racist Tintin

[geni]

The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) is calling on high street books to pull a Tintin adventure from its shelves over claims it is racist.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6294670.stm

Um yes this is Tintin in the Congo. It is racist. It's a bit like complaining that Kolberg is pro nazi.

[headscratcher4]

Besides...it so obviously pro-Man/boy love. What's the whole living relationship between the boy detective and the old Sea Captain? Tintin and Haddock sure seem like a couple to me. So, while it may be racist, it is very liberated in other ways. ;)

[korenyx]

If you pull Tintin for being racist you have to pull Babar for being a colonialist!

Kore

[Piscivore]

Um yes this is Tintin in the Congo. It is racist. It's a bit like complaining that Kolberg is pro nazi.

I'd be more inclined to say "Tintin in the Congo" is racist like "Huckleberry Finn" is racist. Perhaps even less so since Twain was repeating attitudes he grew up with first hand and Herge relied on second and third hand information, IIRC. Kolberg was made with deliberate pro-Nazi intent. I didn't get a deliberate intent to push a racist agenda in "Congo" when I read it. Maybe a nationalistic agenda of justifying Belgium's "colonisation" activites, but no more racist than any other contemporary Western source.

[Pardalis]

Hergé is the product of his time, and so is the Tintin in the Congo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Congo#Colonialism_and_racism) album. Not that I condone what's being portrayed in the comics, but it helps knowing the context in which it was produced (here it is the unfortunate colonialistic Belgium mentality).

In Red Sea Sharks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Sea_Sharks) (Coke en Stock), written almost 30 years later, Hergé seems to have watered down his prejudice and even openly criticizes slavery, but like any old bad habit, he still portrays black people in rather simplistic racial stereotypes.

[Childlike Empress]

Poor Belgium. It's obvious that these PC fanatics are used in an anglosaxon conspiracy against central europe and the country harbouring its main institutions. Cretins in Florida already went (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manneken_Pis) after the Manneken Pis. ;)

[fuelair]

On the brighter side, long ago in the 70's a cartoon parody (R rated in US - actually French though) of Tarzan (Tarzoom) was done with some SNL vets as voices. (Stay with me - this goes somewhere OP) and it involved Nazis created from penises. (Still going to the point) While Tarzan/zoom was going after the kidnapped (by penisNazis after having one off with Cheetah or some other chimp) June/Jane, at one point (the main one here) he swung over a jungle clearing where Tintin was beating natives with a cross!!

[Morrigan]

Lovecraft was racist and xenophobic, too. So what. :rolleyes:

[quixotecoyote]

On the brighter side, long ago in the 70's a cartoon parody (R rated in US - actually French though) of Tarzan (Tarzoom) was done with some SNL vets as voices. (Stay with me - this goes somewhere OP) and it involved Nazis created from penises. (Still going to the point) While Tarzan/zoom was going after the kidnapped (by penisNazis after having one off with Cheetah or some other chimp) June/Jane, at one point (the main one here) he swung over a jungle clearing where Tintin was beating natives with a cross!!

Weren't all Nazi's created from penises? All people I know have been.

[fuelair]

Weren't all Nazi's created from penises? All people I know have been.
This was more a cloning process - and they looked :D the part!

[shecky]

Somewhat related: interesting collection (http://www.metafilter.com/62795/The-Censored-Eleven) of Warner Bros cartoons rarely seen anymore.

[Redtail]

Isn't tintin (IIRC) something like 70+ years old?

[Luciana]

Yes, Tintin is racist, at least to our current standards.

My favorite piece of literature, that I read frequently from 6- 10, would certainly be considered racist nowadays. Did that make me a racist? NOOOOO. I was too young to get the message. Did that instill in me the idea that blacks are inferiors? No, because I was not raised to believe that. Actually, it was never a issue in my home. So the racist overtones never really sunk in. Were my parents irresponsible to allow me to read it? NO, it was great piece of literature that I love to this day. Yeah, now I realize it's racist. But I'd allow my children to read it, for sure. Racism is a disgrace, but those authors were victims of the mentality of their ages, probably they did not know better, and, anyway, I don't expect perfection from any writer.

I love TinTin, btw.

[Father Dagon]

"Tintin in the Congo" is actually appreciated by africans. They think that it perfectly sums up colonialism. Tintin arrives by boat. Points with his whole hand but is not really getting anything. Then leaves by boat.

Banning TitC is whitewashing our history. But adding a preface that explains the historical context is pefectly fine.

