Discuss
According to Herge himself, the two first (and worst) Tintin stories were commissioned by le Petit Vingtieme as political propaganda. Herge claimed he did the stories with little enthusiasm as he would much rather make comics about native Americans who he was deeply fascinated by.
However, this claim is somewhat challenged by the fact that Herge actually did a colourised remake in his distinctive ligne-claire style of the original black and white Tintin in the Congo. Although he dialed the racism down from 11 to 10 (like how Tintin was now teaching Congolese school children basic calculus instead of teaching them about “your fatherland, Belgium”) it is still vile and disgusting. It’s only value today is as historical documentation of the sick perverted way white Europeans perceived Africans back then.
Tintin in the Congo is so racist that it could not be published in the UK until the 1990’s.
Herge never redid Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Being an incoherent stream of 1920’s anticommunist propaganda tropes set to crude drawings with nothing resembling a narrative structure, it was too bad to be salvaged and Herge would later express embarrassment over the poor quality of the drawings and plot and refused several offers to reprint the story. Herge was redrawing his previous work during and immediately after WWII and around that time the crude anti-communism of the story would not have been popular with readers and would have made him look even more like a nazi.
Tintin in the Congo is so racist that it could not be published in the UK until the 1990’s.
Britain didn’t get racist enough for it until the 90’s?
The 90s cartoon which is quite good, issues mentioned elsewhere aside, renewed a lot of interest in Tintin.
So I think Tintin in the Congo was released in English more for collectors, it’s still often absent from collected editions or the back cover of single books.
lmao that was my immediate thought too.
I saw this on my phone and said “fuck, this needs the computer” and walked to my computer.
Tintin is a real land of contrasts. Herge was a reactionary, started writing for racist publications and how much he collaborated with the Nazis is a subject of debate from begrudgingly to enthusiastically. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets is anticommunist trash. Tintin in the Congo is racist trash. There’s a reason they didn’t translate it into English for decades because it was too fucked up even for Anglos. Those books are not worth reading.
So his works start off really racist but over time Herge shows a surprisingly level of nuance and respect for other cultures (for an early 20th century European). Like the Blue Lotus is very racist to Japanese (but they’re also the villains because it’s the 1930s) and it’s stereotypes the Chinese badly, but it also sincerely suggests the Chinese are the same as Europeans, a proud culture with a long history worthy of respect and friendship. Chang, Tintin’s Chinese sidekick is smart and heroic. Even returning much later in Tintin in Tibet.
Tintin in America straight up calls pretty much all Americans gangsters and irrational lynch mobs, who will swindle First Nations out of their lands to steal their oil at first opportunity. As the books progress non-European places (Peru, Tibet etc) get shown with at least more nuance and interest, even if there’s still problems.
Also the quality just gets so much better. Like the early stories are just dogshit. Barely readable. Tintin in America is one Deus Ex Macchina after another as Tintin bumbles from one situation to situation. Tintin in the land of the soviets is a series of shitty newspaper cartoons strung together. But later works like the Calculus Affair is a tense political thriller about a spy battle over new sonic super-weapons in fictionalized Balkan states, Tintin on the Moon is a sincere and realistic story of the challenges of lunar travel a decade before the moon landing.
Tintin also over time assembles his cast, Captain Haddock, Professors Calculus Thompson/Dupont and Thomson/Dupond, as well as recurring characters Bianca Castafiore, Spruk, Chang etc. Tintin truly doesn’t start until the Crab with the Golden Claw, when Captain Haddock storms on the scene “blistering blue barnacles” and all.
Chang, Tintin’s Chinese sidekick is smart and heroic. Even returning much later in Tintin in Tibet.
That’s because Chang is based on the real artist Zhang Chongren. Hergé and Zhang met in Brussels and became lifelong friends. Zhang taught him about Chinese culture and Japanese imperialism. They lost contact, when Japan invaded. During the cultural revolution, Zhang was a street sweeper for a while but later went on to become the head of the Fine Arts Academy in Shanghai. Tintin met Chang again in “Tintin in Tibet” years before Hergé regained contact with Zhang.
There is nothing better than friendship to educate a racist. It’s not always practical, but still nice, when it happens.
I just assume that Herge was a normal Euro (racist af) until he actually started researching into cultures he was writing about and his racism somewhat toned down.
