Tintin in the Congo

Tintin in the Congo (Tintin au Congo)
Cover of the English language translation (2005) of the colour version
Date	1931 (black and white) 1946 (colour)
Series	The Adventures of Tintin
Publisher	Le Petit Vingtième
Creative team
Creator	Hergé
Original publication
Published in	Le Petit Vingtième
Date of publication	5 June 1930 – 11 June 1931
Language	French
Translation
Publisher	Casterman Egmont
Date	1991 2005
Translator	Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper Michael Turner
Chronology
Preceded by	Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1930)
Followed by	Tintin in America (1932)

Tintin in the Congo (French: Tintin au Congo; French pronunciation: ​[tɛ̃tɛn o kɔ̃go]) is the second volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from May 1930 to June 1931 before being published in a collected volume by Éditions de Petit Vingtième in 1931. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who are sent to the Belgian Congo to report on events in the country. Amid various encounters with the native Congolese people and wild animals, Tintin unearths a criminal diamond smuggling operation run by the American gangster Al Capone.

Following on from Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and bolstered by publicity stunts, Tintin in the Congo was a commercial success within Belgium and was also serialised in France. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with Tintin in America in 1932, and the series subsequently became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. In 1946, Hergé re-drew and coloured Tintin in the Congo in his distinctive ligne-claire style for republication by Casterman, with further alterations made at the request of his Scandinavian publisher for a 1975 edition.

In the late 20th century, Tintin in the Congo came under criticism for both its perceived racist colonial attitude toward the Congolese and for its glorification of big-game hunting. Accordingly, attempts were made in Belgium, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States to either ban the work or restrict its availability to children. Critical reception of the work has been largely negative, with commentators on The Adventures of Tintin describing it as one of Hergé's weakest works.