Tintin in the Congo

Tintin in the Congo

Year: 1930

Important Characters: Tintin, Snowy

French Title: Tintin au Congo

Available as Facsimile Edition only.


For his second adventure, Hergé wanted to send Tintin to America, where he had already sent some of his other characters. However, the director of Le Petit Vingtième, Father Wallez, wanted to send Tintin to the Belgian Congo, now Zaire. One can tell from reading the book that its author was not interested in its subject, but the book was as much a public relations vehicle for Belgium as it was a childrens story. One can tell this from a frame where Tintin teaches a class of children, saying: "Mes chers amis, je vais vous parler aujourd'hui de votre patrie: La Belgique!" ("My dear friends, I am going to talk to you today about your fatherland: Belgium!")

The story appeared in Le Petit Vingtième between June 5, 1930 and June 11, 1931. Like its predecessor, it was first published in book form by Editions de Petit Vingtième, but later it was republished be Editions Casterman, who had gained exclusive rights to Hergé's works in French. In 1946, Hergé redrew the book for its publication in colour and made numerous changes to its content, especially ideologically, when, for example, the abovementioned class taken by Tintin was changed to a simple arithmetic class. Despite the revisions, the book went through a period of disgrace in the 1950's, due to the recolonisation of Africa, which left it difficult to track down. Surprisingly, it was in a Zairean magazine that the strip reappeared and by 1970 it was once again easy to obtain.

The book does not have the freshness of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets or the sheer adventure of Tintin in America, but it is undoubtedly a rare collection of colonialist clichés and gives good insight as to how the Europeans then viewed Africans.

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