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Tintin au Pays de l’Or Noir, known in English as Land of Black Gold, has an extraordinary publication history. The first half of it came out in 1939-40, but since the villain of the story is a sinister German, the story abruptly stopped when the Nazis invaded Belgium, leaving Tintin stranded in a sandstorm in the Palestinian desert.

Eight years later with the war safely over, Hergé started publishing it again from the beginning in Tintin magazine. He then took three months off in the middle of the process, without telling anyone in advance; he found the forced pace of creativity stressful, but his unplanned absences infuriated colleagues. The full 62-page album was published in 1949.

But it doesn’t end there. More than two decades later, in 1971, the English-language rights had been acquired by Methuen, who gently suggested to Hergé that it might be a good idea to change the setting from British-mandate Palestine and maybe take out the bit where Irgun mistake Tintin for one of their own agents and kidnap him (and also perhaps remove the British army officers). So Hergé shifted the Arabian settings to the fictional county of Khemed, working in some Belgian humour (more on that below), and the Khemed version rather than the Palestine version is now the standard text in all languages.

Despite its pervasive very dubious Orientalism, the story has some great parts. The opening pages in Belgium see an epidemic of explosions in cars and cigarette lighters due to contaminated petrol. But war clouds are gathering and Captain Haddock gets mobilised into the navy. Tintin learns that the problem with the petrol is happening at its source in Khemed, and undertakes a perilous journey to investigate. Having arrived, he gets entangled in a power struggle between the emir and a rebel leader, with the evil Dr Müller behind the sabotage. Despite the antics of detectives Thomson and Thompson, and with the aid of Captain Haddock, Tintin defeats Müller, rescues the emir’s obnoxious son Abdallah, and returns in triumph.

There’s some very good visual stuff here, especially the scenes on the boat across the Mediterranean, in the desert, and in the underground dungeon where Abdallah is imprisoned. Thomson and Thompson mistakenly consume Dr Müller’s chemicals and start sprouting blue hair and frothing at the mouth. The obnoxious Abdallah is well depicted with few words. But the end is a bit rushed and infodumpy, with text occupying almost 50% of the final page. And the plot does not cohere as well as in some of the other albums, no doubt due to the peculiar process of composition. This is oddly reflected in a recurrent Captain Haddock gag – several times he starts to explain how he has happened to arrive on the scene in the nick of time, but keeps getting interrupted and we never find out.

It is well worth reading in French, if you are so inclined. There’s an amusing and untranslatable riff on Charles Trenet’s classic song “Boum!” on the first page. Some of the Khemed names are taken from the Brussels dialect of Flemish – most obviously the capital Wadesdah is a riff on “wat is dat”, “what’s that”, and the oil wells are located in Bir El Ambik, referring to the Brussels lambiek beer. In a nod to French, the emir’s military adviser is Moulfrid, ie “moules-frites”, “mussels with chips”. And you can’t beat the original version of Captain Haddock swearing. “Anacoluthe! Ectoplasme! Oryctérope!” (That last is the standard French word for “aardvark”.) ( )

Une déception. Dans mon souvenir, ce n'était déjà pas mon Tintin préféré, et j'avais du mal à saisir les implications politiques qui y étaient énoncées. Mais l'aventure en elle-même manque de mordant et, sans les Dupontd, on a même l'impression de s'ennuyer dans le deuxième tiers. L'arrivée inexplicable et inexpliquée du capitaine donne au final une impression d'inachevé. ( )

My review, as published in Tintin Books:

After working on six straight apolitical albums, Hergé decided to return, in 1948, to "Land of Black Gold": a work he had been forced to abandon in 1940 with the onset of war. Much more varied in tone than its lacklustre predecessor, [b:Prisoners of the Sun|96428|Prisoners of the Sun (The Adventures of Tintin)|Hergé|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171311640s/96428.jpg|185697], "Land of Black Gold" is not perfect 'Tintin', but moves along at a nice pace with a complicated enough plot to keep interest, and a nice array of characters on both sides of the line. The first half, which after all was planned ten years before it was finally published, is much more reminiscent of Tintin's earlier adventures. It is very amusing and filled with great moments, particularly for the Thom[p]sons, but still a bit of a triumph of style over substance. There's a few too many mirage jokes, though, with several pages given over to the Thom[p]sons, Tintin and Snowy mistaking mirages for real life and vice versa.

Despite this, the central plot - of the world's oil supply being tampered with - feels just as relevant and worrying today. Things pick up considerably on arrival in Khemed, where Dr J.W. Muller (from [b:The Black Island|191960|The Black Island (The Adventures of Tintin)|Hergé|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172574319s/191960.jpg|125639]) proves a worthy foe to Tintin. The Emir and Oliveira de Figuera are great allies for the reporter, who goes through an array of disguises and does some genuine investigation. (As is par for the course in the middle books, Tintin's status as a reporter opens doors for him but is never the reason he gets involved in an adventure).

While the texture and colour of the album is noteworthy, the story really comes together due to the complex politics of the plot. The middle third of the album - including the revelations of the conspiracy - are some of the wordiest parts of the "Tintin" series to date. This doesn't feel like a bad thing, though, since it allows us to believe Tintin is caught up in serious world events. The absence of Haddock and Calculus - who didn't exist when the book was first planned but were prominent by the time of its publication - is barely felt given the richness of Tintin's surroundings.

(One interesting point: the returns of both Muller and de Figuera are accompanied by a footnote, directing the reader to their previous appearance. It's not a bad element, but it's a bit of a surprise since this isn't consistently done throughout the series.)

This is probably right on four stars for me. Nothing about this work challenges Herge's formula, but like the next few albums in the series, Herge is working at full throttle. ( )

Crítica | Tintim no País do Ouro Negro
http://www.planocritico.com/critica-tintim-no-pais-do-ouro-negro/ ( )

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