The Red Sea Sharks (French:
Coke en stock)
Original publication dates: October 1956 – January 1958
First collected edition: 1958
Author: Hergé
Tintin visits: Belgium (Brussels, Marlinspike), Lebanon (Beirut), Khemed (Wadesdah, Kadheh, the Jebel Kadheïh desert, unidentified ancient temple).
Overall rating:
Plot summary available here.
Publisher's synopsis:
When he hears that the Emir Ben Kalish has been deposed by rebels, Tintin is quickly on his way to Khemed to help his old friend. But behind the scenes is that ruthless international gangster and slave trader, the so-called Marquis di Gorgonzola. The Marquis will stop at nothing to protect his sinister interests. Tintin, Snowy and Captain Haddock may escape from the danger of the desert, but far deadlier perils await them in the Red Sea. Comments:
The Red Sea Sharks began publication in late October 1956 in the pages of
Tintin magazine and continued until January 1958. It was then edited down for collection into the standard 62-page album format later that same year. As with the previous two-part moon adventure and
The Calculus Affair, Hergé was assisted on this book by Bob de Moor and the other artists at Studios Hergé.
The book's original Franco-Belgian title is quite different to the English one;
Coke en stock basically translates as "Coke on Board", which within the context of the story is a codename used for African slaves being trafficked aboard ships. When the book was translated into English in 1960, it was felt that the title "Coke on Board" would likely call to mind the American soft drink, rather than the fuel. So, the alternate title
The Red Sea Sharks was chosen instead (it refers to the Arabian sea upon which Tintin, Captain Haddock, and Snowy are set adrift at one point in the adventure and to the "sharks", both literal and figurative, which are found in those waters). I suppose a more accurate translation of the book's title, which would still manage to avoid any similarities with Coca-Cola, might have been "Slaves on Board" or something. But of course, that isn't as gripping or exciting a title as
The Red Sea Sharks, and it certainly would have revealed rather too much about the book's plot up front.
I think the front cover illustration is one of the most striking of the entire Tintin series and really caught my eye when I first encountered it as a 10 or 11-year-old kid. At that age, this was easily one of my favourite Tintin stories and it remained so well into my mid-to-late 30s. Unfortunately, having just re-read the book for this review, I definitely don't find it as entertaining or satisfying as I once did. But more about why that is a little bit later.
The most striking thing about
The Red Sea Sharks is that it's packed full of characters we've encountered before – mostly villains! Hergé was clearly determined to insert as many familiar faces from earlier books as possible. I'm not sure exactly why he chose to do this. The book's Wikipedia article seems to suggest the influence of the French novelist Honoré de Balzac. I'm not sure that I'm really qualified to comment on that, having never read any Balzac, but regardless of the reason, it's clear that Hergé wanted to evoke a cosy atmosphere of familiarity here. Of course, another, slightly unkinder theory, might be that he was simply suffering from a dearth of new ideas.
In addition to its abundance of returning characters,
The Red Sea Sharks sees Tintin, Snowy, and Haddock returning to the Arab emirate of Khemed, which we last saw in
Land of Black Gold. As a consequence, it definitely feels as if this book is something of a sequel to that earlier adventure.
To start at the beginning, the first returning character that we bump into (literally, in Haddock's case) is General Alcazar...
Alcazar, the sometime dictator of the fictional banana republic of San Theodoros, was last last seen a decade earlier in
The Seven Crystal Balls and had first appeared in 1935's
The Broken Ear. Note that in the above panels Hergé prefaces Alcazar's entrance with a mocking commentary on the improbability of certain cinematic encounters. This is no doubt the author's tongue-in-cheek way of preparing the reader for the avalanche of such unlikely meetings in the book ahead. By calling our attention to the contrived nature of these meetings in a decidedly self-mocking way, I feel as if Hergé neatly absolves himself from any criticism regarding the ridiculousness of it all.
The next returning character is encountered upon Haddock and Tintin's return to Marlinspike Hall...
