Tintin, by Herge

I’m struggling a bit with prose for grown-ups, so over the last month worked my way through The Adventures of Tintin, an eight-volume box-set of the boy reporter’s collected scrapes, including the early, rough Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and the unfinished Tintin and the Alph-Art but not including the especially racist and colonialist Tintin in the Congo from which even Herge distanced himself. (The book is available to buy separately.)

My parents still have a bunch of Tintin books that I shared with my brothers. In my head they were always more my younger brother’s but I’m surprised now to discover how few of them I’d read. Running gags, such as the telephone being put through to the butcher, or insurance salesman Jolyon Wagg outstaying his welcome, seemed completely new.

I was also surprised by how funny so much of it is, having thought of Tintin as the po-faced cousin of Asterix, to whom I was devoted. But there’s loads of often very funny slapstick here, whole sequences of panels passing without a word. I wonder what it owes to the comedy of silent film.

The pace is also striking. Written as a newspaper strip but reformatted for book versions, each story licks along at great speed, full of incident and twists. There are plenty of cliffhangers - though, as with so many adventure serials, many of them are undone by outrageous good fortune or sleight of hand on the part of the author. Still, it’s exciting and fun.

And it looks beautiful. Herge's clean line style with no shading and flat colours means that strips that are nearly 100 years old reproduce nicely, and look fantastic on shiny, good quality paper. The style suggests cartoon-faced people in an otherwise convincingly realised world - it's both daft comic strip and gritty realism at the same time. 

But also striking is the racist stuff. Even without Tintin in the Congo, there are plenty of crude racial and cultural stereotypes, perhaps the most jaw-dropping in The Broken Ear when Tintin blacks up. 

Having nominally bought the collection for my nine year-old son, I started to have second thoughts - and  I’m not the only one. On 10 June, just as I was reading this, Amol Rajan was on BBC News to talk about Gone With the Wind being removed from Netflix - just a day after he’d been on to talk about the more recent comedy Little Britain coming down from iPlayer.

“That is fraught with difficulty. Where does it stop? I'm reading Tintin with my son at the moment and an exhibition of tolerance it certainly is not. It reads like one long parade of racial cliches.” (Tweet by Amol Rajan, 10 June 2020)

He’s right, and there’s plenty here that made me uncomfortable - not least in those books that I'd read before without noticing this aspect. How strange, too, for a series of adventures for children to feature opium dens, slavery, alcoholism, kidnap and murder. I think Herge’s clean lines and flat colours, plus the slapstick stuff, are deceptive: Tintin’s a noble character in a world that is corrupt and cruel and dangerous.

Without wishing to excuse or downplay the racist depictions here, there’s clearly also an attempt to offer more nuance and counterpoint, such as in this sequence from The Blue Lotus where Tintin and his friend Chang try to dispel a few cultural myths.

I wonder how much of this is later revisionism. There’s clearly some of that going on. The jump in style between Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and the next book, Tintin in America, is so marked because the latter was redrawn. There’s evidence, too, that the revised books weren’t published in their original order. In Cigars of the Pharaohs, in volume 2 of this collection, Tintin is recognised because someone has a copy of Destination Moon, which is in volume 6.

(This also suggests that Tintin is a celebrity because of his adventures, and the accounts of them exist in his own world as colourful comic books, too.)

My guess is that this moment in King Ottaker’s Sceptre is also a later edit, perhaps after someone wrote in:

Anyway. There’s a notable shift in gear with The Crab With the Golden Claws, which feels more mature and better plotted, and introduces us to the brilliant Captain Archibald Haddock, a drunk old sea-dog with a heart of gold. Part of what makes this story feel epic is where it breaks the newspaper-strip format, with full and half-page panels. When these happen out in the desert, the effect is like suddenly going widescreen, the adventures directed by David Lean. Again, it’s a story about drug-smuggling and there are racial caricatures, but Tintin solves the mystery using pluck and intelligence rather than good fortune.

