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Tintin in The Congo was the second story created by Herge featuring the boy reporter. It appeared in the early 1930s in strip form in a French magazine in black and white. A version in colour was produced in 1946. The story did not appear in English until 1991 - this was in its original black and white format in a collectors edition. It finally appeared in colour format in 2005. The reason for the long delay in issuing the book in English was two fold - firstly the earlier stories were issued in English last - this was because when the stories started being issued in book form, the most recent stories were issued first, it was only when new stories stopped being produced, that the English Publishers turned to the older stories; secondly because of the controversial content and its depiction of the native Africans in the Congo (Belgium Congo as it was at the time). The story follows the adventures of Tintin whilst visiting what was the only major Belgium foreign possession and therefore a natural choice for the story for the patriotic Herge. Mainly I guess because of the strip format and that, unlike later books, it was never intended to be transferred to book format, the story is rather disjointed and there are many obvious comic strip "cliffhangers" that don't help the flow of the story. The controversial element (some have called it racist but this is to entirely miss the point of the time and context it was written in) is the depiction of the Africans. They are portrayed as being very black (true for that area) with large pale lips (certainly not true to the extent shown but these are caricatures - look at some of the over emphasised features of some of the white characters), speaking in broken English (French) and rather simple (though again this is a typical Colonial view of primitive Africa). Interestingly the revival of interest in this story was caused by its great popularity in Zaire (formerly the Congo) in the 1970s, which strongly suggests that the people their were not only not offended by it, but actually embraced it. Ironically perhaps today even more controversial, is the treatment of animals and their wholesale slaughter - the incident in the original black and white version where Tintin dynamites a rhino, was removed from the colour version thankfully. In conclusion this is an important element in the Tintin canon but should be read in the context of understanding the attitudes of the time. I wouldn't recommend it as an introduction to Tintin, more because the story just isn't that good rather than the context. I would also recommend to parents that if they want to give it to their children, they do what I did on the first read and read it with them explaining the historical context and that what was seen as acceptable then is not so now. Because of the content Egmont has not re-printed this for a number of years (though still widely available in French), consequently it is now quite sought after and you'll have to pay £50+ to obtain.Read full review
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