The spoiled, mischievous, practical joke obsessed Abdullah was introduced in
Land of Black Gold, as was his father Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab, the Emir of Khemed. Abdullah has been sent to Haddock's country estate for his own safety, since his father has been overthrown by his rival, Sheikh Bab El Ehr (who we also met in
Land of Black Gold). Abdullah is an entertaining enough character, but all the same, I think it's a good thing that Hergé moves the action away from Marlinspike Hall fairly swiftly, as the Arabian brat's relentless joke-playing could easily become tiresome.
Initially,
The Red Sea Sharks appears as if it's going to be about Alcazar's plan to smuggle black market warplanes to San Theodoros in order to regain power from General Tapioca. The two bumbling detectives Thompson and Thomson visit Tintin and inform him of Alcazar's plan, which leads the boy reporter to a meeting between the deposed general and one J. M. Dawson, who Tintin previously met in
The Blue Lotus...
Upon investigating further, Tintin learns that Dawson has also sold British-made Mosquito fighter-bombers to the usurper Bab El Ehr in Khemed. In a somewhat illogical – or at least seriously foolhardy – manner, Tintin and Haddock decide that the only way in which they will ever be rid of Abdullah is to restore his father to power. For me, that's a somewhat weak justification for going to somewhere as dangerous as Khamed, but nevertheless, the story abruptly changes track and our heroes fly out to the Middle East.
Once they've landed in Khemed, Tintin, Haddock and Snowy are prevented from entering the country by agents of the Sheikh and have to return to Beirut. However, before they get far, their plane crashes over Khemed, resulting in this fantastic panel...
I love how realistically Hergé captures the sense of motion and the tremendous inertial forces at work in the crash.
Having survived this plane wreck, Tintin and his companions make their way to the city of Wadeshah, which is the point where the adventure really begins in earnest. Here they meet up with another old acquaintance, the merchant Oliveira da Figueira...
Figueira was first seen in
Cigars of the Pharaoh and also reappeared in
Land of Black Gold. Here he assists Tintin and his companions in reaching Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab's hideout in the Jebel Kadheïh desert. However, before they can get there, they are attacked by Mosquito fighters under the command of Sheikh Bab El Ehr's assistant "Mull Pasha", who is none other than the evil German psychiatrist and chemist Dr. Müller (previously seen in
The Black Island and
Land of Black Gold)...
Eventually, Tintin and his companions arrive at the Emir's refuge, which is a Roman temple carved into the rock and clearly based on the famous Al Khazneh temple in Petra, Jordan...
This 1st century AD temple and mausoleum is today a very popular tourist destination, but I'm guessing that it was probably less well known to those outside of Jordan in the 1950s. Today, it's perhaps best known from its appearance in the 1989 action-adventure film
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.
Once inside the temple, the boy reporter meets with a surprised Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab...
It is here, on page 30 – half way through the book! – that we finally learn the true direction that the plot of
The Red Sea Sharks will take. It is revealed by the Emir that there is an underground slave trade in Khemed, directed by the splendidly named Marquis di Gorgonzola, a fabulously wealthy international business tycoon. Tintin is, of course, appalled by this revelation and immediately resolves to expose and stop this dreadful human trafficking. However, the characterisation of the Emir in this scene is troublesome; it seems that he was perfectly happy to let the slave trade continue in Khemed, as long as Gorgonzola's organisation didn't enable Sheikh Bab El Ehr to overthrow him. Apparently slave trading isn't intrinsically abhorrent to the Emir: it's just something to use against his enemies in order to secure his position of power.
After leaving the Emir, Tintin and his friends plan to traverse the Red Sea and travel to Mecca, which is where Gorgonzola transports his slaves too, before selling them into bondage. However, the boat they are on is attacked by more of Bab El Ehr's Mosquitoes, in a fantastically drawn sequence...
In particular, the first panel of the above page is just brilliant. You can almost hear the fighter plane's engines roaring and its machine guns chattering, as it bears down on Tintin and his companions. Hergé comes damn close to actually drawing movement into his artwork here.
Although the boat is sunk, Tintin manages to shoot down one of the Mosquitoes and – being a perennial goody-goody – rescues its Estonian pilot, Piotr Skut...
