With The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn about to hit cinemas, we thought it would be a great idea to look back at some of his earlier adventures. It’s a bit less cute dog and old sea captain and a bit more racism and blowing up endangered animals.
True story, Tintin used to be a rather controversial character. In Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo, author Georges Rémi (Hergé) put Tintin in situations that today would have caused more than just a stir and a few ACA features. It has to be remembered that these books were written in 1929-1930 so it wasn’t too out there for the time, but they were still both critically panned at the time.
Sociologist John Theobald stated that Hergé, in The Land of the Soviets, depicted the Bolsheviks rigging elections (see above), killing opponents and stealing the grain from the people, all of which was done in order to portray them in a negative light in the minds of his young readers. It wasn’t particularly well rounded.
We prefer the funnier adventures of Tintin in the Congo, although we certainly don’t condone any of his actions, such as making a snake eat itself, blowing up a rhino by sticking dynamite in it and skinning a monkey and then using its skin as a suit.
So enjoy these more controversial captions from both books. Remember them when you’re watching that cute CGI movie from Speilberg. Tintin is still cool, but he has a very interesting past.
The books are still available to purchase today.
Images: Tintin in the Land of the Soviets published by Egmont (1999) and Tintin in the Congo, published by Casterman (1962)