After the disappointing The Shooting Star (an odd one about an alien island that produces huge mushrooms), we’re onto what’s surely the classic pairing - The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure. I knew this one well and it’s a really good mystery, greatly helped by the focus on Captain Haddock. In Secret, we’re told the year is 1958 which came as a bit of a shock reading the adventures in sequence. Some 30 years have passed since Land of the Soviets and Tintin and his dog have not aged a day. It turns out that the original version of the strip was published between June 1942 and January 1943, so this is again another revision for the collected version. More than that, the stories have existed in a kind of timeless state. While Tintin in America mentioned Al Capone by name, we’ve had little sense of the real world. There has been no mention of the Second World War, the occupation of Tintin's native Belgium or that anything might have changed. I’ve since looked this up and see that The Crab With the Golden Claws was the first that Herge wrote while under occupation, and it’s tempting to try and see the gear-shift in the storytelling as some kind of response to real-world events. I’m not sure, but would like to know more.

Secret ends with Tintin directly addressing the reader to say the story is continued. Red Rackham’s Treasure begins with various suitors claiming to be descendants of the notorious pirate to get in on the treasure hunt. One of these, apparently as a sight gag, is a black man with very dark skin and big lips - so this kind of racist caricature isn’t only part of the early days of the series. On page 186 of my edition, we’re given the date Wednesday 23 July, suggesting this is still 1958.

There’s more continuity cock-up in The Seven Crystal Balls where we’re told of Bianca Castafiore that,

“she turns up in the oddest places: Syldavia, Borduria, the Red Sea… She seems to follows us around!” (p. 13)

But this is only the second time we’ve met her, and The Red Sea Sharks is in six books’ time. On the next page, General Alcazar seems to have met Haddock before, but Haddock wasn’t in that previous adventure at all. Land of Black Gold then features two more characters returning from previous books, and depends on a lot of coincidence. The books keep finding dramatic new locations round the world, but feel increasingly repetitive.

Then there’s something very different with Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon. This strip originally began in 1950, well ahead of the Space Race, and it's fascinating that neither the US nor USSR are the first to get to the lunar surface. The rocket here is, apparently purposefully, reminiscent of the Nazi's V-2 rocket, even down to the distinctive red and white check. That surely makes Professor Calculus a comedy version of Von Braun. Again, there's no mention of Nazis, the shadow of occupation or the Cold War that followed - and was in the background as this story was written. Tintin is the first human to walk on the Moon but this extraordinary historic moment happens outside of time.

Herge took pains to get the details right, and it's fun to see a spacecraft built to accommodate the fact that its crew would all be knocked unconscious by G-force. The astronauts speculate about the formation of craters (we now know they're created by impacts), and land and drive huge, heavy vehicles on the lunar surface that would be far too massive and costly to get there. I was also taken by the science they actually conduct:

“EXTRACT FROM THE LOG BOOK BY PROFESSOR CALCULUS
4th June - 2150 hrs. (G.M.T.)
Wolff and I spent the day studying cosmic rays, and making astronomical observations. Our findings have been entered progressively in Special Record Books Nos. I and II. The Captain and Tintin have nearly finished assembling the [reconnaissance] tank.” (p. 98)

They set up an observatory and a theodolite, and drive round in an enormous tank. And then they discover a huge cave system. Surely, surely, the moment Tintin lets go his safety line and drops into the abyss to rescue Snowy is an influence on Doctor Who doing the same in the The Satan Pit (2006).

So much of this is jaw-dropping, remarkable and new. Really, my only problem with the Moon story is the villain, who returns from King Ottaker's Sceptre in a simple revenge plot, while a rival bunch of scientists eavesdrop on what Tintin is up to. It feels inconsequential.

Once they're back on Earth, Tintin is recognised as the first person to walk on the Moon in several of the books that follow. The Calculus Affair is set on Earth but feels no less huge given that Professor Calculus has - as well as all his technology for getting to the Moon - invented a super weapon. There's a chilling moment when we see a city destroyed, though it proves to be a model for demonstration purposes. Even so, this analogy for the Bomb is really effective. At one point, we also spot a book, "German Research in World War II", the first time the Tintin series references the conflict.

