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Tintin


bouche

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Cheesburg is with jackson on it? Phew. I thought it was just Cheeseburg on his own. What racial undertones are you speaking of? It's been so long, and I was probably in grades 5-7 when I read them all.

Although kids certainly love Tintin, adults were also an intended market. The books work on many levels and are historically and politically relevant for the time. Read them again and we'll talk.

Racism existed in some of the books (not to mention fascism, class struggles, drug-use, alcohol abuse etc...). For example, the Japanese, like in The Blue Lotus, are drawn stereotypically whilst the Chinese have softened features and are portrayed sympathetically. Blacks don't come off too well either nor do Gypsies (see The Castafiore Emerald).

Asterix is also very racist, but then again, it is from Belgium.

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The books were penned in 1945 ish too, so I guess there is a window of opportunity to be really racist there.

They started earlier and ended later than your date, plus many harkened back to an earlier time than 1945. Herge had issues that's for sure and he was a kid himself when he wrote some of the stories. Tintin in America is horribly offensive (but tastelessly funny nonetheless) and so is Tintin in the Congo (Funny? Not so much).

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I was a big fan of Asterix growing up. I still have all the books and should go through them again sometime. Clever stuff. That Cleopatra had such a pretty nose ;)

As for TinTin, I never got into them :( I remember the artwork though. The one where he went to the moon was cool.

I watched a really interesting documentary on the author a while back. It really sheds a different light on those stories as Jaimoe mentioned. There are heavy political undertones to those stories and many of the characters were parodies on real-life figures. It was called "TinTin and I". Killer visual effects bringing some of the stories to life.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2006/tintinandi/about.html

I'm sure it's available on the interwebs somewhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_and_I

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There's also a series of Asterix live-action films; a few are recent. They are big-budget, attracting some of the biggest stars in French cinema. The cast includes Gérard Depardieu as Obelix, Christian Clavier or Clovis Cornillac as Asterix and several famous actors have co-starred in the films like Roberto Benigni, Monica Bellucci and Alain Delon. The films aren's supposed to be very good though, but they are popular.

Asterix%20Obelix%20Mission%20Cleopatre.jpg

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I thought both Tintin & Asterix were great.

Favourite Tintin was definitely the 2 book story that started with 'The Secret of the Unicorn' and ended with 'Red Rackham's Treasure'.

Best Asterix? I'd have to go with 'Asterix & Caesar's Gift'. I never really got it till a little later on, but how great of a name for a Druid is Getafix!

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