# Should kids still read Tintin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 3, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406 "2016-06-03T18:02:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/81 "2016-06-09T02:51:39Z")
> [@araminty](#): > > [Forty quid.](http://www.ebay.com/itm/TINTIN-in-THAILAND-funny-RARE-parody-62pa-A5-with-32-IN-COLOR-Numerotee-10-30-/272264108068?hash=item3f64349824:g:FvkAAOSwuhhXVA1O) Hmmm. Forty quid is about US$58. I’ll hold onto them for a while yet and see how much they get to in anther decade or two. ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/82 "2016-06-09T15:34:28Z")
Of course kids should still read Tintin. I had the pleasure of introducing my then 6-year old soon-to-be-stepson to Tintin when he was starting to read. Great adventures. My wife even pointed the books out as something I had brought into his life that she wouldn’t have known about, in her wedding vows. Yes they were written decades ago and contain some images and language that are offensive but as a parent, it’s your job to be aware of this stuff and discuss it in an appropriate manner with your children. I am also not concerned about him reading “Huck Finn” in school in a few years. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/83 "2016-06-10T01:31:06Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > We are in such a golden age of children’s literature that, with a few exceptions, I don’t think it’s vital for us to mine our own childhoods to find good books for kids to read. Introduce your kids to Pals in Peril, to Christopher Paul Curtis, to Tiffany Aching, to Kate di Camillio, to Neil Gaiman, to any of the dozens of spectacular children’s authors doing vibrant new work today. Fretting about whether something that already has a high entry-barrier, like TinTin, is worth going into despite its virulent racism, seems like wasted effort to me. > > Of course, that’s true only if you’ve read the modern field of children’s literature and find its best works don’t hold up to TinTin. If you have a current base of knowledge and still think the older stuff is worth wading through virulent racism to access, go for it. Quality is, of course, endlessly debatable. When I have kids, I certainly hope they will read all kinds of stuff, including great kids books from both today and yesterday. I wouldn’t say that the Tintin comics are the greatest thing ever, but they have a pleasant, free-wheeling spirit of adventure that’s missing from a lot of children’s literature today. In _Harry Potter_, for instance, you have mentions of torture and ethnic cleansing, countless brutal murders, and all sorts of unpleasantness, getting more intense as the series goes along. In the Tintin comics, by contrast, the worst thing that ever happens to anyone is getting punched in the chin. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/84 "2016-06-10T02:00:35Z")
Well, in one of the earlier books, two bad guys fall overboard a ship and drown and are shown being tormented by devils in hell. But, yeah, truly, the books are gently violent. T&T bump into everything in sight, fall down stairs, knock their heads on low overheads, etc. But even the gunplay tends to be non-lethal. (For instance, the lovely “shoot out” with the champagne corks.) (Another exception: if you’re on your way to give a vital clue to Tintin, and a big dark car roars by…you’re probably done for.) ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/85 "2016-06-10T02:35:02Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, in one of the earlier books, two bad guys fall overboard a ship and drown and are shown being tormented by devils in hell. The Broken Ear, #6 ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/86 "2016-06-10T04:51:03Z")
To add to my last post, I don’t think of Tintin as having “virulent” racism. I think it largely absorbed the attitudes from the culture that it was created in. I don’t believe there’s much danger of children today taking seriously the racist attitudes in _Tintin in Congo_ and _Tintin in America_. I didn’t mention it in the OP, but my own experience was to read all the comics published in the American editions at age 7 or thereabouts. Later, at age 9, I encountered a French edition of _Tintin in Congo_ while living in France; previously, I had not known that it existed. At the time, I only thought that both the racism and the wanton environmental destruction in _Congo_ were hilarious. I could grasp that the attitude of the author towards these things was archaic, and I’m sure that kids today would see and think the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/87 "2016-06-10T07:34:02Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > We are in such a golden age of children’s literature We may or may not be in such a golden age, but what we are not in, AFAIK, is a golden age of children’s _comics_. That is what I love Tintin just as much for, the artwork. Hell, we rarely even get illustrated kidlit anymore - which is a crying shame. I _treasure_ [Stewart & Riddel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Edge_Chronicles),[Walter Moers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_Dreaming_Books), [DiTerlizzi & Black](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spiderwick_Chronicles) and[Alan Snow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Be_Monsters!). And that’s just illustrated writing, how many _comics_ are there being produced nowadays you’d safely give to a preteen? That’s why I’m happy to have the convo about racism and sexism with my girls when I give them Tintin, or Asterix, or the English comic I grew up with. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/88 "2016-06-10T11:43:09Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > how many _comics_ are there being produced nowadays you’d safely give to a preteen? I’m not up on comics, never really have been. The comics shop down the street from me has a whole section for kids. If we can expand this to graphic novels–the closest analogue to the Tintin collections available these days, I think–there are hundreds. The graphic novel is absolutely a thriving subset of the children’s lit field. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/89 "2016-06-10T13:04:05Z")