Anyway, it's interesting with the discrepancy between what people want something to be and what it really is. Better to hate something for what it is, than love it for what it's not.

[-Fran-]

Besides...it so obviously pro-Man/boy love. What's the whole living relationship between the boy detective and the old Sea Captain? Tintin and Haddock sure seem like a couple to me. So, while it may be racist, it is very liberated in other ways. ;)

This has never occurred to me, obvious as it is! Now I'll have to go and read all my Tin Tin books again with this in mind ;)

[ThatSoundAgain]

headscratcher4, the captain wasn't in the comic by the time he went to Congo, but even then it's curious that in all the albums, only one woman plays a major part (two, if you count her handmaiden).

Both Congo and Red Sea Sharks have been cleaned up in newer Danish editions, and I read that that's the case with the originals in French, as well. Mainly, the black people's grammar is not as broken anymore. In Congo, when Tintin is substituting teacher in the missionary classroom, he went from saying "This is a class about your homeland Belgium" to teaching simple sums. To make that change, they even had to edit the panel so the blackboard reflects this. The nerve!

Fran, is it true that in Sweden, Haddock isn't drinking whiskey but apple juice or some such? That would be pretty weird. In Denmark there's been talk about editing out the captains pipe, but thankfully nothing's come of it. No such luck with Lucky Luke, who's already chewing straws in new editions.

[aries]

Ok, the story about this is realy that Hergé did have to complay with the Editor of Le Petit Ving-Tieme, a vary staunch conservative and nationalistic newspaper. It was the Editor, a Catholic Priest, btw, who convinced Hergé to make Congo they way he did. Many years later Hergé redrafted Congo himself, cleaned up the Africans' (congolesian's?) speek about and substituted the national geography lesson for a math lesson. (tintin also went to soviet, and this album was also used in the Le Petit Viengtieme's propaganda against communism; later Hergé redrew (some of) this album, too.

There's another album Hergé revised. It is the one with the firestation, where the fireman have forgotten his key to the station, but I can't remember the name of the album? Sorry about that.

However, if you look at others of Hergé's works, you will see that they are very political indeed. In the Blue Lotus, Hergé speaks up for the Chinese, while the rest of the world at that time (1934 or so?) did root for the Japanese. (of course, the japanese are drawn as charicatures). In the Crab with Golden Claws, Hergé explores the smuggling of Cocaine, this related to the dangers of opium in the Blue Lotus and in Pharoh's Cigars. In the Land of Black Gold, he actually has a very interesting scene (politically speaking) in which an arm's dealer sells arms (weapons) to both parties in the war for oil. (very educational, I might add). He also has scene in which the big Oil Companies agree on dividing the oil concessions between them. Again, very educational. And in the Red Sea Sharks, he openly attacks (modern) slavery.

In Flight 714, the businessman, Rastapopolous, admits to being a scoundrel and a thief, from very early in his live. And Tintin actually supports a revolution in small Latin American Country - in Tintin and the Picaros.

And in King's Ottokar's Sceptre, Titin prevents a coup d'etat as does he in
The Calculus Affair. (and prevents the invention of a weapon that will lay wastes to building using sonic? radar? waves?).

As a more general comment, art can never be complety ripped out from or out of the (societal) context in which it was (and is) made, not now, not 80 years ago. And people critisizing Tintin might as wll be critisizing The Phantom (mort walker) or Tarzan (Edgar R. Burrows) for being colonial in their attitude towards the native's of Bengali or Africa, since it takes a white man to solve their problems. And Tintin in Congo is a sort of testament over the colonial period in Africa. And it is important to recognize this.

[scratchy]

Fran, is it true that in Sweden, Haddock isn't drinking whiskey but apple juice or some such? That would be pretty weird. In Denmark there's been talk about editing out the captains pipe, but thankfully nothing's come of it. No such luck with Lucky Luke, who's already chewing straws in new editions.
Ill jump in on that, being from Sweden. If theyve edited whisky to applejuice it must have happened in recent years. In all my albums from 70s and 80s its whisky, Loch Lomond Scotch actually. I wonder how any editing would deal with the captain when he is piss drunk - on applejuice?

[ThatSoundAgain]

Thanks, scratchy, I was hoping that it'd turn out to be an urban legend, probably stemming from some less informed Danes' view of Sweden.

And it would be quite weird - Haddock's fondness of liqueor isn't only a source of gags, but also some key plot points.

