Talk:Tintin

The first stories of Tintin were naively racist from a modern point of view but at the time they were no more or less racist than contemporary pulp adventures. The idea for the _Tintin in Africa _was originally from the editor of _Le Petit Vingtieme _who wanted Herge to make propaganda for Belgian colony of Congo. After WW2 he made colored versions of the first stories and removed most blatant propaganda and racism – and completely ludicrous sequences like blowing up a rhino with dynamite. It still does exist in some editions, though.

When Herge was planning _Blue Lotus, _he was introduced to young Chinese student Tsang-Tsong-jen. After that he consciously tried to place the story in accurately depicted China and make Chinese human beings instead of caricatures. After that he wanted to make the stories as accurate as possible – within the limits of the comical medium, of course. Even vehicles are accurate to the point of correct door locking mechanisms. For _Calculus Affair _he looked for a suitable place in a real Swiss road where a car could drive into a lake.

Still, Herge changed his later albums for various reasons afterwards. British publisher of _The Black Island _wanted more accurate Britain – of the 1965 when the original version was made in 1938. He changed a black man with a whip in _The Crab with the Golden Claws _into an Arab. From _the Prisoners of the Sun _he removed a sequence where Haddock chews coca leaf. _Land of Black Gold _was originally about a conflict of Jewish guerilla and British mandate soldiers in Palestine. In _The Red Sea Sharks, _he made would-be-slaves “primitive” speech less so. Indian Airlines complained that none of their planes had ever crashed like in _Tintin in Tibet _and Herge changed the company into Sari Airlines. He seemed to have bent over backwards to avoid any hint of racism or jingoism. In fact, he ridicules those attitudes in the form of Dupont and Dupond who always believe in the stereotype – use ridiculous “national” costumes and jump to conclusions based on ethnic origin.

Nuevo Rico appears only in _the Broken Ear. _The country mentioned in _The Shooting Star _is Sao Rico – of which we know nothing else than its flag and the fact that there is a bank. _The Shooting Star _was made during German occupation of Belgium and Herge was apparently afraid of censorship of the possible worst kind – in short, he had to make propaganda again. He was briefly suspected of collaboration after the war. In a post-war version he replaced USA with Sao Rico. Banker’’s original name was Blumenstein and Herge was afraid that it would sound too Jewish and changed it to Bohlwinkel – which proved to be a real-life Jewish surname...

Skysmith¨ Skysmith

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More elaboration is needed. -- Hajhouse

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Unfortunately, all my Tintin stuff is in storage, across the country. From memory though: Hergé and his mentor, mr. Wallez?, were originally strongly anti-American. The picture of the poor woman in the ghetto may have been a criticism of the USA, and the American publishers may have interpreted it as such.

The error of Hergé's ways was, IMHO, not so much seeing that what he wrote could be construed as being racist, but rather that it could be recognised as inaccurate. IIRC, a reader who was offended by the simplistic stereostypes of the early albums offered Hergé to inform him about 'real life' in China.

I think The Blue Lotus deserves its own article, on the grounds of it being one the most important 20th century comics albums, because it was a break-through album in Hergé's development and because it helps portray the way Hergé and many Europeans of his time looked upon 'racial' and cultural differences. -- branko

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Early Herge is more naive than racist. He wrote at a time when his publisher was keen to promote Belgium as a colonial power, hence the scene in Congo where Tintin does a stint as a schoolteacher, writing "notre patrie la Belgique" on a blackboard. -- Tarquin

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Tarquin, did you intend to remove "Cuthbert"? -phma

I made a huge accident in the layout when I put headings in for the characters -- it was probably that. Sorry. - tarquin

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The ISBN for Le Haddock Illustre is correct (tested on www.fnac.com), but the site that Wikipedia is using for ISBN's doesn't like it. I'm assuming that's because it's not an English book. -- Tarquin

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Is Abdullah's full name "Abdullah ben Mohammed Ezab" (with Ezab being the family name) or "Abdullah ben Mohammed" (i.e. Mohammed's father was Kalish Ezab ben someone else)? -phma

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Should app the book pages be put into a sub-category. It is not obvious that Cigars of the Pharaoh is fictional or has anything to do with Tintin.