Tintin in Tibet (serialised 1958-59, book version 1960) seems quite similar to Nigel Kneale's Yeti stories - his TV play The Creature (1955) and the movie version The Abominable Snowman (1957) - and I wondered if Kneale had been an influence. Here, Tintin is on the trail of his friend Chang, last seen by us in The Blue Lotus - 15 books previously, and first published in the 1930s. Clearly, not so much time has passed for the two young friends. Tintin now seems to have a psychic ability, knowing innately that Chang is alive and in need of saving. Psychic powers seem permissible when he's among exotic natives.

The Castafiore Emerald is on a much smaller scale and set largely at Haddock's home, Marlinspike Hall. Haddock is not the most patient or progressive of people but is horrified by the treatment of a group of Travellers nearby and offers them land on which to camp. They are then suspected when Bianca Castafiore is robbed - playing into racial cliches. Yet Tintin maintains that the Travellers are innocent, even when evidence suggests otherwise. It's Herge trying to play against racist assumptions but there's no challenging of or comeuppance for the prejudiced authorities, and the Travellers leave without a word. The story's heart is in the right place but it's odd. The culprit turns out to be a bit of a joke, and there's little sense of the injustice done to the Travellers. In fact, a missing watch rather invites us to suspect them, too.

Flight 714 to Sydney involves the return of a whole load of friends and foes from previous books, and the plot reminded me a lot - and not in a good way - of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. There are more returning characters in Tintin and the Picaros, including characters not seen since all the way back in The Broken Ear. If that's not very original, the story is full of suspense - our heroes walking headlong into a gilded cage, and a great sequence at the end when they get caught up in a crowd as they race to save the Thompsons from execution.

Our last sight of Tintin is in a tiny panel at the top of the final page. We then hear him on the final row, a speech bubble snaking away to a departing aircraft. And that's it: a rather understated end to his adventures and a great shame. For all the repeated jokes and perils, and the myriad returning characters that are hard to keep track of, it's all still fun - and now and again really thrilling.

The collection ends with Herge's script and rough sketches for two-thirds of Tintin and Alph-Art. It's fascinating to see his process, and the difference between the roughest of rough sketches and the couple of examples or more carefully realised outlines. The story itself is quite different from what's gone before - involving a celebrity modern artist who makes sculptures based on the letters of the alphabet. But there's the usual runaround and chases, Tintin surviving various attempts to shoot him and blow him up. It's hard to judge without the last third. Would it have done something different?

I'm also amazed that it's not been completed officially, and that, like Asterix, there aren't new adventures of Tintin. For one thing, the movie suggested an openness to adaptation on the part of the licence-holders. There's surely a story in what Tintin did during the war years, or in what he's up to now.

But then I think part of Tintin's appeal, and the only possible response to the racism contained in the stories, is that he's a thing of the past.

Film Focus: Kidulthood

Another old Film Focus review. I worked with Noel Clarke just before Christmas, so it's probably just as well I said nice things.

Kidulthood
Reviewed 22 February 2006

[In brief]
Six messed up, West London teenagers, coping with the shitty hand life has dealt them. There’s vicious bullying at school, and little but petty crime, sex and drugs waiting outside. They’ll be lucky if they make it…

[In full]
A brilliantly played and bold film, mixing pace and sharp wit with horrific social commentary, Kidulthood will be a highlight of the year.

There’d been some worry in the press about a film claimed to celebrate happy-slapping. Nor did a ‘City of God set in Ladbroke Grove’ bode well. But this is not a hip movie about asbos. Oxford Street and the Victorian terraces of west London, so iconic and beloved in other British movies, seem soulless and oppressive here. It’s up-to-the-minute and streetwise without ever being glamorous.

