1975, they were unhappy with the content of page 56, in which Tintin drills a hole into a rhinocerosRhinoceros
Rhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....
, fills it with dynamite, and then blows it up. They asked Hergé to replace this page with an alternate, less violent scene which they believed would be more suitable for their young readership. Hergé, who had come to regret the scenes of animal abuse and big game hunting in the work soon after producing it, eagerly agreed, and the subsequently altered page involved the rhinoceros accidentally firing Tintin's gun while he was asleep and then running off scared as a result. This altered scene was subsequently used in other language publications as well.
Although the 1946 colored version had become the predominant version of the work that was publicly available, Tintinologists and collectors became interested in the original 1931 version, and so it was reissued, in French, in the first volume of the Archives Hergé collection, where it was featured alongside Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in America. This volume of Archives Hergé was published by Casterman in 1973, who then also released Tintin in the Congo as a stand-alone tome in 1982.
Although it had been published in a wide range of languages, including French, Swedish, and German, English publishers refused to publish Tintin in the Congo for many years due to its controversial nature. In the late 1980s, Nick Rodwell, then agent of Studio Hergé in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, told reporters of his intention to finally publish it in English and noted his belief that, by publishing the original 1931 black and white edition, it would cause less controversy than its later 1946 counterpart would. After much debate, it was agreed to publish the 1931 version, 60 years on in 1991, making it the last of the Tintin books to appear in English. The 1946 colour version finally saw publication in English in 2005, when it was released by Egmont Publishing
Egmont Publishing
The Egmont Group is a media corporation founded and rooted in Copenhagen, Denmark. The business area of Egmont has traditionally been magazine publishing but has over the years evolved to comprise media generally....
.
Colonialism and racism
In the latter decades of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, Tintin in the Congo came under criticism for its racistRacism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
attitude towards Congolese people, portraying them as infantile and stupid, and drawing them in a stereotypical manner. Farr highlighted that such accusations against the book only came about decades after its original publication because it was only following the collapse of European colonial rule in Africa during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s that the average western attitude towards Africans changed, becoming less patronising and racist. Tintinologist Harry Thompson argued that Tintin in the Congo should be viewed in the context of European society in the 1930s and 1940s, and that Hergé had not written the book to be "deliberately racist", but merely reflected the average Belgian view of Congolese people at the time, one which was more "patronising" than malevolently racist. Similarly, Tintinologist Jean-Marie Apostolidès maintained that Hergé was not intentionally racist, but that he portrayed the Congolese as being like children, displaying friendliness, naivety, cowardice, and laziness.
Both Farr and literary critic Tom McCarthy
Tom McCarthy
Tom McCarthy can refer to :*Tom McCarthy , ice hockey player in the NHL*Tom McCarthy , ice hockey player in the NHL*Tom McCarthy Tom McCarthy can refer to :*Tom McCarthy (ice hockey), ice hockey player in the NHL*Tom McCarthy (ice hockey b. 1960), ice hockey player in the NHL*Tom McCarthy Tom...
noted that Tintin in the Congo was the most popular Tintin adventure among readers on the African continent, particularly in the French-speaking countries. In a similar assessment, Thompson noted that the book remained hugely popular in both the Belgian Congo and, after it achieved independence in 1960, in its successor nation-state, Zaire
Zaire
The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...
. This however has not prevented it being viewed with anger by certain Congolese people; for example, in 2004, when the Congolese Information Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi described remarks by the Belgian foreign minister critical of the chaos in the Congolese government as "racism and nostalgia for colonialism", he remarked that it was like "Tintin in the Congo all over again."
In July 2007 the United Kingdom's equal-rights body, the Commission for Racial Equality
Commission for Racial Equality
The Commission for Racial Equality was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom which aimed to tackle racial discrimination and promote racial equality. Its work has been merged into the new Equality and Human Rights Commission.-History:...
(CRE), called on high-street shops to remove the book from shelves after a complaint by David Enright, a human rights lawyer who came across the book in the children's section of the high-street chain Borders
Borders Group
Borders Group, Inc. was an international book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company employed approximately 19,500 throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores....
while shopping with his African wife and two sons. The shop later moved the book from the children's section to the area reserved for adult graphic novels. Borders said that it was committed to let its "customers make the choice." Another major British retailer, WHSmith, said that the book was sold on its website but with a label that recommended it for readers aged 16 and over. The CRE's attempts at banning the book were criticised by Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
politician Ann Widdecombe
Ann Widdecombe
Ann Noreen Widdecombe is a former British Conservative Party politician and has been a novelist since 2000. She is a Privy Councillor and was the Member of Parliament for Maidstone from 1987 to 1997 and for Maidstone and The Weald from 1997 to 2010. She was a social conservative and a member of...
, who remarked that the organisation had more important things to do than regulate the accessibility of historical children's books.
In August 2007 a complaint was filed in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
by a Congolese student named Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo, who was studying political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
and claimed that the book was an insult to the Congolese people. Public prosecutors investigated, but the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism
Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism
The Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism , also referred to as Centre for Equal Opportunities and Fight against Racism or translated as Centre for Equal Opportunities and Struggle against Racism The Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CEOOR), also referred...
warned against political over-correctness
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
. Mondondo later extended his action to France, demanding that the comic be removed from the shelves of bookstores, and it was announced that he would go as far as the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
in order to make his case. Tintin in the Congo also came under criticism in the United States of America; in October 2007, in response to a complaint by a patron, the Brooklyn Public Library
Brooklyn Public Library
The Brooklyn Public Library is the public library system of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. It is the fifth largest public library system in the United States. Like the two other public library systems in New York City, it is an independent nonprofit organization that is funded by the...
placed the book in its Hunt
Clara Whitehill Hunt
Clara Whitehill Hunt was an American librarian who wrote children's books.- Background :She was born in Utica, New York, graduated from the New York State Library School in 1898, and for several years taught in the public schools...
Collection for Children's Literature, a special collection of 7,000 rare children's books that can only be accessed by appointment.
In November 2011, UK book sellers Waterstones removed the book from its children's section amid fears it may "fall into the wrong hands". Publisher Egmont UK also responded to concerns surrounding racism by placing a protective band around the book with a warning about its content, and writing an introduction explaining the historical context of the comic. The moves have been met with a mixed reception.
Animal welfare
Tintin in the Congo has also been criticised for its treatment of fictional Congolese wildlife, with Tintin taking part in "the wholesale and gratuitous slaughter" of animals by shooting several antelopeAntelope
Antelope is a term referring to many even-toed ungulate species indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelopes comprise a miscellaneous group within the family Bovidae, encompassing those old-world species that are neither cattle, sheep, buffalo, bison, nor goats...
, killing an ape to wear its skin, injuring an elephant, stoning a buffalo, and (in earlier editions) exploding a rhinoceros from within using dynamite. Big game hunting was very popular among affluent Europeans who visited Africa during the 1930s, and Tintin reflects this trend during his adventure. Hergé would in later years feel guilty about his portrayal of animals in Tintin in the Congo, becoming an opponent of blood sports, and by the time he had written Cigars of the Pharaoh several years later, he made Tintin meet and befriend a herd of elephants living in the Indian jungle, a far cry from the destruction wrought in his African adventure. When the book was first published in India by the India Book House in 2003, the Indian branch of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is an American animal rights organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. A non-profit corporation with 300 employees and two million members and supporters, it claims to be the largest animal rights...
issued a public criticism, with chief functionary Anuradha Sawhney stating that the comic was "replete with instances that send a message to young minds that it is acceptable to be cruel to animals".
External links
- Tintin in the Congo at Tintinologist.org