Like Destination Moon, Explorers on the Moon, The Calculus Affair, The Red Sea Sharks, Tintin in Tibet and the Castafiore Emerald are all back to back. That’s such a good run all in a ten year period.
The first ever Tintin story is an anticommunist screed about him going to the Soviet Union. It was published in some nazi paper. And of course there’s the infamous Tintin in the Congo.
The second Tintin story was a cartoonishly racist glorification of Belgian Congo.
Tintin author made nazi propaganda in Belgium so yea
Woah I had no idea. Fuck that.
Tintin was originally published in La Petit Vingtieme, which under Herge’s (The author of Tintin) direction moved further right from the traditional conservative outlook into a borderline rexist (Belgian fascism) line and began explicitly endorsing political antisemitism and international fascism. Tintin himself was envisioned as a representative of the revitalized youth that we so often see form the basis for fascist and nationalist movements (See: “Young X” movements), likewise Tintin in the Soviets was an explicit anti-soviet work, and Tintin in the Congo was meant to be supportive of Belgian colonialism in the Congo. After the war Herge was named in the “Gallery of traitors” as a collaborator for his work in Le Soir which continued work under German occupation and German censorship/editorial direction. So the origin of Tintin are bad.
But Herge’s actual involvement with the nazis was slim, when the war began he was writing about how bad the Japanese invasion of China was in collaboration with a Chinese friend (The Blue Lotus is still so fucking racist) and during the war he was mostly concerned with writing stuff like The Crab with the Golden Claws and The Shooting Star, both of which only incidentally has terrible politics (Herge based the planes in The Shooting Star on nazi planes), and remaking Tintin in the Congo (Bad, terrible, awful, racist, bad bad bad)
Herge’s support of the nazis mostly came in the form of people buying Le Soir to read Tintin, and Le Soir being a nazi rag.But Herge’s actual involvement with the nazis was slim, when the war began he was writing about how bad the Japanese invasion of China was in collaboration with a Chinese friend (The Blue Lotus is still so fucking racist)
There’s a bit in the Blue Lotus where Tintin trys to access the Shanghai international settlement (a chunk of Shanghai basically occupied by US and UK troops during the Century of Humiltation) and British troops try to stop him, they cut it from the 90s cartoon and just had Japanese soldiers, because suggesting that Anglos were once also trying to colonize China was considered poor taste at the End of History. It’s so racist still. But he also locked in and put everyone on blast.
(They also cut so much of Tintin in America. Lynch mobs. Mistreatment of First Nations. It’s like the shortest arc).
Herge’s actual involvement with the nazis was slim, when the war began he was writing about how bad the Japanese invasion of China was in collaboration with a Chinese friend
I mean there was a literal Nazi Ambassador who saved Chinese lives in Nanking, not sure how one precludes the other.
Well it was kinda at gunpoint cuss the gestapo hounded him from his previous publication house after he published ‘Music above all’ and said a lot of negative stuff about Hitler and Mousilini. Still he became a collaborator and made propaganda cartoons for the pro Nazi occupied Belgian press. He was also previously very much conservative and pro catholic opposition to “socialist atheism”, a major fear at the time for Belgian clergy, so overall he’d likely be within the same political spectrum as the dude that made Dilbert.
It was so not made at gunpoint. He could have stayed in France, or he could have stopped writing for large publication. He both returned to Belgium freely (Because of his monarchist views) and sought out the job at Le Soir.
He chose Le Soir over Le Pays Réel (an openly fascist pro francophone publication even before the war and occupation) though, which meant very little when most papers eventually became fash mouthpieces. Overall Herge just kinda did what most average people (Herge being a average propagandized Catholic monarchist) have done and likely will always do during a fash takeover of your country (head down and try to not get the gestapo to visit your home a second time). In a tier system of collaboration he’d be in the middle tier imho. Also between either Belgium or France I’d likely stick with the country I’m most familiar with given how both were ripe with “third wave” fanatics, neoliberals, and monarchists that never wanted to accept Marxism and instead go into revisionist death spirals (Henri di Man of the Belgian labor party for instance) and do jolly fash collaboration leading to starvation as the Nazis kinda just plundered whatever they wanted.
tldr: surviving during fash occupation doing propaganda pieces for the Vichy government is a moral death pit and Herge never fully repented (and also said stupid shit about the french resistance), he at a minimum should have faced jail time
enough about tintin, i want to know about Asterix and Obelix, i used to love those as a kid and i halfway remember that they switched authors at some point
They kinda had to because the original author Rene Goscinny died. I think there are still new Asterix stories to this day, don’t know who’s writing them now.