If the story and events feel familiar, it’s because they’re taken from real incidents, all-too often to be read in the papers. Keeping it real, the film nicely avoids too much melodrama – even the final confrontation which the whole thing’s been leading to is wisely under-glamorised and played.

There’s plenty of sex, violence and swearing throughout, but it’s soiled and everyday. There’s something grubbily matter-of-fact about the sex in particular. Instead of special and liberating, it’s all a bit rubbish and messed up. Like the poor kids themselves.

The film offers little in the way of escape for them. A glimpse of Paul Putner’s put-upon schoolteacher says it all – there’s little he can hope to change. Especially when the parents can’t see what’s going on under their noses. Katie’s parents wilfully ignore her bruises, while when Claire’s in real danger from Sam, her mum thinks she’s being cool mentioning condoms and leaving them to it. It’s a scene that’s both funny and harrowing.

Other grown-ups are even worse role models. Becky and Alisa are sexually abused – as the law would see it – by three men who clearly know better. Trife gets caught shoplifting by men who’ve already decided he’s guilty. Then there’s his terrifying uncle…

There are only two examples of ‘positive’ adults – one shop assistant who stands up for Trife, and another who lets Alisa feel pretty. Otherwise, they have to sort it out for themselves.

Alisa and Trife give the film its heart, and it’s through them we begin to see a way out from this cycle of abuse.

Alisa’s pregnancy makes her rethink priorities, and shows up the selfishness of her peers. At one point she snaps at her best friend Becky, ‘Do you ever think of anything buy yourself?’ Becky’s response, meant in all seriousness, is telling: ‘Yes! Clothes, shoes, money, sex… Wait – sex involves me though, doesn’t it?’

This is about money, and class and status. We see inside the well-off homes as well as the council flats, and crime and prostitution is done on the promise of clothes and widescreen TVs.

But Alisa and Trife’s ultimate breakthrough is not caring what others think of them. Unlike anyone else, they forgo the respect of their peers, and don’t care what lies Sam might tell about them.

The newcomer cast are all excellent, keeping it sharp and surprising, and really making us feel for them. No one should live what these kids do. Expect to see everyone in this again, and soon.

As Sam, Noel Clarke delivers a stunning performance as a fairly mundane bully, who shows his ‘strength’ by punishing girls and boys younger than him. Clarke’s script, based on his own life and experience, really sparkles and surprises as it deftly explores the myriad power relationships.

The film compares well with City of God, and also Crash (though that makes much more of race). But don’t be fooled into thinking this is a new phenomenon – Kidulthood more readily echoes A Clockwork Orange in its violence and street slang and music.

It’s just not science fiction any more. It’s not even fiction.

Lost and found (alternative take)

To the NFT last night for the annual Missing Believed Wiped – an evening of odd bits of old telly that have found their way back to the archive. I missed the 2008 event due to commitments, but blogged the one before.

As I said then, it's always an odd collection – and the appeal lies in just than incongruity. Things you'd never see together, and things you'd never seek out, make for a tantalising window to the past.

First was a short film on the Bob Monkhouse Collection – as Jonny says, in large part it seemed a collection of Monkhouse's own appearances. The some 50,000 film cans and videos are of limited appeal to the NFT because much of the programmes already exist in some form. Kaleidoscope have stepped in to manage the collection, which is fascinating as an insight into Monkhouse himself. He used the tapes as research for jokes and people he might work with, but also the mentality behind the collection says a lot in itself. The history of the collection – Monkhouse was taken to court for giving a copy of Goldfinger to Terry Wogan – also reveals a lot about archives in themselves.

This was followed by a collection of comedic bits from the early days of satellite station BSB. As Ian Greaves explained, junking of archives was still going on as late as the 1990s. The material shown in itself wasn't particularly brilliant, but showed early material from Keith Allen and Armando Ianucci – the latter probably the best of the lot.