[ImaginalDisc]

I'd be more inclined to say "Tintin in the Congo" is racist like "Huckleberry Finn" is racist. Perhaps even less so since Twain was repeating attitudes he grew up with first hand and Herge relied on second and third hand information, IIRC. Kolberg was made with deliberate pro-Nazi intent. I didn't get a deliberate intent to push a racist agenda in "Congo" when I read it. Maybe a nationalistic agenda of justifying Belgium's "colonisation" activites, but no more racist than any other contemporary Western source.

Ok, maybe it's going off a tangent here, but "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is a condemnation of racism and slavery, not merely a depiction of them.

[CplFerro]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6294670.stm

Um yes this is Tintin in the Congo. It is racist. It's a bit like complaining that Kolberg is pro nazi.

Dear geni,

I've seen a few pages of this book online. Aside from whatever the politically correct witches are screaming about, what, exactly, seems to be the problem? Is it to be illegal now to draw blacks in cartoons? Will I have to acquire a license to do so?

Cpl Ferro

[geni]

Dear geni,

I've seen a few pages of this book online. Aside from whatever the politically correct witches are screaming about, what, exactly, seems to be the problem? Is it to be illegal now to draw blacks in cartoons? Will I have to acquire a license to do so?

Cpl Ferro

Current DC Mister Terrific is black so no.

The problem is with the atitudes displayed and the portrail of the congolese.

[Piscivore]

Ok, maybe it's going off a tangent here, but "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is a condemnation of racism and slavery, not merely a depiction of them.

True. I should have better said "Tom Sawyer".

[CplFerro]

Current DC Mister Terrific is black so no.

The problem is with the atitudes displayed and the portrail of the congolese.

Dear geni,

Ah, and how might they have been portrayed?

Cpl Ferro

[ThatSoundAgain]

Dear geni,

I've seen a few pages of this book online. Aside from whatever the politically correct witches are screaming about, what, exactly, seems to be the problem? Is it to be illegal now to draw blacks in cartoons? Will I have to acquire a license to do so?

Cpl Ferro

Here's an idea: Why don't you read the book in question before you conclude that it is merely the depiction of black people that's the problem?

[Pardalis]

CplFerro will probalby see nothing wrong with it, since he seems to be living in the late 19th century.

[CplFerro]

Here's an idea: Why don't you read the book in question before you conclude that it is merely the depiction of black people that's the problem?

You buying?

[Pardalis]

You buying?

That's because you're cheap.

[Ryokan]

You buying?

There's no library where you live?

[ThatSoundAgain]

You buying?

Nope. I do have an edition I'd lend you, but I expect you don't read Danish? Otherwise, the library is a good suggestion.

The thing is, this album will seem really out of character for Hergé, if you read it after the later ones. It was made more in the style of one-gag-per-page than as a complete story from start to finish.

These gags most often hinge on Tintin, the Belgian reporter, saving the day when the natives are too stupid, petty and incompetent to help themselves. He heals the sick, makes Salomonian judgements (cutting a disputed straw hat in two) and defeats the "Babanese" makeshift army (whose artillery consists of an eighteenth-centure musket mounted on a cart) single-handedly - with an electro-magnet. He even by accident tips over the local train, which is so small and weak that it can't withstand a collision with Tintin's car. Thankfully, he directs the passengers in getting their "choo-choo" upright again, and pulls it the rest of the way to the station with his car.

All these feats invariably gets the Congolese on their hands and knees, bowing to the "great wizard" and / or promising to be his servant for life. Hell, at one point, a tribe of pygmyes deifies his dog, complete with paper crown(?) and makeshift throne. To distinguish between the Congolese, since they're all drawn alike, Hergé had to use other attributes like beards, but mostly silly hats. Cooking pot with a doctor's reflector mounted, Prussian army helmet, an old top hat someone sat on, and so on.

A fun exercise is to read Tintin in America as well. This was arguably the last album Hergé made in this fashion, on hearsay alone and without any real research or serious attempt at an album-wide story-arc. If you're an American, you can see for yourself how accurate it is. It involves, among other things, Tintin having to dress like a cowboy to blend in, a gangster / evil industrialist villain, "noble savage" - style Native Americans, finding oil by accident, and a ticker-tape parade.

Oh, and I completely understand your waryness about jumping on some PC bandwagon. Sometimes you see cases that seem completely overblown. But in this case, IMO the album is a perfect example of 30's European colonial attitude (and valuable as an example of that). I don't think this album will harm any kids, but I'd personally wait with giving it to a child until they're mature enough to have a discussion about the historical context. Plus, it's really not up to par with the rest of them, in quality.