Many of the stories relied on national stereotypes, but at least they’re aimed at other E*ropean countries, it’s been a long time since I’ve read the comics so I’m not discounting there being some horrifying racism too.
The time they went to the Americas it was bad in a “This was made by pre-boomer Europeans” kinda way, but not in an actively malicious way. It’s very noble savage-y. The African pirate and Numidians are just golliwogs, it’s messed up.
The Indians are… uhhh… yeah.
But again it’s all in a very “This was written by people from the 1920s” way and less in an overtly colonialist and racist way, and some of the more racist portrayals were made in attempts to pay tribute to members of ethnic minorities. Which is certainly a choice. It is absolutely racist by any standard, but if you’re comparing it to the guy who wrote rexist propaganda and collaborated with the nazis, it comes out shiny and clean.I didn’t even remember there was a story where they went to the Americas, but like I said, it’s been many years. The African pirate is the most questionable recurring character I thought of.
A quick search of ‘asterix Numidians’ I found very antisemetic depictions of Jewsish people in eqypt (alongside the plentiful racist af depictions of Black people)
Happy Passover I guess
there are some racist elements in asterix I think? Not as open as “Lucky Luke” but I would screen them before giving them to my kid. I think there is one where Asterix goes to america? If thats ok than the rest should be ok too
Africans (Mostly Numidians) are portrayed as golliwogs. Like there’s no ambiguity here that’s just a racist portrayal.
oh I missed that issue or dont remember it then. Well thanks for saving me the time, another huge comic book series crossed off. Childrens entertainment is in such a dire condition
It’s not as interesting. Garsceny started out writing a couple of other comics, Iznugood was racist but not in an overtly “We should do colonialism” way, more in a “This story is set in the middle east and I’m a european born in the 1920s” kinda way and Lucky Luke (The portrayals of Mexicans here is very iffy). Both of which are pretty good but have problems with representation. He briefly worked for Tintin magazine handing ideas over to other writers who would then flesh them out. Then he wrote Asterix, but died in the 70s, so the artist took over and continued the series on his own until 2009 when he retired.
Asterix consciously served a very clear purpose in post war France. After a humiliating surrender and widespread collaboration with the Nazi regime, liberal French ideology and identity was in crisis. Asterix is about a little Gaulish village keeping up the resistance in Roman occupied Gaul — conquered, but with unbroken spirit. It was exactly the story the patriotic French ego needed after the Vichy government had betrayed, arrested, deported and handed over to the Nazis over 75.000 of their Jewish friends and neighbors, who were murdered in the death camps.
De Gaulle pushed the narrative:
starting in 1944, that almost the entire French nation had been united in resisting the occupation with the exception of a few dishonorable traitors.
It wasn’t until 2012, that a French president acknowledged, that the round up of French Jews
was a crime committed “in France, by France,”
On the other hand, Asterix helped to interest kids in ancient history, so there is that.
It’s fr*nch
But I liked reading the comics as a kid (asterix not Tintin)
Don’t know about Asterix, but Tintin is good for playing MUDs. Has a terminal multiplexing, an auto-mapper, and lots of commands to configure stuff just right. I played a game where I had an input bar, the main window, a chat window, and a map window all in one terminal.
Tintin has a problematic author and a couple (literally) of books which are definitely racist. But there are dozens of them which are mostly fine, with great adventure stories that make it a staple of european comics.
the racism is part of what makes it a staple of european comics to be fair
Racist as hell
Racist especially tintin whose author made pro nazi propaganda and was pro colonialism
deleted by creator
Corto Maltese isn’t even Bande Desinee, it’s not even meant to be humorous. It’s only similar to Asterix in being a European comic. For something similar but less politically awful, you could go for Melusine (A gag comic about a
university studentwitch) or Spirou & Fantasio (An adventure comic that avoids some of the racism by just being set in fantastical places and with spy plots)
