Tintin Forums

jock123
Prohibition will only lead to a market in the book - the Tintin Shop in Covent Garden were out of copies this afternoon...

It's also the ninth best-selling book on Amazon UK at the time of writing, up a phenomenal 11,700%. They're also giving a 6-10 day dispatch window, suggesting they've run out of stock too.

I believe the CRE are underestimating readers - when I began reading Tintin (about the age of seven or eight) I knew they were written a long time ago. The frankly ridiculous depictions of Africans are so far removed from reality that it could only serve to show up the prejudices from the time it was written.

I do agree that a more substantial introduction ought to be included to put the album in its historical context, as the current one is little more than a publication history. Banning the book is not the way to solve the problem.

It's also the ninth best-selling book on Amazon UK at the time of writing, up a phenomenal 11,700%.

I think this issue is blown out of proportion. The more practical reason being the quest of CRE to attract media attention after being dormant for long time. I have a gut feeling that these guys go on a hunt and their latest victim is 'Tintin in Congo'.

Don't you feel that people at CRE are also aware that this book is from an antiquarian era, and the red band suggests that its a collectors edition, and its a personal choice whether to read or not? Of course, they know, but they mean business!

SmartTintin
Don't you feel that people at CRE are also aware that this book is from an antiquarian era, and the red band suggests that its a collectors edition, and its a personal choice whether to read or not? Of course, they know, but they mean business!
I wouldn't underestimate or denigrate the position that the book will be offensive to a section of society, and I think that the CRE must be given credit for their knowledge of the kind of material which is acceptable, and their need to act when it is brought to their attention. Just because something is an antique does not mean that it deserves to be exempt from censure.
However, as stated above, I think the CRE have gone about this in completely the wrong way, and they could have both garnered the publicity and done everybody a lot more good if they had made this a call for education and information, rather than prohibition.

I just hope this book row doesn't generalise Hergé's character as a racist. This would eventually infest doubts in minds of people when buying Tintin books for their children. And, obviously I am not talking about Tintin fans.

Also, I fear that in the near future anti smoking lobby and anti alcoholics would protest against captain Haddocks affection to tobacco and alcohol in the other books. In this way we will have each book going off shelf one after other.

I know I worry about that too.

There's far more real racism issues in the world out there. let them first clean that and then bother about some harmless comic written decades ago in an era which was so different from today that we can probably never really understand it.

If we had to censorship of this nature, pretty soon we'll have to ban newspapers, magazines, in fact everything. Racism is a fact of life - we have to deal with it rather than protect children from it. Kids of this day and age are going to be far more affected by television, the news media, movies, music and video games than an antiquated graphic novel.

I would really like to see that interview with Michael Farr. Did anyone record it? Would it be allowable to post it here? Mods?

Failing that, could someone fill, those of us that didn't see it, in on what was said in the interview?

That would be greatly appreciated.

You can't just blot out history. It's a great adventure story, sure it's a bit racist but it's expected of the time

would really like to see that interview with Michael Farr. Did anyone record it? Would it be allowable to post it here? Mods


Actually on the link I posted above there is a newsclip link on the Yahoo page.