To clarify my position, I'm against almost any ban of literature, but I'm for proper perspective - putting a foreword in there or even moving some things to the adult graphic novel section, as has been done.

[CplFerro]

Dear TSA,

Thank you for the enlightenment. Amazing how hard it is to get past the games playing on a forum. It does sound like the book is a product of its time, but to advocate censorship of it is just evil. The type of people advocating censorship are not competent enough in classical humanist philosophy to judge or administer a program of government regulation of socially dangerous materials, they are just antiracist fanatics. Until their betters arrive, may Tintin continue to be available for sale.

Cpl Ferro

[Ove]

If TinTin, or Tom Sawyer, or Lucy Luke (indian portraits) was made today they would surely be racist but they are not. Any thought of censuring them is idiotic but it will come, mark my word. Those PC types have allready succeded in censuring old WB cartoons, all smoking scenes cut and all scenes where Tom gets blown up and ends up with a "negro face" is carefully removed......

I HATE THAT !!! :mad:
Leave the old movies alone IF you mind, i'm pretty sure that my son will not become a racist because his father let him watch old WB cartoons when he was younger.

[-Fran-]

If TinTin, or Tom Sawyer, or Lucy Luke (indian portraits) was made today they would surely be racist but they are not. Any thought of censuring them is idiotic but it will come, mark my word. Those PC types have allready succeded in censuring old WB cartoons, all smoking scenes cut and all scenes where Tom gets blown up and ends up with a "negro face" is carefully removed......

I HATE THAT !!! :mad:
Leave the old movies alone IF you mind, i'm pretty sure that my son will not become a racist because his father let him watch old WB cartoons when he was younger.

I agree. Even though I think that there are sure cases where it doesn't hurt to change certain things, in general I do think that works of literature, art, film and so on should not be changed. Even if they contain racist themes, or other things we find offensive today, they are valuable sources that shows how things used to be. I think that in most cases it is better then to explain the context than to pretend it never contained any questionable things.

[H3LL]

When I read about these stories one type of question always pops into my head. For this one it would be:

Why does The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) consider Tintin a suitable target for their ire but scripture, a much more powerful influence, is not?

.

[baron]

I don't understand this. People are OK with the government censorship of literature? How very, very sad.

[zombiebex]

There's no library where you live?

Due to not being terribly popular stateside, it can be difficult to find TinTin in the libraries and bookstores here. Which is a shame, because I'm a huge fan of Carl Barks and would love to read more Herge.

I also would love to stop spending all my money at Amazon and make use of my local library. ;) Which TinTin books would you reccommend I start with before they're all censored?

[dudalb]

Lovecraft was racist and xenophobic, too. So what. :rolleyes:


I strongly agree. Yeah,Lovecraft had some ideas that 95% of us would disagree with,but that does not change the fact he is a hell of a good writer.

[dudalb]

I don't understand this. People are OK with the government censorship of literature? How very, very sad.


I agree.
If there is one area in which both the Left and the Right are equally guilty, it's the urge to use the Power of the State to censor material.
In the US,one of the most "Liberal" Democrats in the House of Representatives has proposed a bill to ,basically,let the Government start censoring Cable and Satellite TV for "excessive Violence".
And a number of Conservative GOPers continue their efforts to bring back Victorian standards where anything sexual is concerned.
And both sides accuse each other of attacking freedom of expression.
Mr Pot,meet Miss Kettle.

[Pardalis]

Dear TSA,

Thank you for the enlightenment. Amazing how hard it is to get past the games playing on a forum. It does sound like the book is a product of its time, but to advocate censorship of it is just evil. The type of people advocating censorship are not competent enough in classical humanist philosophy to judge or administer a program of government regulation of socially dangerous materials, they are just antiracist fanatics. Until their betters arrive, may Tintin continue to be available for sale.

Cpl Ferro

You're making the mistake to think that anyone in this thread who agreed that Tintin in the Congo is racist supports its censoring, which is not true.

But of course I wouldn't expect an extremist like you to make the distinction.

[Ove]

I don't understand this. People are OK with the government censorship of literature? How very, very sad.

Definitely not, i hope i didn't give that impression. NOBODY is going to tell me what i read or write or watch... EOS

And tampering with old films/books/cartoons is interfering with the original and should be punished by being forced to watch old re-coloured silent-movies with added German speak (they DO that you know). :mad:

[CplFerro]

I strongly agree. Yeah,Lovecraft had some ideas that 95% of us would disagree with,but that does not change the fact he is a hell of a good writer.

