The Comic-Book Hero Tintin and Soviet Criticism

The comic-book hero Tintin, created by Belgian illustrator Hergé, has been an important figure in terms of popular culture in the history of 20th century Europe. The comic-book series named “Tintin’s Adventures” are themed by fantastic, detective and sci-fi details and consist of the young journalist Tintin’s stories blending humor and political/cultural criticism. The series have been published in nearly fifty languages and more than two hundred million copies and have a great deal of attention. However, especially in the first adventures of Tintin they were exposed to tough criticism because of the exceedingly caricaturing non-European nuances and having imperialist and racist components inside. The story named “Tintin in the Land of the Soviet” has an extra importance not just because it is the first adventure of Tintin but also it includes political criticism towards the Soviets. Our aim in this study is to determine whether “Tintin in the Land of the Soviet” has to be evaluated as a serious criticism to the Soviet regime prepared after a rigorous research or is it just a propaganda activity used to form public consciousness towards saving the current order ruling by the West