I’m unfamiliar with GN works _for kids_ (I just google for best-of lists and I see Shaun Tan listed , and his work really isn’t what I’d characterise as kidlit) - could you list some of what you consider good current original GNs for kids? I stress “original” because I don’t really consider graphic novel _retellings_ of Anne Frank or the like to be pertinent. Not that Tintin or Asterix is actually written _for kids_, mind you. But nowadays, GNs written _not_ for kids are decidedly _not_ kid-safe the way a Tintin or Asterix GN is. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/90 "2016-06-10T18:52:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I’m unfamiliar with GN works _for kids_ (I just google for best-of lists and I see Shaun Tan listed , and his work really isn’t what I’d characterise as kidlit) - could you list some of what you consider good current original GNs for kids? I stress “original” because I don’t really consider graphic novel _retellings_ of Anne Frank or the like to be pertinent. > > Not that Tintin or Asterix is actually written _for kids_, mind you. But nowadays, GNs written _not_ for kids are decidedly _not_ kid-safe the way a Tintin or Asterix GN is. We’ll set aside things like the GN versions of Despereaux, Rick Riordan’s works, and so on for now, then. **Bone** is hugely popular among my students, as is **Amulet** , and I sometimes see a kid lazing around with a **Knights of the Lunch Table**. There are things that are hard to classify, like **Fashion Kitty** and **Baby Mouse** and **Diary of a Wimpy Kid** and **Captain Underpants** , works that include panel illustrations but also include paragraphs of stand-alone text. [This website](http://www.ilovelibraries.org/article/best-graphic-novels-children) breaks out a librarian’s recommendation by US grade level. They even have a Tintin on there! Note that Shaun Tan is on there (I’m not familiar with him) as a middle-school author. Once you get to middle school, all bets are off. Edit 2: Looking at some of his works, I see “Lost and Found,” which I read with my daughter when she was 5 or 6. Yeah, it was pretty weird, but she liked it. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/91 "2016-06-10T21:19:55Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > . . . That is what I love Tintin just as much for, the artwork. . . . Hergé may have helped inspire a grand cycle of European comics artwork. Take a look at “[Klaw, the First Cycle](http://cdn.bleedingcool.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/KLAW-Pg6-600x777.jpg)” by Jurion and Ozenam. Remarkable detail, close to photographic: the whole graphic novel is full of this kind of detail. Take a look at Wake by Moran and Buchet. (Hmph. Frustrated. I can’t find any really good images to share.) Sci-fi adventure, with lots of superlative spaceship art, robots, etc., but also a mastery of landscape and scenery. Again, almost photographic. Even Asterix and Obelix are incredibly detailed, although cartoonish. It really does seem to be a pervasive style in French (and neighbors) comics. Tintin may have set this pace. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/92 "2016-06-11T00:31:45Z")
I fully get wanting your kids to read the stuff that you read as a kid, so you can talk about it. What I don’t get are the ideas that kids are missing out on some development because they don’t get to read these. To be honest, what I would prefer with a lot of these old things is optional censored versions. Not replacing the original, but just versions I could show to a kid without out having to explain the history of racism and making sure they didn’t pick up the racist ideas from it. I know that idea is not well liked. But I like it. Not for Huckleberry Finn, which was actually about racism–that’s stupid. But when it’s not important to the story? Why not? Apparently even the creator was okay with going back and fixing things. At least, for me anyways, part of the fun of the old fiction was reading it without it being something my parents were involved in. I loved Encyclopedia Brown and The Happy Hollisters and The Hardy Boys. And I had sanitized versions of many things back when I would get the abridged versions first. I don’t feel I missed out–I still got the full thing when I got older. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/93 "2016-06-11T00:38:25Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Take a look at Wake by Moran and Buchet. (Hmph. Frustrated. I can’t find any really good images to share.) . Never heard of that before, but I looked it up on Wiki. I found some samples by searching under the original French title, _Sillage_. Also, you misspelled the creator, _Morvan_, which probably didn’t help your search. [http://tinyurl.com/jhnzb38](http://tinyurl.com/jhnzb38) [http://tinyurl.com/z24ha6a](http://tinyurl.com/z24ha6a) [http://tinyurl.com/jb8fd2v](http://tinyurl.com/jb8fd2v) [http://tinyurl.com/hpw4cav](http://tinyurl.com/hpw4cav) ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/94 "2016-06-11T02:03:18Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I fully get wanting your kids to read the stuff that you read as a kid, so you can talk about it. What I don’t get are the ideas that kids are missing out on some development because they don’t get to read these. > > To be honest, what I would prefer with a lot of these old things is optional censored versions. Not replacing the original, but just versions I could show to a kid without out having to