Dear dud,

I think Lovecraft's racism made him a stronger writer. It not only puts the modern reader in unfamiliar territory, it enriches the milieux with notions of racial disintegration and creeping urban degeneracy, going all the way back in the Mythos to the Robert E. Howard tales of the various races of men perpetually at war with one another. A sanitised, abridged Lovecraft will no doubt be composed by some tool or other, but it will lack the Darwinian bite and won't be as atmospheric.

Cpl Ferro

[Morrigan]

Yeah, it's just not true Lovecraft without those "degenerate Eskimos". :)

[aries]

On Swedish Tv4, they had a segment in the news about a young Congolese? student who apparently claimed that Tintin in Congo were racist, and as such should be banned from the bookstores and libraries etc. Not one from Swedish TV4 challenged his views about that the book should be banned. Not one confronted him on what he would say when books he liked were to be banned. Not one asked him to answer what authorities were to oversee books etc. in order to have them comply with his guidelines for content.

The thing is that free speech etc. is very much under pressure - both from the right wing and from the left wing. And also, from people who have been brought up in dictatorships, therefore thinking they can decide what people should read, see or listen, too. The West (if that's a concept at all?) must defend the freedom of speech, regardless of whom that attacks it.

Free speech is the cornerstore for a democracy and should be defended at (nearly) all costs.

To get back to Tintin in Congo, Hergé were commisioned to make this album, and probably wouldn't have portrayed the africans in the same manner today.
As I've said in my first post, art etc. can't be completely taken out of context for its time. I, therefore, too, think it is wacko and nuts to censor the old Tom & Jerry cartoons, cutting smokes and cigars from them. Many of the plots in these cartoons involved a cigar (or a cigarette), and yes, both people and cats alike do get smudged around the face when fake cigars blow up in their faces.

Lucky Luke's portrayal of Indians are actually a bit more diversified that you might think. There clearly both good indians and bad indians. And the bad indians behaviour is always explained by white people taking advantage of them e.g. given them rifles or whiskey, or promising them great things to come.

Oh, another note on Tintin, he also went to America in the album aptly named 'Tintin in America'. Maybe you Americans should read it. It portrays (nearly) all Americans as stupid, hillbillies with no culture at all or as criminals. Even the police is eating off the hand of criminals, like the mafia in Chicago.
Very very racist ;) - one could argue against americans...

Just a thought, though....

[aries]

To contune a little down this road:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070822/ap_on_re_us/brf_gun_sketch_suspension_1

It is clear to me Lucky Luke should get banned, too. It involves guns and mr. Luke seems to be to be a violent time that easily could inspire someone young and impressionable to think that violence is the answer to every conflict in the world.

Irony may have been used in this post :)

[chran]

Back on July 12th when I read this story, I sent off an e-mail to that commision thinga-majig.

Naturally, I received no reply.

Hello,

So, I'm reading a story on the BBC Website about you wanting to ban "Tintin in the Congo".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6294670.stm

Would you like to burn some other books as well, while you're at it? Please, show me a list, I'd LOVE to see it!

Seriously now, political correctness has gone too far. Sure, the Tintin-book is very racist, I even thought so when I read it at 10 or 11, but why ban it? Freedom of speech and all that! Right?

Speak against racism, please! It is needed, but don't BAN books just because you don't agree with them. Argue against them instead, show us WHY they're wrong!

Otherwise you're just coming off as another fascist.

Regards,

Christian Andersen, Denmark

[simonmaal]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6294670.stm

Um yes this is Tintin in the Congo. It is racist. It's a bit like complaining that Kolberg is pro nazi.

A spokeswoman said the book contained "words of hideous racial prejudice, where the 'savage natives' look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles".
Borders said they are committed to let their "customers make the choice".So it's a choice between thought control by the left (who need to galvanise their position by constantly discovering racism in everything) and freedom of choice. I would always choose the second one. Whether or not the book is racist is a moot point; what we are here seeing are members of an unelected body deciding to tell us what we can and can't read.

And, for goodness sakes, if this book is all they have to worry about then they must have far too much time on their hands :jaw-dropp

ETA: Maybe we should ban these books as well, pandering to racial/national stereotypes as they do:

http://bp3.blogger.com/_68LSd2Rdq0A/Rex2VOKtggI/AAAAAAAAApM/ORJLdOIdRUA/s1600-h/ladybird11c.JPG

http://bp2.blogger.com/_68LSd2Rdq0A/Rp5xLR9VnNI/AAAAAAAABj8/OaPgnyCYlfU/s1600-h/startersplaces.JPG

http://bp0.blogger.com/_68LSd2Rdq0A/Rc9puIEzAhI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/T-dWaPqr9VQ/s1600-h/widerangeblur.JPG

[-Fran-]

This whole thread reminds me of the whole Epix debacle in Sweden in the mid- to late 80s.

