Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Tintin in Cuba?

Now this is important: “Tintin was in Cuba,” an article by an independent journalist in Cuba, Aleaga Pesant, claiming that the boy adventurer and his trusty dog Snowy had a Cuban experience.

Sort of.

In Tintin and the Picaros (1976), it seems that the bearded guerrilla leader in San Theodoros may have been inspired by Fidel Castro. The supreme authority places this tale in the center of South America, but this is not a contradiction; recall Tintin's romps with Professor Calculus through the fictitious communist countries of Syldavia and Borduria.

The Castro inspiration and the anti-communist orientation of the series, Pesant argues, are two reasons the Tintin adventures were never made known to large numbers of Cuban children.

But it’s never too late.

No comments: