Tintin Volume V

Just a little history if you do not mind ... From the Blue Lotus in 1935, Hergé took his job more seriously. At first, not thinking that Tintin was to experience this success, he took his job for the game. At the end of Cigars of the Pharaoh, informing Hergé Tintin continue his adventures in the Far East. A few days later he received a letter from Father Gosset, who took care of the student chaplaincy at the University of Leuven. The priest advised him to document on China. Hergé was put in touch with Chang Chong-Jen, a Chinese student who was part of the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. They had long conversations about China. Hergé soon forgot all his prejudices about the country: the people with slanted eyes who eat swallows and throw small children into rivers etc.

The next adventure of Tintin would therefore not be an accumulation of European stereotypes about China but a realistic picture of the country. Hergé was therefore a great responsibility: to combat unfounded myths. His first contact with Chiang was so important to Hergé he incorporated it into The Blue Lotus. In this album Tchang is a true friend to Tintin, managing to follow him, to help him and even make him cry. If Hergé chose to plead the Chinese because it is because at that time, the Sino-Japanese war was very present in world events. The conflict that is found in the Comic Strip is close to reality: Chinese accused wrongly or compromised International Concession. Hergé attacks the attitude of Westerners who prefer Japan. With the release of the adventure, the Japanese representatives in Brussels protested and criticized Hergé.

By showing the problem in East Asia, the drawn Blue Lotus is without doubt the most committed of the albums of Hergé.