Gangsters, Cops, Cowboys, Indians, Tycoons Welcome Tintin to America

In 1931, Belgian cartoonist Hergé (Georges Remi) finally was able to bring his boy reporter, the one-named Tintin, together with his dog Snowy, to the New World, although it would be many years later before Hergé himself would get there, and instead of running into Al Capone, as Tintin does, Hergé would meet with Andy Warhol.

In Tintin in America, the third Tintin story, Hergé gets so many things right. Tintin has a very specific purpose in this book. Following his encounter with some of Al Capone's henchmen in the previous adventure, Tintin in the Congo, Tintin comes to America, specifically to Chicago, to clean up Capone's operations at home. Al Capone is, by the way, the only real villain that Tintin ever deals with.

Tintin in America

Wickipedia article here | Tintinologist article here

You can find Google Video search results for the Ellipse/Nelvana animated version of Tintin in Americahere. The video runs about twenty-three to twenty-four minutes, since it was a single episode in the original series. Most of the books had two episodes devoted to them. This makes Tintin in America one of the least satisfying of the Ellipse/Nelvana versions, since it leaves out almost all of Tintin's adventures in the West. If you watch this after reading the book, you realize that Tintin's adventures are not just for children, while these animated versions pretty much are.

Tintin comes to America for adventures in Chicago, not New York City, because he has to deal with Al Capone and other Chicago gangsters, a city perhaps in some ways more American than New York City (some claim that the Hudson River, separating Manhattan Island from the mainland is wider than the Atlantic Ocean, separating New York from Europe). Tintin's Chicago is very much the Chicago of Carl Sandburg's 1916 poem "Chicago" (complete here) -

HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler...

Tintin and Snowy try to come to grips with this big, bustling city. Standing at an intersection, Snowy wonders how a dog is supposed to cross the street, and Hergé provides some memorable views of the skyscrapers.

One of the gangsters takes off for the West, giving Hergé a chance to take Tintin and Snowy to a part of the United States that has always fascinated Europeans and also gives Tintin a chance to lose his trademark plus-fours, trousers that American slang might call "highwaters" (here), for full cowboy gear, even a belt with holsters. (Of course, in this adventure, he also ends up in medieval armor, hardly typical for an American escapade.)

The trip out West lets Hergé do some fascinating drawings, but it also allows him to show the social consciousness of a European observing Americans. In one bizarre image, Tintin and Snowy strung up by a lynch mob. Yes, Tintin and Snowy get lynched... twice... (Remember, they have over twenty adventures ahead of them, so....)

Less than ten minutes after Tintin accidentally discovers oil, tycoons begin showering him with ever-higher bids for "his" oil well. Once Tintin tells them that the land belongs to the Indians, things change. They give the Indians "twenty five dollars and half an hour to pack your bags." Two hours later, a new city is being constructed, and the next morning, a traffic cop rushes Tintin across the street: "Where d'you think you are anyway? ... The Wild West..."

Although in Tintin's first adventure, in the Soviet Union (which I have written about here), Hergé showed himself to be no fan of communism, he casts a critical eye on capitalist America here. As Tintin grows more famous, he is approached by vaudeville, radio, and movie producers, as well as "the brothers of Neo-judaeo-buddo-islamo-americanism," who promise him "the highest dividends in the world." Or out of it.

Looking backward, looking forward with Tintin and Snowy

After this story, Tintin pretty much leaves his reporter's duties behind him. He is a world-class figure, sometimes Sherlock Holmes, sometimes James Bond, making history rather than writing about it.

Snowy makes a change also. At one point in Tintin in America (and I believe this is the only time this happens), Tintin understands what Snowy is thinking, gives him the soda that he asks for, and learns what Snowy has been up to. After this, Snowy - like another cartoon canine, Snoopy - provides a running commentary on the situation that nobody but he and we can hear. In the Ellipse/Nelvana animated versions, we lose Snowy's commentary.

But, Hergé still had a few more details to work out. By the next adventure, he would have found a very important part of the Tintin phenomenon.

You can find my ongoing blog about Tintin here. You can also "Keep Up with Tintin News, Books, and Films" here.