Tintin turns 90 amid racial slurs

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

a work from 1930 that draws accusations of racism.

The boy reporter’s adventure 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 colour 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, decolonisation, is just as important,” Robert Vangeneberg said. |