Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1929)

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets Review

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets is the 1st volume of The Adventures of Tintin comics series by Belgian cartoonist Herge. It was published in 1929 and it’s one of the worst books in the series.

Young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy are sent to the Soviet Union to report on the policies of Joseph Stalin’s Bolshevik government. Tintin’s intent to expose the regime’s secrets prompts agents from the Soviet secret police to hunt him down with the intent to kill. This was Herge’s first foray into this character and his adventures and it did not age well for many obvious reasons.

This series would quickly become famous and much stronger, but here it was only in its most rudimentary form. First off, the illustration work on this volume was quite mediocre. Not only is the book in black-and-white, but it also did not have many details as it felt very sparse in that regard and awfully simplistic in lines, character designs and especially the almost absent backgrounds. There are some inspired panels here where Herge showed brilliance, but for the most part the comic looked dated and uninspired.

There is also the case of tone and approach that were wildly different here when compared to the later entries. The adventurous elements are non-existent. Instead, we get a lot of action and humor, especially of the crude slapstick variety. Some of those humorous scenes reminded me pleasantly of Popeye and they were very well executed, but the majority were forgettable.

There are moments here that did make me laugh quite a bit. The one scene where they force the villagers to vote at gunpoint was hilarious and there is a lot of amusement to be found in how these Russians were so serious and continuously in pursuit of Tintin. However, obviously the Russians were portrayed too horribly here. The critique of communism was a sound one, but they went too far in that direction as Herge evidently did not know too much about the country, so he exaggerated too much here.

But the comic isn’t as politically incorrect as most readers would have you believe today. This was 1929 after all, so it has to be read with that context in mind. Some of the dialogue is actually quite amusing and smart. My issue is that Tintin was absolutely horrendous in this first story. Yes, Snowy was great and their bond is evident from the get-go. How the two helped each other at the end was wonderful to witness. But Tintin himself was too aggressive and just an unlikable prick throughout, which was frustrating to bear.

Overall, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets is far from bad, but it’s not great either. It was a solid first entry in this series with a couple of amusing gags and solid slapstick, but it felt too different in tone, approach and style to the later entries. The illustrations were crude and the story too simplistic and episodic, which made this volume dated.

My Rating – 3.3