My graphic novel for last month was 'Asterix the Gaul', the first in in a series that, with 385 million sales, counts as Europe's bestselling comic in book form and the world's second bestselling, after the Japanese manga, 'One Piece'. Following up from that this month, here's the first in another series that, with 250 million sales, ranks second in Europe and tenth in the world, the latter tied with 'Naruto'. What's more, with only twenty-four books in the series, 'The Adventures of Tintin' clearly averages better than everything above it.

'Tintin in the Congo' is, as you might expect for a book first published in 1931, rather problematic today. The character of Tintin is a journalist, who works for 'Le Petit Vingtième', the real weekly children's supplement to a Belgian newspaper called 'Le Vingtième Siècle', which translates as 'The Twentieth Century'. Both ceased publication in 1940, closed down for good by the occupying Nazis during the Second World War, but Tintin continues on as its most abiding creation. The first nine 'Tintin' books started life serialised in 'Le Petit Vingtième' and this is technically the second of them, after 'Tintin in the Land of the Soviets'.

I'm reviewing 'Tintin in the Congo' first because it was the first to be collected in book form. While 'Tintin in the Land of the Soviets' was skipped over because the original plates were damaged, the author, Georges Remi, who wrote as Hergé, also found it to be embarrassingly crude, something to remember when I get into the meat of this review. Also, in 1942, when Hergé redrew 'Tintin in the Congo' in colour—it was originally only in relatively crude black and white—and updated the text considerably, he avoided doing that to 'Tintin in the Land of the Soviets'. Unless you read that one during its original publication run from 1929 to 1930, then you didn't have a chance to read it until 1969, when it finally saw an official publication in book form. While both the first two stories were well received in Belgium when originally released, neither has aged well.

So, with some trepidation, I tiptoed into 'Tintin in the Congo', reading both versions: the primitive black and white one and then the more sophisticated colour redux. Current editions of both these include this telling note as a foreword:

"In his portrayal of the Belgian Congo, the young Hergé reflects the colonial attitudes of the time. He himself admitted that he depicted his Africans according to the bourgeois, paternalistic stereotypes of the period. The same may be said of his treatment of big-game hunting and his attitude towards animals."

That is absolutely not wrong. While this story draws heavily from cliffhanger movie serials, with a variety of calamities recognisable from stereotypes, Tintin doesn't do a heck of a lot of reporting. Sure, while the Americans, the Brits and the Portuguese are eager to purchase rights to his dispatches, there really aren't any dispatches. Tintin arrives in what was then the Belgian Congo, a relatively typical colonial possession considering the atrocities that had pervaded its political predecessor, the Congo Free State, which was owned personally by King Leopold of Belgium, but spends all his time hunting big game and getting into trouble.

The story is much the same in both versions, but the black and white original is both notably more primitive in both artwork and storytelling and longer, taking almost twice as long to get through a very similar set of adventures. There are only minor differences and then primarily in detail, the ship which carries Tintin and his dog Snowy to the Congo is named the 'Thysville' in black and white but doesn't have a name in colour; conversely, the native boy who sees Tintin arrive is not named in the original but becomes Snowball (sadly I'm not kidding) in the later version; and, of all things, Tintin doesn't blow up a rhino with dynamite in the colour book.

Really, though, the only notable difference to fans of the series is that there are no regular series characters in the black and white version, beyond Tintin and Snowy. In the colour version, the very first panel quite obviously features Thomson and Thompson, though they aren't named and don't appear again in the book. I'm going to be interested to see when the regulars—Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus and the aforementioned Thomson and Thompson—are given something to do.

Tintin is generally polite to the natives, but, in true colonial spirit, that doesn't mean that he sees them as equals or fundamentally treats them well. The first negative stereotype shows up on the very first page in the form of a porter, though he only has fuzzy hair in the colour version, losing a large set of obvious lips in black and white. The next black character nearly drowns Snowy through ineptitude and he's notably less courageous than Tintin, who jumps into shark-infested water when Snowy needs rescuing. The first with real substance is Coco, a young native boy who is assigned to Tintin as he sets out into the bush, and he's both a coward and an idiot, though he does saves the day on more than one occasion.

Eventually, Tintin becomes the chief of not one but two tribes, using his ingenuity to outwit a local juju man or witchdoctor and his partner in crime, a stowaway who seeks to assassinate Tintin while making it look like an accident. Tintin does treat "his people" well, borrowing the judgement of Solomon to solve one dispute and curing another of fever with quinine, but wanders off into other adventures without apparently a care for any of them. That's sadly appropriate, I suppose.

As for animals, the first one to get story time is an asshole parrot, so we can happily approve with everything he gets. However, Tintin does shoot a crocodile and then stop it biting him by propping its jaws open with his rifle. He shoots fifteen antelopes instead of one because clearly they all just look alike. Yeah, I saw where that gag came from too. He saves Snowy from a monkey by shooting a different monkey and then wearing its skin, making us wonder just how long it took him to skin and clean it. Answer: three panels.

Tintin and Snowy combine to outwit a lion. He defeats both a tame leopard and a wild one with his cunning. He retrieves Snowy from the belly of a boa constrictor by cutting it out, which is not close to being as gruesome a scene as you're likely expecting. He goes out to hunt an elephant which is technically shot dead by a monkey, but Tintin gets the credit and harvests its precious tusks. Later he films giraffes, outwits a buffalo and blows up a rhino (though he only bests it in colour and the creature runs away to live a hopefully long and happy life).

All in all, it's incredibly dated. While Tintin is polite to the natives and openly respectful to each of their leaders, Africans are clearly inferior and some are overtly lazy, cowardly and ungrateful, not to forget stupid. The local wildlife is a commodity to be shot dead and exploited at every turn. If a counter to all that exists, it's that the villain of the piece is white and the boss he works for is not only white but someone we recognise, namely one Al Capone, a name I wasn't expecting to see in any story based in colonial era Africa. A Christian mission gets quite a positive spin too, which also hasn't aged well.

Everything dated aside, the story does unfold with an incredibly fast pace and it looks pretty good in colour, which emphasises a strong use of empty space. Sure, the cliffhangers are put into place and overcome far too quickly, but they also keep on coming, so it truly is a thrill a minute in ways a majority of comic books would dearly love to emulate. While it's surely a lesser Tintin, it's hardly a failure from the standpoint of sheer adventure. It's mostly a failure because of its attitude. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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