Tintin in America (1931)
Tintin in America Review
Tintin in America is the 3rd volume of The Adventures of Tintin comics series by Belgian cartoonist Herge. It was published in 1931 and it a forgettable entry in the series.
Tintin and his dog Snowy travel to the United States, where Tintin reports on organized crime in Chicago. Pursuing a gangster across the country, he encounters a tribe of Blackfoot Native Americans before defeating the Chicago crime syndicate. While there were two volumes published before this one, Tintin in America should be viewed as the first true Tintin book as in style and content this is where the series finally established its tone and aesthetic.
The illustration work is particularly improved here. In a huge shift in quality for the better, the panels are not just colorized, but are also much more detailed with the backgrounds being fantastic. The colors still aren’t as fluid, but the volume looked very pleasing to the eye with greatly utilized speech balloons and excellent character designs.
In terms of storytelling, this volume also fares much better than its predecessors, though it still had its significant issues. One is the overwhelming emphasis on countless conveniences that see Tintin escaping the most dangerous situations throughout. The comic still felt too episodic in nature, but at least it was better structured and more epic in scope this time around.
The Native Americans weren’t as horribly portrayed as you’d expect for such an old comic and there is this one page that criticized how Americans treated them and banished them from their homeland whenever they would find oil. It was the most sophisticated and political moment in an otherwise slight tale where Herge was too obsessed with gangsters and crime. In this action-heavy story, there are adventurous moments to be found, but also too many fights. Tintin is finally a better developed and genuinely more likable character while Snowy is just as endearing as ever.
