In an interesting follow-up to last week’s reports that the Commission for Racial Equality demanded the withdrawal from sale of Hergé’s Tintin in the Congo album the Telegraph has a brief article claiming that sales of the book have risen dramatically. While not downplaying the problem of racism in society, I think it is highly unlikely that the surge in sales is entirely down to shaven-headed neo-Nazis thinking, great a racist book, must buy it (since such people tend more to burning than reading books) and more likely because people are interested in reading the book and making up their own mind rather than being told what they can see, which is pretty much how it should be – read and think (and hopefully debate too) rather than sweep the problem under the carpet. According to the Telegraph the CRE admits it may have scored something of an own-goal here but they explained they had a complaint and felt they had to follow it up. Although I can’t help but think there is a big, big difference between following up a complaint from a member of the public and demanding a book be banned. (thanks to the gang from Entre Comics in Spain for the link)
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October 2nd, 2007 at 5:40 pm
[...] You may recall a few weeks back that the Commission for Racial Equality in the UK called for Tintin in the Congo to be banned, while Wim reported that back in Hergé’s homeland of Belgium a Congolese student filed an official complaint to try and have the book banned. Now Publisher’s Weekly notes that in the US Little Brown has very quietly pulled an edition of Tintin in the Congo from their autumn schedule and also from a proposed box set of Tintin albums. LB didn’t comment on the cancellation of the single album but did comment on pulling it from the box set: “Given the controversy surrounding the Congo title, we felt including it in the box set would eclipse the true intention of the collection, which is to showcase Hergé’s extraordinary art and his remarkable contribution to the graphic arts.” [...]
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