Cherished by millions, Tintin and his little fluffy white dog Snowy have enjoyed an impressive run after eighty years of publication. Lauded by critics and readers alike, few fictional characters rival the mass appeal and enduring popularity of the young Belgian reporter, famous for his globe-trotting adventures and universalist approach to foreign conflict.

But not everyone is enamored with Tintin’s seemingly innocent outlook on world affairs, as Tintin’s late author, Hergé, has been under fire recently for one book in particular: Tintin in the Congo. The Brooklyn Public Library recently banned the volume from public display, and a Congolese man, Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo, is suing Tintin’s publisher on grounds of racism and xenophobia.

Seeking symbolic damages of one Euro and a permanent withdrawal of Tintin in the Congo from the marketplace, Mondondo’s lawyer has yet to receive a response from the Belgian government, but presses ahead regardless, stating his intent as such: “It’s the symbol of Belgium that is under attack.” While the case is a somewhat absurd attempt at retroactive political correctness,  it does make one wonder whether or not Tintin is wholly innocent of the crimes he’s been accused of.

A closer examination of Hergé’s personal history and the political context from which Tintin came about provide tough medicine for Tintin purists. Beyond the understandable naiveté of a young Hergé, Tintin in the Congo was, in fact, a direct attempt to market the colonial effort to Belgians. This issue is explored in depth by Nancy Rose Hunt in her essay “Tintin and the interruptions of Congolese comics”, which details how a teenage Hergé got his start at the pro-colonial Catholic-Nationalist newspaper Le Vingtieme Siecle as well as the book’s impact on Congolese comics.

Tintin’s questionable role in Belgian colonial history has also been the subject of numerous works of brutal satire by South African artist Anton Kannemeyer – who parodied Tintin in the Congo in his aptly titled Congo Parody and in his 2008 exhibit Fear of a Black Planet.

An excerpt from the Michael Stevenson Gallery description:

“Kannemeyer’s interests extend to the legacy of colonialism on the African continent – as in the series Cursed Paradise – and to the ways in which racism is embedded in language itself. He appropriates the style of comic artist Hergé and in particular the character of Tintin as a personal avatar as well as an embodiment of Western colonialism. As Danie Marais observes, ‘In Kannemeyer’s work Tintin is a white African trapped in his own incriminating skin; a character who cannot escape his colonial past regardless of his personal political convictions.’ Another recurrent figure is the archetype of the defeated white patriarch, an older, balding and now morose version of the boy-adventurer. Not evading scrutiny, Kannemeyer himself appears in his works as observer and commentator on his own, everyday existence.”

-DH