Thouroughly racist and problematic
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Reading these reviews of Tintin au Congo reminds me of the words of social analyst Jason Edward Black, "the scariest of racial stereotypes and prejudices arise when the public cannot recognize such ills." Frankly I'm concerned by some of the responses: "there is nothing here that I would personally regard as outrageous" and "It preaches the true story of colonialism and Africa. However there is absolutely nothing racist about it..."
As a child I read both Tintin and Asterix comic books, adored them and was delighted to study them in a course on la bande dessinée at uni. This is when I read Tintin au Congo which provoked pretty strong feelings of repulsion.
This is emphatically not an ideal read for young Tintin fans. It is however a thought provoking text that allows older and more aware readers to tackle issues such as cultural and political imperialism, `Orientalism', the depiction of the cultural other etc.
When my 8 year old nephew kick off his shoes jumps on his bed and settles down to another few pages of Tintin I do not want him to read this, nor do I want his best friend who is black to pick up this book and be confronted with highly racist depictions of Africans who are stereotyped as ugly, lazy, childish, inferior and stupid.
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Enjoyable
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Enjoyable, but lacking the psychological complexity, and narrative sophisitcation of later works.
It is worth getting, moreover, just to spite the prigs who would have it banned.
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Nothing to see here
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Not really as racist as every made out. I only read it for the controversy and was sadly disappointed. It shows an old fashioned view that the "white men" had of the "Africans". Interesting from a historical perspective, though hardly a lesson a racial superiority. As for the comic itself, well Tintin was hardly the most exciting of characters and his racism whilst perhaps adding to the entertainment still makes me wonder what sort of deprived minds enjoyed this in their youth.
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Great Reading material for your children....
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If like me you're desperate to get your children to read more then The adventures of Tin-Tin are a good way to do this. My son's 11 and is a big fan. There's a huge base of these great books and I would thoroughly recommend them. They are totally innocuous, so there's no worries about inappropriate language or situations, not that I'm being unrealistic as 5 mins on an xbox360 seems to give children more exposure to societies less pleasant side than anyone really needs, but strangely enough children seem to enjoy a simplistic fantasy story of one boy and his dog.
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Good but not as good as the original
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I recieved an original print of this book about two years ago. I wanted to complete my collection and to see want all the fuss was about. The views of Tintin about the local people are reflective of the time and shouldn't be taken seriously as anything other than a history lesson in views caused by propaganda and ignorance. The storyline is fine - not one of Herge's best but it carries well enough. The original 1930's artwork is technically worse but much more amusing. However this newer version is nearly as good and provides an ideal finish to anyone's collection. Lots of slapstick for younger children (just inform them in some way about the "rascist" idea's beforehand). For a mature reader it has intersting historical and social views in it that reflect the time superbly. It is also Herge and therfore worth every penny.
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