I thought a lot more of His Lordship Entertains than Jonny did – and more readily saw the debt owed it by Fawlty Towers. The jokes came thick and fast, and there were also all kinds of jokes: word-play, slapstick, farce and character stuff. I loved the two old ladies telling filthy stories (a vacuum cleaner stops us hearing the most saucy bits), and was impressed by how many aged actors were involved. I think it was pushing beyond Up Pompeii, but I'm not sure what it was pushing towards.

Till Death Do Us Part was pretty ropey, with – as Jonny says – the best bits all Dandy Nichols as Else, who tellingly took no part in the topical bits. It was a surprisingly cheap show – all set in Alf's living room but for two brief scenes in front of blown-up photos, and with lines only for the regular cast of four. It was an uncomfortable episode too, not because of the words “coon” and “wog” so much as how much of the programme was given over to Alf's ranting. The cool kids might roll their eyes at his prejudice, but there was little in the way of counter-argument, and the last joke depends on Alf being clumsy rather than being wrong. The viewing notes expressed surprise that “some viewers actually agreed with Alf”, but the episode is all about him having his say.

Both these episodes seemed to be about the loss of the old Empire – Ronnie Barker's Lord Rustless having to open up his stately home as a hotel rather than flog it to the National Trust, Alf horrified by Britain losing it's place as a first-rate nation. But there were also lots of odd little details I loved: Rita (Una Stubbs) laquering her handbag, or having to boil a kettle to do the washing up. And Else, who lives in Wapping, has apparently never before been to Downing Street or Buckingham Palace.

(The ever-wise T. also pointed out that Mr Quill himself, Bill Burridge, is one of the non-speaking crowd at Downing Street. Frank Gatliff – Badger, butler to Barker – was obviously Ortron in The Monster of Peladon.)

Jonny didn't sit through part two of the event, which was all music from the 60s and 70s. The only extant episode of Time for Blackburn from 1968 had a very quick-edited performance by The Who of “The Magic Bus”, that made the women sat next to me dizzy. There was an odd interview with Jonathan King at a record industry do, and a plug for a “psychedelic pantomime”. But mostly it seemed a sub-Top of the Pops, with Blackburn barely bumbling along through the links, at one point explaining that he was always up himself.

We next had a selection of clips from Look! Hear!, a regional youth programme from the 1970s. The Dr almost exploded when a young, jumper-wearing “Mike” Wood introduced Black Sabbath, years before he followed in the footsteps of Alexander (mostly with his top off). There was also a glorious live performance by The Selecter, when the kids in the audience took over the stage. Somehow, a camera was ready up in the lights to look down on the action.

There were then two episodes of Top of the Pops. The first, from 1976, reminded us how old the presenters used to be, and how hokey the sets. Pans People managed to be sexist and yet not quite sexy, and we cheered at a bit of E.L.O. But mostly the music was pretty execrable – as Dick Fiddy said in between episodes, that's why we needed punk. I thought the Dr might tear her ears off during a performance by R and J Stone of “We Do It”. But the episode also ended with the Bohemian Rhapsody video. How odd to see something so familiar in context, and see just why it blew all competition from the water.

I'd forgotten how awkward the audiences always were in these things, nervously watching the cameras for their cues. But it also surprised me how multi-racial the music programmes were compared to so much other telly of the time – something I've been researching recently for a work thing.

The second episode was from 1967, in ropey black-and-white that kept coming to pieces. Fluff Freeman introduced “See Emily Play”, Pink Floyd fronted by Syd Barrett (who I thought looked a lot like Benjamin Cook). The picture flickered and snowed, the sound dropping out and then dropping back in. I'd love to see a reconstructed version, but this warped and warping effort took me right back to all those nth generation videos of old Doctor Who that made up a lot of my teenage life.

There was then a bit more warped footage from later in the episode – Ray Davies (introduced as “Dave” by Fluff), and Procul Harem's “Whiter Shade of Pale” with a lead singer dressed for no reason at all as a stereotypical Chinaman. It was sometimes a job to tell what were original video effects and what was the tape going weird, and Fluff seemed to commentate from another glacial age. How strange for a programme – and a time – to be so cool and so square all at once.

