Tim in the Congo

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Original logo of the episode

Tim im Kongo ( French original title: Tintin au Congo ) is a comic album from the series Tim und Struppi by the Belgian illustrator Hergé , which was initially published from 1930 to 1931 as a sequel in the children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième of the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle and in 1931 as an album appeared in black and white . The colored version was completely revised in 1946 and revised again in 1975.

The band wasn't Tintin's first adventure, even though it is released as number 1 today. Tim in the Land of the Soviets (1929; number 0) was released before, but was initially not - like all other albums - reissued in color.

action

Tim and Struppi travel together to the Belgian Congo . After a few incidents on the outward journey, they reach their destination, where they go hunting in a rental car with the local boy Coco. After Struppis was rescued from a crocodile , the vehicle was stolen from them by a white man. They manage to get the car back, but the thief they arrested earlier managed to escape the following night.

Later, Tintin, Struppi and Coco visit a local village. Tim continues to be pursued by the white man, who also allies himself with a medicine man . Together they try to kill Tim several times. It is still open for both Tim and the readership, which is why the white man is chasing Tim. When he tries to kill him again, Tim is rescued by a white missionary who takes him to his mission station , where Tim is still exposed to the attacks of the white man. In a final fight between the two, the white one is eaten by crocodiles, although Tim hadn't actually intended this.

In the white man's belongings, Tim finds a letter from Mafia boss Al Capone , who heads a diamond smuggler's ring in the Congo. Al Capone had put the white man on Tim because he had mistakenly assumed that Tim had traveled to Africa to investigate the smuggling ring. Tim then reveals the smuggling ring and the gang is caught. Ultimately, Tintin can still enjoy their free time in Africa. When they leave, Tim has to deal with a leopard one more time , which is why the porters of his litter also flee. Tim continues on foot and manages to film giraffes and kill a Cape buffalo . When they are nearly trampled by a galloping herd of buffalo, she rescues a plane that takes them back to Belgium, where they prepare for their next trip to America .

criticism

Hergé were accused of racist , colonialist and violence glorifying representations because of the episode Tim in the Congo . The African natives are portrayed as very naive and childlike. The representations are a reflection of the prejudices prevailing at the time among Europeans towards Africans. Violence against animals has also been criticized, for example Tim kills an elephant in order to acquire its ivory and naturally takes part in the big game hunt that was popular among the colonial rulers .

Hergé later admitted that the album was created from a very naive view of Africa. In the later color version (1946), Hergé removed all references to Belgium as Tim's homeland and that the Congo was still a Belgian colony at the time the adventure was first published (1930). This simplified the story and also optimized it for international publication. With these changes, however, Hergé did very little to accommodate the critics, as, among other things, the racist representations were largely preserved. As a result, Tim's color edition in the Congo in the United States and Great Britain was first published by Egmont Verlag in 2005 , and there also a special foreword explaining the historical context of its creation.

In 2013, the publisher at Carlsen Verlag told the newspaper Neues Deutschland that the Belgian rights holders forbade Carlsen to include a foreword or any other explanation of the colonialist background of the comic in the booklet. In the UK, this was only possible because of significant public pressure.

In the German color edition, the magician Muganga ( Swahili for “the one who heals”, doctor) became Tse Tse Gabor , a corruption from Zsa Zsa Gabor . The references to Belgium have also been removed.

In Germany, the color edition did not appear until 1976. For the Scandinavian version, an episode in which Tim blows up a rhinoceros with dynamite was exchanged for a more harmless version, which was also used in the German version.

In 2007 the British Commission for Racial Equality found the album contained disgusting racial prejudice. The Africans depicted in it "look like monkeys and speak like the mentally handicapped " ( English look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles. ). She therefore recommended all British bookstores to stop selling the album.

Revised version

The characters Schulze and Schultze appear in Tim in the Congo in the first picture of the album, but did not make their first appearance in this story. The two were not shown in the first edition from 1930 and were only added in 1946. In the color version of Tim in the Congo , Hergé drew himself as one of the reporters saying goodbye to Tim at the train station. Right behind him is Edgar Pierre Jacobs , who helped colorize the first adventures. Also in this picture are Stups and Steppke , who received their own comic series parallel to Tim.

Literature and Sources

  • Michael Farr: In the footsteps of Tim & Struppi , Carlsen, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 978-3-551-77110-0
  • Hergé: Tim im Kongo , Carlsen, Hamburg, November 1997, ISBN 978-3-551-73221-7
  • Kurosch Sadjadi Nasab: Tintin in the Congo. Racist stereotypes in Hergés Africa , in: Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 43 (1998), Heft 1, pp. 94-103.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ralf Hutter: "We rely on the mature reader" (interview with Ralf Keizer) . In: New Germany . February 2, 2013. Retrieved February 20, 2018.
  2. ^ Racism in Children's Books: Tintin in the Congo . In: The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 56 (Summer 2007), p. 14.