Comic strips has been published in Sweden at least since the end of the 19th century (it depends a bit on how strictly you define ‘comic’) but through all its Swedish history it has been quite non-controversial.

In many European countries the art of drawn comics was later (in the 60s and the 70s mostly I would think) used to express many views and topics, while in Sweden it was still something funny you read in the newspaper and something you bought for your kids. Many Swedish kids growing up in the 60s and the 70s will remember their Donald Duck or The Phantom magazine, the bar of Marabou chocolate and the ‘Sockerdricka’ soda they got on Saturdays. Sure, grown ups read comics too and there were comics more directed to adults than to kids, such as Spy-, and criminal comics, Westerns and the like, but they were never more controversial than that a 40 year old dad couldn’t share his Agent X9 and Western collection with his 13 year old kid. Reading comics as an adult was considered a bit of a guilty pleasure anyway, the consensus being that all in all, comics are mostly for kids.

I am sure there was an underground comic movement in Sweden as well, and I saw some erotic comics in men’s magazines, but I know very little, or nothing at all, of it really. It never reached into the mainstream in any case.

But then a German immigrant by the name of Horst Schröder decided to stir up the Swedish comic market a little. In 1984 he started two comic magazines called Epix and Pox. They contained mainly European comics of all genres imaginable, and the variation and mix of genres in the same magazine was in itself a new thing. Epix though tried to be a bit more mainstream, while Pox went the whole way and contained comics that were very controversial, extreme and offensive (according to many). Epix still had the rather absurd and extremely graphic Spanish comic Anarcoma which had an openly gay and transsexual theme. Something virtually unheard of before in Sweden. Here was now a whole new world of comics for my country. New genres, new artists, new topics, never before published here in the Swedish language.

For me personally it was a virtual goldmine. I am forever grateful to Herr Schröder for showing me in such young years that all this existed. Epix and Pox was not only interesting to read for the broad variety of genres, artists and topics, but also because Schröder himself wrote long articles in the magazines. Articles about politic, culture and censorship. I haven’t re-read his articles now in many years, and maybe I would disagree on many things now if I did. But my point is that those articles taught a 15, 16 year old girl a lot of things, not least to think for herself, form her own opinions, research them as best she could and try to argue for them. Yes, comic magazines actually were a big part of what formed me into a skeptic.

Not everyone thought the same thing about them as I did though. As I said, Epix and Pox contained many genres. Humor – often sinister or crude, politics, erotica, horror, underground, absurdity and surreal, realism, SF and Fantasy, adventure and so on. Soon some of these genres got their own magazines, such as the Swedish version of Metal Hurlant. But what all of these genres had in common were that they were distinctly aimed at an adult audience. They could not be shared with your kids! The Swedish market never quite got this. In the grocery stores, the drugstores and the supermarkets they kept putting Epix where they thought comics books should be, among the kid's stuff, and there was outcry after outcry, angry newspaper articles and demands for complete removal of this abomination, from upset parents and the like. Even when the stores learnt where the magazines belonged they never quite reached the adult buyers who didn’t really got the concept. I suspect that Epix and Pox was mostly bought by rebellious teenagers who thought it was cool to buy a magazine that shocked the adult world. (I was one of them I guess :o)

Schröder fought to keep his publishing company alive, lamenting the disinterest of the Swedes, and warned against the censorship that some groups demanded. Today Epix, tomorrow… who knows what? He warned. In 1989, Bo Bertilsson of Folkaktionen mot pornografi, Malmöavdelningen (Roughly: The People’s Action Group Against Pornography, The Malmö Division) reported one particular issue of Pox to the police, and there actually was a trial about the comics in that issue of Pox. It is somewhat ironic, I think, that one of the prosecuted comics was an illustrated text from the Bible, namely Judges, Chapter 19. This chapter is one of the cruellest and violent ones in the Holy Bible, and the comic simply illustrated the actual text, taken directly from the Bible. Well, the Bible wasn’t prosecuted, but Pox was. Naturally it was acquitted, but that it was prosecuted at all says something about how controversial these comics were thought to be back then, and the magazines were doomed anyway. I guess the time wasn’t ready for them? I think Epix and Pox stopped being published in the early 90s, but, I do think Epix Publishing is still alive today, in some form.

