Tintin with the country of the black gold

Tintin with the country of the black gold ( adventures of Tintin: Tintin with the country of the black gold , Hergé, 1950) is the 15th album of Cartoon of the adventures of Tintin .

Synopsis

Whereas rumors of war are done persistent, the market is invaded by polluted gasoline which literally explodes the engines… with explosions. Tintin embarks then to make its investigation with the the Middle East.

(1st version of the album): The album is differentiated from the weekly publication because Tintin does not unload any more in Caiffa but with Haifa in what would be the Palestine, then under British mandate. It is stopped by the English, then kidnapped by militants of the Jewish organization Irgoun (mentioned in the album but not in the version newspaper) who confused it with certain Goldstein, agent Sioniste which must come from Europe. He is then kidnapped by Arabs, who lead it near their chief Bab El Ehr. Tintin finds later the Doctor Müller, which works from now on for the account of a company which tries by illicit means to take the control of the wells of Pétrole. Müller removes thus the young prince Abdallah, the son of the emir Ben Kalish Ezab, to oblige this last to drive out of its territory the English competitors.

(2nd version of the album): Tintin unloads with the Khemed, where a power struggle opposes the emir Ben Kalish Ezab to the sheik Bab El Ehr, each one financed by a different oil company, respectively Arabex and Skoil Petroleum. Tintin finds thereafter the Doctor Müller, which works from now on on behalf of Skoil. This last removes young prince Abdallah to oblige the emir to drive out Arabex of its territory and to make it possible Skoil to control the oil wells.

(fine commune with the two versions of the album): Tintin releases Abdallah and stops Müller, which proves to be a secret agent working for the account of a foreign power (this one will remain unknown with the reader) which wanted to contaminate the gasoline of its adversaries to put all the chances on its side in the event of war. It puts the hand on the product being used to falsify the gasoline and sends it to the Professor Tournesol. This one conceives at the end of a few weeks of research a " antidote" neutralizing the effects of this product in the gasoline. The war is thus avoided.

Data sheet

Other titles: Tintin and Milou with the country of gold liquidate
Scénario: Hergé
Drawings: Hergé
Editor: Casterman
Places: Belgium, Palestine, Khemed
Time: 1950

Context

Tintin with the country of the black gold is an album with share in the adventures of Tintin. Normally, it should have followed the Sceptre of Ottokar , and its topic, the sabotage of the gasoline, evoked, like the two preceding adventures of Tintin, the operations to destabilize the democracies (by injection of counterfeit money in the Black Island, by an attempt at Anschluss in the Sceptre of Ottokar) and the threats of war. But the war really burst and stopped the work of Hergé, and it is not that in 1948 qu ' it took again this account. The first version colors thus left in 1950. In 1971, at the request of its English editors, Hergé certain elements of the history too much close to the topicality of 1948 modified. Thus, the fights between Jewish and Arab terrorists for the control of the Palestine are transformed into power struggle, the English police officers are arabisés and Haïfa becomes most discrete Khemkhâh…

Which is the “country of the black gold”?

In the first version of the album, would Tintin pass by Palestine such as it was before the creation of the State of Israel? In fact the boat Speedol Star , on which he works temporarily as radiotelegrapher, stops in “Caïffa” in the edition of the Petit Twentieth in 1939 then in the recovery in the Journal of Tintin in 1949, always with the port of Caiffa which is perhaps not on the Mediterranean window but at sea Rouge. The name will be changed into Haïfa and he will be added the mention of the Jewish liberation movement of the “Irgoun” only in the first version in album published later on. Then, in the last version to date, all the part referring to the English military presence disappeared and the ship arrives at the port of Khemkhâh at Khemed, which is to him incontestably at sea Rouge, between Wadesdah and Jeddah.

Hergé referring to the British mandate and the fight between Jews and Arabs, it seems obvious that the first version of the album occurs to Palestine. Later in this version of the album, Tintin, after a crossing of the desert (in the literal sense), arrives in the town of Wadesdah, where the emir Ben Kalish Ezab saw. However, in the album Coke in Stock , appeared in 1958, one learns on page 14 that Ben Kalish Ezab is the emir of Khemed. That wants to say that in the first version of the album Tintin to the country of the black gold , Tintin arrives at Khemed while passing by Palestine.

One knows that Khemed was him also, under British mandate like the whole of the Middle-East: in the letter which it sends to the emir after having removed Abdallah (on page 37 of the album), Müller requires " of him; to drive out the English of sound territoire" if it makes a point of re-examining his son.

Anecdotes

In the beginning, this history was to place after the Sceptre of Ottokar . Because of the war, the version black and white of To the country of the Black gold was stopped.

the song “Bang, when vot' driving makes boom” album today is immediately identified like a wink with Charles Trenet. It was also the case at the time of the exit of the album, but not in the Années 1960 where Charles Trenet knew his crossing of the desert.

the “elements too close to topicality” related to the sabotage of one railway to the explosive with members of the Irgoun .

In order to explain the unforeseen arrival of the Haddock captain in the last pages of the album, Hergé had recourse to an easy way: at the end of the album, the captain tries to tell the reason “at the same time very simple and very complicated” for this absence. Stopped multiple times, it ends up giving up in the irritation. Greg will make there a wink in its album of Achille Talon the bird call of Éphèse .
Le attentive reader should not be convinced, because one finds in the last page Tintin, Haddock and the sheik listening to the radio, with the mention " A few weeks have passé".

the absence of Sunflower, it, will be mitigated by a letter of the professor mentioning the experiments which he carries out on the mysterious one produced (in the penultimate page), and by a photograph of the castle of Moulinsart to half in ruins " after the first expériences" (in the last page).

Adaptations

Animated series

This album was adapted in the animated series of 1992

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