explain the history of racism and making sure they didn’t pick up the racist ideas from it. > > I know that idea is not well liked. But I like it. Not for Huckleberry Finn, which was actually about racism–that’s stupid. But when it’s not important to the story? Why not? Apparently even the creator was okay with going back and fixing things. > > At least, for me anyways, part of the fun of the old fiction was reading it without it being something my parents were involved in. I loved Encyclopedia Brown and The Happy Hollisters and The Hardy Boys. > > And I had sanitized versions of many things back when I would get the abridged versions first. I don’t feel I missed out–I still got the full thing when I got older. Ah, a ‘ **Reader’s Digest Thousand Greatest Condensed Novels In Basic English** ’ man. Always a pleasure to meet a fellow bibliophile. [QUOTE=Trinopus] Hergé may have helped inspire a grand cycle of European comics artwork [/QUOTE] As for him inspiring comic books, no doubt, but Belgium is and always was one of the world’s greatest artistic centres, co-heir to the late medieval ---- \*The Waning of the Middle Ages \* — \*Low Countries, and producer of more artists, architecture andserious writers than America, and has one of the most major [**Comic Books**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_comics) scenes outside Japan anyway. - The Dutch Huizinga was compared to Spengler, than which there is no greater praise\*. - ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/95 "2016-06-11T02:49:11Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Never heard of that before, but I looked it up on Wiki. I found some samples by searching under the original French title, _Sillage_. Also, you misspelled the creator, _Morvan_, which probably didn’t help your search. > > [http://tinyurl.com/jhnzb38](http://tinyurl.com/jhnzb38) > [http://tinyurl.com/z24ha6a](http://tinyurl.com/z24ha6a) > [http://tinyurl.com/jb8fd2v](http://tinyurl.com/jb8fd2v) > [http://tinyurl.com/hpw4cav](http://tinyurl.com/hpw4cav) Thank’ee! Sorry for misspelling; thanks for links! You can see some of the promise of the highly-detailed techno-depictive style here. Also, the cars swerving all over the place in your third example almost look like a number of scenes in Tintin, where cars rampage through village markets causing (hilarious) chaos! I only have the six English-Translated “Wake” graphic novels, but let me recommend them most highly. The art is good…and the story is equally sterling. (Amazon has issue no. 3 for $6.44. [I’d recommend that one as a stand-alone story.](https://www.amazon.com/Wake-Vol-3-Gearing-Up/dp/1561633151/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1465613172&sr=8-5&keywords=wake+morvan) It’s a staggeringly acute science fiction tale of a civilization that has been force-uplifted from savagery to a “Steampunk” level – and steampunk fans might enjoy the tech! It’s a complete “novel” – a graphic novel – and lives up to the finest sci-fi to be found.) (the American version censors the lead character’s breasts, which is a bit silly, but that’s American puritanism for ya.) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/96 "2016-06-11T03:58:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > And that’s just illustrated writing, how many _comics_ are there being produced nowadays you’d safely give to a preteen? That’s why I’m happy to have the convo about racism and sexism with my girls when I give them Tintin, or Asterix, or the English comic I grew up with. When my child got old enough to take to the library, I discovered that the field of graphic novels for pre-teens had goon nutzo. Our library has some of the classics, like Asterix (in English), but it also has graphic novel conversions of some children’s classics like Treasure Island and A Wrinkle in Time, a bunch of Star Wars stuff drawn in Manga style, and a great deal of stuff that is new to me. Then if you’re counting heavily illustrated text novels like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and its knockoffs, or Bad Kitty, there’s a hell of a lot of that going on. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/97 "2016-06-11T11:14:13Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Note that Shaun Tan is on there (I’m not familiar with him) You’re really, really, REALLY missing out. His “The Arrival” is a completely wordless comics masterwork. If life was fair, it would be regularly spoken of in the same breath as _Maus_, _Watchmen_ and _Persepolis_. His other stuff, like _The Rabbits_, \*The Red Tree \*and _The Lost Thing_(which has an Academy Award winning adaptation), are _also_ awesome. But _[The Arrival](http://www.shauntan.net/books/the-arrival.html)_ is a work of fucking genius. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/98 "2016-06-11T11:37:46Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > You’re really, really, REALLY missing out. His “The Arrival” is a completely wordless comics masterwork. If life was fair, it would be regularly spoken of in the same breath as _Maus_, _Watchmen_ and _Persepolis_. His other stuff, like _The Rabbits_, \*The Red Tree \*and _The Lost Thing_(which has an Academy Award winning adaptation), are _also_ awesome. But _[The Arrival](http://www.shauntan.net/books/the-arrival.html)_ is a work of fucking genius. Confession: I’m a terrible comic reader. Visual art is difficult for me to get story from, and the GNs I’ve read tend to be the really wordy ones like Watchmen and Sandman, and I can go whole pages barely looking at the artwork except enough to figure out who’s talking. Something wordless is probably the sort of masterpiece that’ll go right over my head :(. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406/99 "2016-06-11T13:00:31Z")
Fair enough. Pity, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-kids-still-read-tintin/756406.md?page=4)