After, there was just time for a beer and to say hello to the many, many like-minded chums, but we ducked out of festivities in favour of just getting home while there were still some trains.

Jamboree

"Jam", the film I saw at BAFTA a couple of weeks back, is now available on the internet for you to enjoy:



It's depressingly accomplished, with a stellar cast and high production values, plus a sparkling script by mate Lizzie Hopley. Support the team behind it by buying a credit on their full-length feature.

I've spent this morning reading other chums' short film scripts and making notes on my own. Now on to the Novel.

Spent the weekend scribbling. Braved the deluge to go see "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg" performed at the Brockley Jack. It's a funny, smart but my-god-depressing tale of a young couple in the Sixties struggling to stay cheery with a severely disabled child.

The Issues and achingly self-aware cleverness is very much of its time, and I've found other plays by Peter Nichols to be crushingly worthy. But the intimate theatre and some nimble direction kept this one zipping along. The play depends on small cast really showing off their Acting, and they pulled off that tricky feat of being heart-rendering and getting big laughs.

Last time I saw it, the ending was different, so this time it wasn't quite the tough-but-uplifting tale I thought the Dr might appreciate. In fact, it ended up pressing some emotional buttons to do with stuff we've been struggling through ourselves this year. Whoops. Had to buy her cider after, during which she our pals M. and K. laughed and called me a twat.

Lunched with the stunt-wife yesterday to celebrate his birthday, thence to R's housewarming, which included a tour of vacated offices and the promise of ghosts. Fun chat with chums - and sober, as I'm on antibiotics all this week. Then home to catch up on season one of "True Blood", which I'll blog about more when I get to the end of the first series.

But just when I think I've seen all the regular cast's bosoms, they introduce a new pretty girl and swiftly take her top off. Quality drama.

Scenes from south London

To no less august a place than Kennington yesterday for a reading of “The Ride”, a fun new play by Andrew Cartmel. Blogging now and hoovering later while thinking of notes to give him.

A bunch of other chums were in attendance. Admired Ben Aaronovitch's rewrite beard and got to meet the writer Piers Beckley who bought me a pint of Spitfire. Lively chat on all things Grub Street, and thence out into the storm.

Bus home took an hour to get down the Walworth Road due to some kind of works. I read quite a lot of The Big Sleep. Three youths tore up a newspaper and threw it at people, scoring points on direct hits. A mother and her teenage daughter had an argument in the seat behind me, their voices and heavy sighs identical which made it hard to follow.

Home to chops with the Dr, then out again to see the gestalt that is Cavan Scott and Mark Wright, who had spent all day writing and so were collapsed of brain. Even more than usual. Dozy and comfy in seats by the fire, and last ones to leave.

Chores and pitches and begs-for-work today, all as a distraction from the Great Excitement of the Evening.

Then welcome

To a star-studded showing of the star-studded "Jam" last night, the short film written by my pal Lizzie Hopley and directo-produced by the clever teens behind www.buyacredit.com.



It's a fun film, in which Annette Badland and Patricia Hodge are competing to make the best jam, as judged by Frank Skinner. The cast includes Linda Bellingham, Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee, Stephen Fry, Gary Rhodes and Philip Schofield. And also, on the left-hand back row, two other chums of mine.

Having dabbled a bit in short films myself this year (I was a runner on "Origin", a crucial-to-the-plot copper in "Girl Number 9" and am trying to set up my own effort at the moment), was really impressed by the look of the thing, the money on screen, the comic timing and just what can be achieved for next-to no money. Damn them.

On the strength of this short, I'm keen to see what they can do with Clovis Dardentor, the feature film they're trying to set up, based on a little-known Jules Verne novel from 1896 and also adapted by Lizzie. You can help by buying a credit.

The event at BAFTA was packed with frighteningly young and pretty people. I hunched in a corner with a couple of folk I already knew, feeling old and ugly. But there was a free beer, and mostly I was just consumed with envy.