Frames from the Arabic translation of The Adventures of Tintin. The year is 1975. An early Saturday morning dawns and preteens and teens around Egypt eagerly await the moment they can get their hands on the week’s copies of Tintin Magazine. Some rush to the newspaper stand on their way to school. Others race their siblings home to be the first to snatch the copy their parents bought on their way home from work. Starting from the early 70s and continuing into the 80s, young people in Egypt who felt a little too old for the popular Mickey comics, yet too young to confine their reading exclusively to picture-free books, were drawn to this weekly magazine that contained a variety of stories, comics, facts, and quizzes alongside the iconic Belgian bande dessinée, The Adventures of Tintin, by the artist Hergé. “I associate reading Tintin Magazine with the summer holidays,” said Ahmed El-Safty, professor of economics at the American University in Cairo and lifelong fan of the comic. “When I was a teenager, there weren’t as many pastimes as there are now. There was no internet, no North Coast, and during…
Tintin, Lucky Luke, and Astérix: Remembering the Comics That Entertained a Generation
August 6, 2020
