Tintin in America

Tintin in America
(Tintin en Amérique)
Tintin and Snowy have been captured by Native American Indians.
Cover of the English edition
Date
  • 1932 (black and white)
  • 1945 (colour)
SeriesThe Adventures of Tintin
PublisherLe Petit Vingtième
Creative team
CreatorHergé
Original publication
Published inLe Petit Vingtième
Date of publication3 September 1931 – 20 October 1932
LanguageFrench
Translation
PublisherMethuen
Date1973
Translator
  • Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper
  • Michael Turner
Chronology
Preceded byTintin in the Congo (1931)
Followed byCigars of the Pharaoh (1934)

Tintin in America (French: Tintin en Amérique) is the third volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialized weekly from September 1931 to October 1932 before being published in a collected volume by Éditions du Petit Vingtième in 1932. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy who travel to the United States, where Tintin reports on organized crime in Chicago. Pursuing a gangster across the country, he encounters a tribe of Blackfoot Native Americans before defeating the Chicago crime syndicate.

Following the publication of Tintin in the Congo, Hergé researched a story set in the United States, desiring to reflect his concerns regarding the treatment of American Indian communities by the U.S. government. Bolstered by a publicity stunt, Tintin in America was a commercial success in Belgium and was soon republished in France. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with Cigars of the Pharaoh, and the series became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. In 1945, Tintin in America was re-drawn and colored in Hergé's ligne-claire style for republication by Casterman, with further alterations made at the request of his American publisher for a 1973 edition. The critical reception of the work has been mixed, with commentators on The Adventures of Tintin arguing that although it represents an improvement on the preceding two installments, it still reflects many of the problems that were visible in them. The story was adapted for both the 1976–77 West End play Tintin's Great American Adventure and the 1991 Ellipse/Nelvana animated series The Adventures of Tintin, which aired as the series finale.