Yup, here it is! Epix Förlag is still alive and well… not well, but still fighting for survival on the Internet. :)

http://www.epix.se/catalog/

Well. In the early 90s I had a period where I was unemployed and to still have something to do I attended a course arranged by the local unemployment agency. It was a totally meaningless course really; a kindergarten for adults, a way to keep the unemployment statistic low, but at least it would mean something to do, so I went there. One day in class comics for grown ups and Epix came up as a discussion topic, and influenced by Schröder and his ideas about the absolute importance of free speech and no censorship, as well as my own love for this magazine and its offspring, I argued for adult comics, and for Epix, and for controversial art, comics and literature on the whole. I have seldom felt so alone in arguing for something. Not one of the others (there were about 10 of us) agreed with me. “Sure free speech is nice and all, but think of the children!” This was their only argument really, and an argument that I didn’t stand a chance against. No matter how I tried to argue that I was all for keeping kids away from any adult themed media. No matter that I pointed out that they don’t demand that the TV should be outlawed because of a few adult-oriented shows, and so on and so on… What ever I said, it was only: “But don’t you care about the children?” And that was it. No arguments could top that. After that I was rather disliked as the person who thinks kids should get to read comics full of violent and sexual things. Which I, of course, do not think at all!

Oops, didn’t mean for this to turn into an essay :)

[Morrigan]

No worries, Fran. I found your post interesting. Who knew that the allegedly "liberated", liberal Sweden was once so backwards in terms of free speech? :) Kind of like here in Québec, how the Catholic Church used to dominate every aspect of everyone's lives up to the 1960's.

[simonmaal]

Interesting, Frann. Here in the UK, we have Viz, which sounds very similar to the comics you described:

http://www.viz.co.uk/

Interestingly, this magazine has evaded the attentions of the thought police PC fascists (at least for now).

Rabble rousing banal soundbites such as "but don’t you care about the children?" are designed to stifle all debate on the issue, in the same way accusations of "racism" are used by lefties to stifle legitimate debate about identity issues. It is a form of social control and I, for one, find the term "political correctness" offensive, in that it suggests that one ideology (marxist) is more correct than the others. These are the tools of intellectual tyranny.

I am sorry to say that this situation seems to be getting worse. We have people in the UK (such as Abu Hamza and Nick Griffin) being put on trial or jailed for their beliefs. And this in a 21st century democracy!!!

[-Fran-]

No worries, Fran. I found your post interesting.


Thanks :)


Who knew that the allegedly "liberated", liberal Sweden was once so backwards in terms of free speech? :)

Yeah, it's complicated. In some ways, I guess Sweden really are (were). Schröder and his comic magazines were never in any real risk of really getting sentenced, I think. But in other ways, Sweden was (is) embarrassingly backwards in questions like this, in that people in general doesn't follow the times, so to speak. I guess Sweden got famous (infamous :) ) in the 60s and the 70s for being rather liberal sexually. There was a long line of soft porn films, and films with erotic contents who created the image of "The Swedish Sin", but many of those films were made for export and were never embraced among the Swedish "grassroots". Sexual revolution, or no... Most Swedes did not see themselves as particularly sinful :)

The 80s doesn't seem so far away, but it was a time when many new things came to Sweden, and new things are always a threat to many people. The Epix debacle was really nothing compared to the debate about the video film violence. The VCR came and suddenly everybody, especially the poor innocent children, could watch as many porn films and uncensored gore and slasher films in their own homes as they wanted to. Surely this was the end of the world. Now all our young people would get brainwashed and jaded and start to go around and murder people with chainsaws! :eek: (The film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is still mostly know in Sweden as the film who got to be a symbol of the whole video violence scare.)

Yeah, on some levels, Sweden were quite liberated... on other levels, not at all :rolleyes:


Kind of like here in Québec, how the Catholic Church used to dominate every aspect of everyone's lives up to the 1960's.

At least we were spared from that, being a protestant country already being rather secularized, but even without a strong church, moral panic has its outbursts, it seems.

[-Fran-]

Interesting, Frann. Here in the UK, we have Viz, which sounds very similar to the comics you described:

http://www.viz.co.uk/

Thanks :)

Yeah, Viz seems to be something similar.


Interestingly, this magazine has evaded the attentions of the thought police PC fascists (at least for now).