 -- Chris Q 10:57 Oct 18, 2002 (UTC)

The policy is to avoid creating subpages. However, we should rewrite the intro to Cigars of the Pharaoh to make it clear what it is. -- Tarquin 14:19 Oct 18, 2002 (UTC)

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Is there an English texpression for "La Ligne Claire" ? Ericd 21:57 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)

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This paragraph is gratuitous:

Tintin has also been accused of sexism, due to its almost complete lack of female characters. It must be noted, though, that the only recurring female character, Bianca Castafiore, is portrayed as temperamentic and strong willed, and as an independent agent without a direct attachement to any of the male characters.

Unless sources for the accusations of sexism can be provided, I think it should be removed. A great deal of books, comics, cartoons, and computer games targeted at young boys contain mostly male characters, so Tintin is hardly alone in that regard; in any case, IMO the lack of major female characters in a work is not in itself an indication of sexism.

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Comments about Hergé and ideology.

Tintin first albums are anti-Soviet, pro-colonialist, anti-American. This is obvious. Well Hergé is young, Belgian and catholic and published in catholic newspaper. He's naive and under influence and his comics are reflecting the dominant ideolgy in Belgiumat that time.

Things begin to changes with "The Blue Lotus" (his encouter with Tchang may have change his mind) his vision of China his more subtle and the album can be read as anti-colonialist.

Things gets more complicated later "King Ottokar's Sceptre" is obviouly anti-nazi. But some album are more controversial. The early and unfinished version of "Land of Black Gold" is generally considered as pro-Arab, anti-Zionist and anti-British.

The more controversial book is "The Shooting Star" which can be read as a competition between Europeans (German occupied at that time) and anglo-Americans (some of the Anglo-American have Jewish names, and Tintin flies a German plane at least in first edition), IMHO the ideology is not obvious and maybe it was done to fool censorship but it can be discussed.

"The Calculus Affair" is anti-Stalinist but there is nothing controversial IMO.

"The Castafiore Emerald" takes part for the gispsies.

"Flight 714" is obviously mocking Marcel Dassault who was both a jew and a weapon seller, this could be interpreted as anti-semitic by some but there's no reference to the fact he was was jewish. BTW weapons sellers are a recuring theme in Tintin there are several (more or less obvious) references to De Havilland.

The last controversial album is "Tintin and the Picaros" it has been seen both as left-wing and right-wing. Well Hergé fooled everyone, Tintin supports the guerrilla but the guerrilla is pro-west and the end suggest that the revolution didn't change anything.

If someone can turn it in good English and incorporate in the article, thanks.

Ericd 22:49 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)

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"This paragraph is gratuitous:

Tintin has also been accused of sexism, due to its almost complete lack of female characters. It must be noted, though, that the only recurring female character, Bianca Castafiore, is portrayed as temperamentic and strong willed, and as an independent agent without a direct attachement to any of the male characters.

Unless sources for the accusations of sexism can be provided, I think it should be removed. A great deal of books, comics, cartoons, and computer games targeted at young boys contain mostly male characters, so Tintin is hardly alone in that regard; in any case, IMO the lack of major female characters in a work is not in itself an indication of sexism."

All the Franco-Belgian comics until the end of the 60's suffer from a complete lack of female characters. This is an interresting problem. Seccotine a minor character in Spirou and later Laureline (my favourite. Boys, what a woman. She inspired "The Fifth Element") in Valerian, Natacha and Yoko Tsuno where the probably the first female characters.

Ericd 22:59 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)

She more than inspired the 5th element -- Mezieres who draws Valerian designed the aliens & stuff in the film -- Tarquin 23:03 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)

I agree with you at 200% a lot of themes in the plot can be found in Valerian. The flying taxi, the space cruise... Ericd 23:07 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)

I forgot the most important the four elements (Yes not the five) have a major role in "Métro Chatelet direction Cassiopée" and "Brooklin Station terminus cosmos". I'm still disappointed that even in France so few people have made the connection between the film and the comics which are IMO among the best sci-fi comics ever written (drawed ?).

Ericd 23:37 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)