Land of Black Gold (1950)
Land of Black Gold Review
Land of Black Gold is the 15th volume of The Adventures of Tintin comics series by Belgian cartoonist Herge. It was published in 1950 and it ranks among the weakest installments in the series.
Set on the eve of a European war, the plot revolves around the attempts of Tintin to uncover a militant group responsible for sabotaging oil supplies in the Middle East. The main problem with this particular volume is the fact that Herge wrote it during WWII, but because his agency was under Nazis back then, he abandoned it and went back to it after the war. The end result is a comic that is very confused in its narrative and structure.
The biggest issue is the problematic inclusion of Captain Haddock. This character wasn’t invented back when this story was first written, which resulted in his hasty addition that made no sense. At least Herge was smart enough to make a self-parodic reference to that throughout this story. Snowy was also sidelined here and Tintin was far from memorable.
The highlights were Thompson and Thompson and the main villain. The former had some of the most comedic moments to date in the series – their scenes in the desert where they battled with mirages were absolutely hilarious and perfectly constructed from a comedic standpoint. The villain is Dr. Muller and this was by far the best use of him yet as he was pleasingly over-the-top and quite competent.
Land of Black Gold also benefits from outstanding illustration work and beautiful imagery throughout. The dialogue is pretty strong, the Middle Eastern setting is very well realized and the oil conflict is well depicted and quite timely even today. There are numerous entertaining scenes to be found in this comic. I just wish that the structure was stronger and that the ending was more confident.