Yes, I think if Epix and Pox had been started today, it would not have had this effect either, but back in the 80s it was too controversial it seems


Rabble rousing banal soundbites such as "but don’t you care about the children?" are designed to stifle all debate on the issue, in the same way accusations of "racism" are used by lefties to stifle legitimate debate about identity issues. It is a form of social control and I, for one, find the term "political correctness" offensive, in that it suggests that one ideology (marxist) is more correct than the others. These are the tools of intellectual tyranny.


It really is quite annoying when people use that argument (if it can be called a real argument.) Everything can be condemnded on the basis of the argument 'think of the children', and thus, any argument you would have for whatever it is that is condemned would, in their ears, be the same as saying that you are not at all thinking about the children. That is of course a conclusion that is completely wrong. But people who think they are on a mission/crusade to save children from harm, can not be reasoned with, I have noticed. They just don't see that of course that is what any sane person wants, that kids be kept away from things that harm them. But why that has to include me loosing all my rights as an adult to read, see and hear what I choose to, is beyond me :rolleyes:

[simonmaal]

But people who think they are on a mission/crusade to save children from harm, can not be reasoned with, I have noticed.

Yes indeed; you cannot reason with the brainwashed. And it is not only religion that indoctrinates; trade unions, hard right wing (or left wing) pressure groups, politicised universities and cults of personality are also notorious sources of mind control. The result is a bunch of sanctimonious intellectual drones with loud mouths and no ability to understand scientific research. No amount of findings to the contrary will ever shift them from their delusions. We have something similar in the UK at the moment, with David Cameron promising to ban violent computer games if his party ever get into power while he is leader (so I think these games will be around for a considerable length of time :D). The point is that people latch onto one level of analysis (usually the "social") without ever considering other forms of evidence. A sign of the times I guess.

They just don't see that of course that is what any sane person wants, that kids be kept away from things that harm them. But why that has to include me loosing all my rights as an adult to read, see and hear what I choose to, is beyond me :rolleyes:

That is because they believe themselves to be our superiors and we are not to be trusted, even with our own kids. It stinks.

[simonmaal]

By the way, if you want to see TinTin being offensive, Google "Boro tintin" or "Teesside Tintin", or search Youtube for them. Absolutely hilarious!

[-Fran-]

That is because they believe themselves to be our superiors and we are not to be trusted, even with our own kids. It stinks.

You know, that is one of the things about censorship that has always seemed so absurd to me. Some things are considered not good for grown up people to see, read, watch, hear... and so on. But to decide which these things are, some most actually see, read, watch, hear it... How come those people who decide what is appropriate can handle it? When no one else apparently can? :rolleyes:

But yeah, that does show that some consider themselves more superior than others.

[Father Dagon]

Fran, is it true that in Sweden, Haddock isn't drinking whiskey but apple juice or some such? That would be pretty weird.In the early editions, yes. Not sure about the later editions. But even sequences where the captain is drinking whiskey has been edited in order to e-empasize the driniking.In Denmark there's been talk about editing out the captains pipe, but thankfully nothing's come of it. No such luck with Lucky Luke, who's already chewing straws in new editions.They've also edited away Sartre's cigarette. Fascists!

[tim]

These sort of things must be viewed in the context of the time they were written. I refer you to Edgar Wallace "Sanders of the River" series, paternalistic, racist, the lot. But normal for their time. I remember seeing on tv, as a small child, Popeye cartoons made during WWII in which the Japanese are shown as buck-toothed, goggle-eyed, evil idiots. Products of there times.
OK, I'm pleased to say many of us have moved on from there, but that doesn't mean neccessarily that we should cofine all the films and literature of history to the rubbish heap. As long as we remember - yes, you've guessed it - they are products of their times.

[grunion]

Just noticed this thread and, being a long-time Tintin fan had to ring in.

"In The Congo" along with "In The Land Of The Soviets" and "In America" are probably my least favorite Herge volumes. Besides posessing a racist and naively Eurocentric message, they are the most crudely drawn of the series, have the most simplistic story lines, and, most damning, none of the most beloved Tintin characters that make the later volumes so wonderful. Face it, Snowy alone doesn't provide much of a foil for the boring boy reporter (though I must admit Snowy is better fleshed out in these earlier volumes before the rest of the cast comes along). We even have Tintin exploding a rhinocerous by drilling a hole in its back and shoving in a stick of dynamite, a scene which later shamed Herge himself.

I have these volumes because they make my collection complete, not because I enjoy rereading them. And this alone is a substantial enough reason for their continued publication - they are required to complete the picture of Herge and his times. I agree that it would be wise to provide a contextual forward for future editions lest they are taken to be judged solely on their own merits, out of context of history and Herge's later work.