When Tintin entered the Cold War. As a spy thriller, 1954’s The Calculus Affair was far ahead of its time.

I should re-read the Tintin series. It was a favorite when I was younger (most of the books a single gift from my long deceased grandmother), but I haven't read it in many years now. I'm sure it would be interesting with more perspective, but also (the weird racist caricatures from the early books aside; even when I was a kid everything before The Black Island was no longer advertised or easily purchasable, though eventually I sought them out for context) the books felt like they took place in a real world and real history in a way non-european comics rarely do, in spite of the fictionalized countries.

My parents own the entire (minus one mysteriously lost half year) run of the portuguese Tintin magazine, just over 14 years between 1968 and 1982 IIRC. This was a weekly magazine in the vein of what's still done in Japan, with a few pages of multiple ongoing stories and some single or half page shorts. The portuguese Tintin magazine is unique in that not only had (translated) stories from the belgian Tintin magazine but also from Dargaud comics like Asterix, Lucky Luke or even Gir's (Moebius') Blueberry, all in one neat package. It's some 2m tall stack of mid 20th century european comic goodness that I really should re-read as a whole.

A fascinating article. And yeah, some of the caricatures in the old Tintin (and Asterix) comics were pretty eye-popping. We've still got those old tales in a box in the garage, I think. I hope they're not too musty and mouldy, because I should like to read them again one afternoon. There was nothing like 'em.