After wrapping up Tintin in America, I realized my box set did not include Tintin's adventure in the Congo, much to my confusion. And just so that I'm not mistaken for a rube (I only engage in rubic behavior on a part-time basis), I was not confused about why it's difficult to buy or find. (For those not in the know, and I'm sorry you had to find out this way, the book is extremely racist.) I was confused why this volume was singled out for removal when the Tintin books engaging in extremely nasty Sinophobia remain more or less untouched. And I'm genuinely asking here; I don't know what the situation in Belgium or elsewhere is re: this, and I'm very white, so all I'm really good for is pointing at the book and going “hey this one's still racist.” 

So I wrote my Tintin in America review and decided I would find a singleton copy of Congo when I had the chance (and read Candide in between – not sure if I'll review that). This was when I realized just how difficult it was to find this book, even secondhand. Actually, if you speak French, it's not too hard, but the English-language versions are nigh on impossible to track down unless you're willing to drop $100 or so. I take this reviewing business very seriously, but I'm also a cheapskate. Eventually, I found a copy from some online British retailer of “unwanted” books. And then, a week later, I returned to their website to buy three more books just so I wouldn't be “that guy who bought one copy of the racist Tintin comic and nothing else.” And in a few weeks, my copy arrived…in Chinese. (No, no, the book's great. I just didn't expect it to be so…Chinese.)

Eventually, I settled for the black and white edition for the sake of my print collection (maybe someday I'll be able to find the color edition at a reasonable price) and read the color edition online while stuck in bed with a fever. I suppose I hoped that I could smoke out the fever if I poisoned my brain enough.

Okay, I've teased it long enough – this one's really racist. The book is flooded with minstrel caricatures who are constantly treated like children. And it's even worse in the original black and white – Tintin is constantly pointing out their cowardice and simplicity.

I have to confess that here I'm tempted to defend Hergé, to say that he's a product of his time, and he shows a little more restraint in the color edition which indicates he felt a need to curb the most egregious part, but…I just don't want to end this review by deflecting the blow. This one's the racist one! Its legacy should be “the one that was so nasty it’s no longer on the market.” Better luck next time!

Llevo queriendo leer algo de Tintín desde hace años. Está mañana me he decidido y, empezando por el principio, me he puesto a leer Tintín en el Congo.

El álbum relata las aventuras de Tintín, un reportero de éxito, y su perro Milú mientras preparan un reportaje en África. El dúo se las verá con animales salvajes, la población nativa, polizontes europeos e, incluso, una banda de gangsters.

La inspiración de Hergé en este album parecen ser las novelas de aventuras de cambio de siglo mezclado con un pastiche de personajes y situaciones contemporáneas más o menos relevantes (Al Capone, of all people, parece tener intereses en las minas de diamantes) que hacen que el argumento no pare ni un segundo. Es imposible saber en qué dirección va a mandar a sus héroes en un momento determinado. 

Estructuralmente, el comic es muy rígido con viñetas uniformes (salvo un par de excepciones) que hacen que se haga bastante tedioso de leer. Los arcos argumentales son rápidos, como de un par de hojas, y autocontenidos. Resulta raro, leyéndolo como un tomo completo, porque en lugar de tener un argumento tiene una serie de gags más o menos pintorescos. No sé si es un defecto de Hergé como guionista o si es consecuencia del modelo de publicación (no en vano, mi primera experiencia con Tintín fue de muy pequeño, cuando se publicaba en suplementos dominicales de periódicos de dos paginas en dos paginas.) El dibujo es técnicamente muy potente con un entintado detallado y un estilo muy bien definido y bastante idiosincrático. Muy buen arte, sinceramente.

Es imposible leer este album en 2024 (casi 75 años después de su publicación) y no quedarse flaseado con el desdén que muestra el autor por la gente que vive en África, la población animal, el trabajo de los periodistas y el mundo en general. Era consciente de que este album en concreto había envejecido fatal, pero el racismo es problemático independientemente de cuándo se escribiese; y la forma en la que se trata el colonialismo y el uso de los recursos naturales es casi irresponsable.

Tengo entendido que el resto de álbumes funciona mejor y que el tono deja de ser tan Quatermain para volverse algo más cercano a Indiana Jones. Si tengo tiempo, me gustaría explorar el resto de entregas de la saga.

As much as I like Tintin, this one was tough. It was written in the 1930s with a traditional Belgian view of the time on colonialism. In today's context, it feels severly outdated. It basically depicts the Congolese population as stupid, and shows it as achievements to blow up a rhino with dynamite or kill an ape to use its skin as disguise.