Reading Between The Lines - Tintin: Comic book icon still kicking
Tracing back the early days of
comics is quite the adventure. Even
though they're old-fashioned and
somewhat out of date, the entertainment
value of Rube Goldberg's
elaborate and ridiculous contraptions
never get old, to the point of
his name entering our lexicon; Little
Nemo's Adventures in Slumberland
are still considered the pinnacle of
newspaper comic strip art. Some
pioneers are better remembered than
others, and thankfully, Herge's (real
name Georges Remi) Tintin is still
among those ranks. While this
comic staple is relatively niche in
North America, his popularity in
Europe and Asia can only be
described as explosive, enough, it
would seem, to warrant the big budget
2011 film that recouped a
tidy profit.
Spawning dozens of cinematic and animated adaptations, with a weekly magazine that ran for nearly 50 years, the original comics themselves are available individually in their original 11x17 format or a nice (but sadly shrunken down) hardback gift set in North America. Tintin, the adventures of the eponymous young journalist, his dog Snowy, and a cast of hilarious, misanthropic friends, is a highly influential cultural phenomenon, but starting from as early as the 1930s has resulted in some... growing pains, to put it lightly.
Tintin was a product of its time, and with that came some of the nastiness. Bluntly, a good deal of early Tintin is fairly racist. The portrayal of Chinese and most Asians as soulless buck-tooth torturers and Africans as big-lipped golliwog caricatures easily covers most of the troubling aspects of these classics. Some may tend to ignore and merely accept these slights as a case of popular views manifesting themselves into the comics, while others have called for revisionism as the only solution to offsetting the offensive nature of these early comics. Whatever the view you may accept, on whether tampering with a classic for the sake of correcting its troubling elements, you can still appreciate the fine linework of Tintin.
The comics truly set a standard with the artwork. Remi's style of meticulous detail ensures that every single frame is a hand-crafted work of art. Every stroke is apparent and deliberate, the colours rich and carefully chosen to balance the scene. Reading every panel of a Tintin page feels like glancing at an excerpt of Where's Waldo; detailed and busy, but by no means cluttered. It really is quite amazing, the amount of work each frame is given.
But enough of my fanboy gushing. You wanna get started with Tintin? Well, as a fan, the first thing I'm going to tell you is that you should probably avoid the very first comic, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Or maybe you shouldn't. It's a rather poor representation of what this series has to offer. Told at a breathless pace, it introduces Tintin and Snowy on an adventure in the newly formed Soviet Union. It is, by all means, crude. The plot is virtually Tintin stumbling from one Bolshevik plot to kill him to another, and those aforementioned racial stereotypes make their uncomfortable debut. It's better to start with virtually any other comic (owing to a general lack of continuity) and later view the monochrome-drawn Land of the Soviets as an amusingly poor beginning to an otherwise excellent franchise.
You can't go wrong with Tintin. Some may find the storylines a tad simplistic and linear, but therein lies its beauty. Tintin is meant to be an escape to a swashbuckling world, and it's finely crafted and lovingly made with a sense of boyhood adventure lingering on. There exists plenty of timely satire any reader with a soft spot for history to enjoy. The character of Tintin himself, the rather bland voice of reason, makes an easy self-insert for the reader to interact with the zany and mysterious characters every book has to offer.
Reading Between The Lines explores books that you may have missed out on that are worth your while. If you have a book to suggest, email Eshaan at e_gupta@fanshaweonline.ca.
Spawning dozens of cinematic and animated adaptations, with a weekly magazine that ran for nearly 50 years, the original comics themselves are available individually in their original 11x17 format or a nice (but sadly shrunken down) hardback gift set in North America. Tintin, the adventures of the eponymous young journalist, his dog Snowy, and a cast of hilarious, misanthropic friends, is a highly influential cultural phenomenon, but starting from as early as the 1930s has resulted in some... growing pains, to put it lightly.
Tintin was a product of its time, and with that came some of the nastiness. Bluntly, a good deal of early Tintin is fairly racist. The portrayal of Chinese and most Asians as soulless buck-tooth torturers and Africans as big-lipped golliwog caricatures easily covers most of the troubling aspects of these classics. Some may tend to ignore and merely accept these slights as a case of popular views manifesting themselves into the comics, while others have called for revisionism as the only solution to offsetting the offensive nature of these early comics. Whatever the view you may accept, on whether tampering with a classic for the sake of correcting its troubling elements, you can still appreciate the fine linework of Tintin.
The comics truly set a standard with the artwork. Remi's style of meticulous detail ensures that every single frame is a hand-crafted work of art. Every stroke is apparent and deliberate, the colours rich and carefully chosen to balance the scene. Reading every panel of a Tintin page feels like glancing at an excerpt of Where's Waldo; detailed and busy, but by no means cluttered. It really is quite amazing, the amount of work each frame is given.
But enough of my fanboy gushing. You wanna get started with Tintin? Well, as a fan, the first thing I'm going to tell you is that you should probably avoid the very first comic, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Or maybe you shouldn't. It's a rather poor representation of what this series has to offer. Told at a breathless pace, it introduces Tintin and Snowy on an adventure in the newly formed Soviet Union. It is, by all means, crude. The plot is virtually Tintin stumbling from one Bolshevik plot to kill him to another, and those aforementioned racial stereotypes make their uncomfortable debut. It's better to start with virtually any other comic (owing to a general lack of continuity) and later view the monochrome-drawn Land of the Soviets as an amusingly poor beginning to an otherwise excellent franchise.
You can't go wrong with Tintin. Some may find the storylines a tad simplistic and linear, but therein lies its beauty. Tintin is meant to be an escape to a swashbuckling world, and it's finely crafted and lovingly made with a sense of boyhood adventure lingering on. There exists plenty of timely satire any reader with a soft spot for history to enjoy. The character of Tintin himself, the rather bland voice of reason, makes an easy self-insert for the reader to interact with the zany and mysterious characters every book has to offer.
Reading Between The Lines explores books that you may have missed out on that are worth your while. If you have a book to suggest, email Eshaan at e_gupta@fanshaweonline.ca.
