I picked up this copy of a Tintin comic in a waiting room. My first time reading Tintin as an adult. These comics are racist as f**k. The coloniser gaze is everywhere. As a child, I felt it but could never articulate it.
Edit: I found this Wikipedia page about it. This is indeed one of the most racist of the Tintin comic albums. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Congo
Wikipedia also says that the first _english_ Edition of this appeared in 2005
@rohini At least Hergé got a bit better. In ’The Castafiore Emerald’, the Roma are not treated completely equitably, but for example Haddock gets scolded for letting them camp on his castle grounds, and in the end even though the Duponds suspect them of theft (ACAB!), in the end they are cleared of the crime.
Of course the suspicion in the first place is very racist,and they could be handled much better, but it’s still a world of difference to ’Tintin in Congo’.
@rohini @mehluv A magazine in Nazi-occupied Belgium, to be precise - he was at worst a reluctant collaborator with the fascists (by working for a compliant magazine instead of, idk, getting work as a farm labourer), not someone going out of his way to be fascist
"Tintin in the Congo" is shocking however
yup. they’re horrible.
i grew up in Puerto Rico, so my exposure to TinTín was via a kids’ magazine from Argentina called Billikén. at one point they added them as a mini zine in the middle of the mag. i’d just ripped it out immediately.
it’s so horrible, i use TinTín as a measure of how racist someone is. cannot tell you how disappointed i was when Stephen Spielberg went out and made a whole ass movie. then i checked the credits. it gets worse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin_%28film%29
Hergé is the oldest of all the list you mention.
His merits are being a pioneer of comics in Europe, nice style, sense of adventure.
But some of his albums, not surprisingly the first ones, have aged horribly.
Asterix was always much better, but it is a much modern work. Imagine an Asterix in the Congo if published in 1940.
Not that being from the 30s is a excuse for blatant racism, since many comics from that age don't have that weakness. Usually, sadly, by not figuring non white characters at all.
Haggard books, being much older, have been criticized often, but at least he main hero befriended the entire zulu nation and portraits them positively.
That doesn't happen in Tintin at all.
@rohini this wasn't published in English for decades. Eventually when it did ship, it was shrink wrapped, only for sale at adult graphic novel sections (not kids comics), and was functionally only intended for completionists
The Belgian treatment of the Congo was egregious, even by the standards of most of the colonial powers of Europe of the time, and this comic reflects that
Funnily enough, this edition contains some toned down sections, mostly relating to animal cruelty.
Sir David Nielsen
Rohini Lakshané
benjamin melançon
Dizzy
lou.
catch
Pare
werdahias (tired)
Aegir
Wigbert B 🎻🏛🎭🎤🗞🎥📚
Luv Mehta
jack
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
Karl Heinz Häsliprinz
Floaty Birb
Sean Bala
deFraid
Seiðr
Curioso 🍉 🇺🇦 (jgg)
Kim Possible 
Misuse Case
rhempel
Jason Robinson 🐍 🍻 🚴
Jo Shields
Kruku