{"id":2772,"date":"2021-08-19T20:01:11","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T20:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=2772"},"modified":"2024-02-08T08:28:47","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T08:28:47","slug":"book-review-tintin-in-the-congo-herge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=2772","title":{"rendered":"BOOK REViEW: Tintin in the Congo, Herg\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Interesting as much for its ‘issues’ as its strengths. Neither the best of Herg\u00e9’s artwork – the original edition; it has now been redrawn! – nor storytelling, Tintin In The Congo<\/em> is most notable for the ways in which it reveals itself to be a product of its times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second Tintin adventure, following the anti-Communist propaganda of Tintin’s debut In The Land Of The Soviets<\/em>, the modern version of Congo<\/em> is so heavily redrawn that it doesn’t quite sit easily, visually speaking, in its \u2018proper\u2019 chronological place. Tintin’s body shape is a key giveaway: early unaltered strips have a less naturalistic feel, with a longer torso and strangely compressed legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Herg\u00e9\u2019s 1920s Tintin adventure has courted controversy. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I was very sad to discover that the version I have is, in an issue related to the redrawing, a somewhat sanitised or Bowdlerised one. Without spoiling it for you, whilst Tintin and Snowy do little to endear themselves to the conservation and wildlife movements, an infamously shocking rhinoceros\/dynamite episode (from the early version) is, sadly in my view, toned right down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The characterisation of native Africans is likewise potentially shocking to the modern viewer, belonging firmly to a bygone ‘golliwog’ era. But despite the rather patronising caricature approach, it’s largely (although not exclusively) the Europeans of the story who are actually the chief villains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A mixed but interesting chapter then, and a curio worth having (and enjoying), in the extensive Tintin catalogue. Not the best, but nonetheless essential for any real Tintin fan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interesting as much for its ‘issues’ as its strengths. Neither the best of Herg\u00e9’s artwork – the original edition; it has now been redrawn! – nor storytelling, Tintin In The Congo is most notable for the ways in which it reveals itself to be a product of its times. The second Tintin adventure, following the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “BOOK REViEW: Tintin in the Congo, Herg\u00e9”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-II","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2772"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11372,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions\/11372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}