Customer Reviews
Thouroughly racist and problematic - By: TL Davies, 05 Jul 2008 
Reading these reviews of Tintin au Congo reminds me of the words of social analyst Jason Edward Black, "the scariest of racial stereotypes & prejudices arise when the public cannot recognize such ills." Frankly I'm concerned by some of the responses: "there is nothing here that I would personallly regard as outrageous" & "It preaches the true story of colonialism & Africa. However there is absolutely nothing racist about it..."
As a child I read both Tintin & Asterix comic books, adored them & was delighted to study them in a course on la bande dessinée at uni. This is when I read Tintin au Congo which provoked pretty strong feelings of repulsion.
This is emphaticallly not an ideal read for young Tintin fans. It is however a thought provoking text that alllows older & more aware readers to tackle issues such as cultural & political imperialism, `Orientalism', the depiction of the cultural other etc.
When my 8 year old nephew kick off his shoes jumps on his bed & settles down to another few pages of Tintin I do not want him to read this, nor do I want his best friend who is black to pick up this book & be confronted with highly racist depictions of Africans who are stereotyped as ugly, lazy, childish, inferior & stupid.
Enjoyable - By: Nt Deregowski, 23 Jan 2008 
Enjoyable, but lacking the psychological complexity, & narrative sophisitcation of later works.
It is worth getting, moreover, just to spite the prigs who would have it banned.
Nothing to see here - By: Ibrahim Ali, 02 Dec 2007 Not reallly as racist as every made out. I only read it for the controversy & was sadly disappointed. It shows an old fashioned view that the "white men" had of the "Africans". Interesting from a historical perspective, though hardly a lesson a racial superiority. As for the comic itself, well Tintin was hardly the most exciting of characters & his racism whilst perhaps adding to the entertainment still makes me wonder what sort of deprived minds enjoyed this in their youth.
Great Reading material for your children.... - By: A. Cresswell, 22 Nov 2007 
If like me you're desperate to get your children to read more then The adventures of Tin-Tin are a good way to do this. My son's 11 & is a big fan. There's a huge base of these great books & I would thoroughly recommend them. They are totallly innocuous, so there's no worries about inappropriate language or situations, not that I'm being unrealistic as 5 mins on an xbox360 seems to give children more exposure to societies less pleasant side than anyone reallly needs, but strangely enough children seem to enjoy a simplistic fantasy story of one boy & his dog.
Good but not as good as the original - By: Jams202, 18 Aug 2007 I recieved an original print of this book about two years ago. I wanted to complete my collection & to see want alll the fuss was about. The views of Tintin about the local people are reflective of the time & shouldn't be taken seriously as anything other than a history lesson in views caused by propaganda & ignorance. The storyline is fine - not one of Herge's best but it carries well enough. The original 1930's artwork is technicallly worse but much more amusing. However this newer version is nearly as good & provides an ideal finish to anyone's collection. Lots of slapstick for younger children (just inform them in some way about the "rascist" idea's beforehand). For a mature reader it has intersting historical & social views in it that reflect the time superbly. It is also Herge & therfore worth every penny.
