Reading, Listening, Watching

[purplecat]

Reading: Mostly fanfic at the moment. There is such a slew of challenges and events around Christmas that I get horribly back-logged. I've just finished all the public_call stories and am about to start on the primeval_denial secret santas. Then there is a vast pile of yuletide stories to read.

Listening: I finished season 5 of Zombies! Run! on Monday and season 6 won't arrive until April, though I am beginning to think their universe is becoming a little over-complex - they have a lot of maybe cures and possibly immune people around.

Watching: We've been watching some extremely faithful adaptations of the Tintin comics on Netflix. Obviously these retain both the strengths and weaknesses of the originals, but the art remains generally charming (give or take some, in retrospect, unfortunate choices about how to portray certain ethnicities) and the stories, if somewhat meandering, are at least pacey and full of excitement.

Comments

[daniel-saunders.livejournal.com]

I really like Tintin! But you're right about racism in it. Herge redrew some strips after the Holocaust to remove offensive portrayals of Jews, but he never managed to draw Africans in a non-offensive way. I don't have a copy of Tintin in the Congo for the that reason (it used to be more or less impossible to get hold of in the UK - I think I've only ever read it in French).

[purplecat]

We've not seen Tintin in the Congo. I'm not sure if that is because we haven't got to it yet (the show is devoting two episodes per book, but seems to be out of original sequence) or because they've wisely decided to gloss over it (although I note that Tintin in the Congo is allegedly very popular in Congo). We were watching The Blue Lotus last night and noted there that while the Chinese characters are drawn in a similar (simplified realistic) style to the European characters the Japanese all have comical buck teeth, presumably in an attempt to distinguish them from the Chinese.

I have very fond memories of reading Tintin as a child. I've been a bit struck, watching these, quite how much the plots depend on rushing from place to place following a set of small clues which don't necessarily quite all add up to a whole in retrospect.