Comment by chrismorgan

I espouse precisely the opposite opinion: actively try to get Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo, preferably the original/uncensored version of the latter. They’re hilarious. They weren’t supposed to be serious—it was humour. It was only from Tintin in America that he headed in the direction of being more serious (and yeah, it took about three more books to really settle).

Just as a couple of examples, one from each, which I believe are fairly representative of the tone (and probably my favourite bits in each):

• Car breaks down, so pull the engine apart completely, then realise it was a flat tyre, so punch a guy, chase him till he’s out of breath, then stick the valve in his mouth so he reinflates your tyre; then toss all the bits of the engine back in, throw away the few bits that don’t fit, drive off, and remark about how reliable these cars are.

• When hunting a rhinoceros and bullets don’t work, drill a hole in its hide (somehow unnoticed), put in some dynamite, light the fuse, hide behind a tree, explosion, rhinoceros obliterated, and say (loose translation) “oops, guess I used too much dynamite”.

The latter incident was removed from the 1975 edition of Tintin in the Congo by Hergé (45 years after initial publication), and by then he said he regretted its big game hunting stuff (understandable; that and the race issues certainly haven’t aged well!). But really, it was never supposed to be taken seriously, it was a fun and gloriously unrealistic story. Instead of getting upset, I wish people would just enjoy its absurdity, as I think was originally intended.

But definitely don’t treat those two as containing the same Tintin as in later books. They feature his slapstick humour twin brother.