Tintin marks 90th birth anniversary
BRUSSELS: Tintin will mark his 90th birthday this year with a return to controversy as his Belgian creator’s heirs release a new edition of Tintin in the Congo”, a work from 1930 that draws accusations of racism.
The boy reporter’s adven- ture in the then Belgian colony was among the first Tintin stories to be serialised by the artist Herge, and his widow’s firm is launching a remastered digital version in color to celebrate 90 years since the strip cartoon character first appeared in a Brussels newspaper in 1929. The publishers dismissed suggestions that the story, which features charicatural black Africans with fat, red lips and wearing loincloths, was problematic: “Dialogue is most important and the work of deconstruction, decolonization, is just as important,” Robert Vangeneberg told reporters on Thursday.
However, one Congolese, noted Brussels-based comic book artist Barly Baruti, told Reuters that he felt that bringing out a new edition of the work at a time when nationalist and racist groups appear to be on the rise in Europe was questionable: “We really ask ourselves if it is the right moment,” he said.