The Red Sea Sharks

For sharks of the Red Sea, see List of sharks in the Red Sea.

The Red Sea Sharks
(Coke en stock)
Tintin, Snowy, Haddock, and Skut are on a raft in the Red Sea, waving at us. We are viewing the scene through a telescope.
Cover of the English edition
Date1958
SeriesThe Adventures of Tintin
PublisherCasterman
Creative team
CreatorHergé
Original publication
Published inTintin magazine
Date of publication31 October 1956 – 1 January 1958
LanguageFrench
Translation
PublisherMethuen
Date1960
Translator
  • Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper
  • Michael Turner
Chronology
Preceded byThe Calculus Affair (1956)
Followed byTintin in Tibet (1960)

The Red Sea Sharks (French: Coke en stock) is the nineteenth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comic series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was initially serialised weekly in Belgium's Tintin magazine from October 1956 to January 1958 before being published in a collected volume by Casterman in 1958. The narrative follows the young reporter Tintin, his dog Snowy, and his friend Captain Haddock as they travel to the fictional Middle Eastern kingdom of Khemed with the intention of aiding the Emir Ben Kalish Ezab in regaining control after a coup d'état by his enemies, who are financed by slave traders led by Tintin's old nemesis Rastapopoulos.

Following on from the previous volume in the series, The Calculus Affair, The Red Sea Sharks was created with the aid of Hergé's team of artists at Studios Hergé. Influenced by Honoré de Balzac's The Human Comedy, Hergé used the story as a vehicle in which to reintroduce a wide range of characters who had first appeared in earlier instalments of the series. The story dealt with the trade of enslaved Africans across the Arab world, specifically the Red Sea slave trade, which was ongoing at the time of its publication. However, in the 1960s the story generated controversy as Hergé was repeatedly accused of having portrayed the Africans in a racist manner. He was upset by these claims, and made alterations to the depiction of the Africans in later reprints. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with Tintin in Tibet, and the series as a whole became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. The Red Sea Sharks was critically well-received, with various commentators describing it as one of the best Tintin adventures. The story was adapted for both the 1991 Ellipse/Nelvana animated series The Adventures of Tintin and the 1992-3 BBC Radio 5 dramatisation of the Adventures.