As a kid, I was a really big fan of Skut, and his appearance of the cover of
The Red Sea Sharks was a big part of why the book "spoke" to me. As an adult though, it's kinda tough to see exactly why I liked him so much. I mean, sure, he becomes a faithful friend to Tintin and Haddock in gratitude for them having rescued him, and he's certainly useful to our heroes throughout the remainder of the book, but he's hardly the most memorable of Hergé's creations. I can only conclude that I must've really liked Skut's dashing appearance, with his leather flying jacket, olive drab pilot's jodhpurs, and pirate-like eyepatch. To be honest, Skut is really the only new character of any substance in
The Red Sea Sharks, and he will appear again in 1968's
Flight 714In yet another fantastic coincidence, Tintin and his friends are picked up and captured by the Marquis di Gorgonzola, who it turns out is actually Tintin's arch-enemy Rastapopoulos...
Rastapopoulos tricks our heroes into boarding one of his slaving ships,
The Ramona, where they come face-to-face with another blast from the past: Haddock's treacherous former crewmate, Allan Thompson...
A fire breaks out on
The Ramona and Allan and his crew abandon ship, leaving Tintin and his friends to extinguish the blaze and save the vessel. To be honest, the fire on the ship is a little confusing. At first, it seems as if Allan has sabotaged his own ship, simply to kill Tintin and Haddock – a pretty costly plan, given that a bullet for each of them would've worked just as well. But as you read further, it becomes apparent that the fire actually started accidentally. This is an unusual lack of clarity in Hergé's writing and artwork.
It is at this point that our heroes discover that
The Ramona's hold is full of Sudanese and Senegalese slaves. Unfortunately, Hergé's depiction of these Africans is problematic and likely to cause modern readers to wince. For one thing, Hergé draws them all as "rubber-lipped", wide-eyed caricatures...
Then there's the fact that they are referred to by various characters as "Sambo" or "Negroes" – although we should remember that back in the late 1950s, the term "Negro" was actually deemed an acceptably polite term for people of African decent, and a definite improvement on nastier racist terms that were commonly in use at the time. Then there's the slaves' Pidgin English dialect, which, while it might be historically accurate, comes across as rather racist when it's coupled with their apparent lack of intelligence; they seem entirely unable to grasp the fact that they are to be sold as slaves, even when Haddock explains it to them in plain terms.
While some of the earlier Tintin books definitely featured some pretty offensive depictions of Africans (
Tintin in the Congo, I'm looking at you!), I get the feeling that here Hergé is actually trying to depict the slaves in a fairer and less discriminatory way, while also shining a light on the appalling nature of slave trafficking. For this reason, his less-than-flattering depiction of the Africans in
The Red Sea Sharks is pretty disappointing. Little wonder then that, as the civil rights movement gathered pace in the mid-to-late '60s, this story drew accusations of racism from many readers and critics.
The Red Sea Sharks climaxes with Haddock using all his seafaring expertise to evade an attack on
The Ramona from one of Rastapopoulos' submarines, before Tintin and his companions are rescued by the U.S. Navy. As for Rastapopoulos, he escapes to fight another day in a rather nifty-looking aquatic craft...
Upon smashing the slaving ring and returning to Belgium, Tintin and Haddock learn that Abdullah's father has retaken Khemed and, as a result, the mischievous little tyke can return home. However, before the story ends, Hergé serves up one final returning co-star in the form of the intensely irritating insurance salesman Jolyon Wagg...
To sum up, although it was a childhood favourite of mine, I've gotta say that
The Red Sea Sharks really isn't one of Hergé's better Tintin adventures. The plotting, in particular, is kind of sloppy and not terribly well focused at the start of the book. So much so, in fact, that it's sort of reminiscent of the earliest Tintin adventures, when Hergé used to begin a story with little or no idea of where it was supposed to be going. Another criticism would be that, while the plethora of returning characters is fun for longtime readers of the series, it is at the expense of stronger cast members like the Thom(p)son Twins and Professor Calculus who are somewhat underused, and the book suffers as a result. Hergé's unfortunate and rather racist depiction of the African slaves, which is liable to leave a bad taste in the mouth of even the most forgiving fan, doesn't help matters.
Still, on the plus side, the artwork is very nice and the narrative certainly holds the reader's attention for the duration of the book.
The Red Sea Sharks is also pretty humorous in places and that humour is well judged, for the most part, although the comedic scenes do seem to get in the way of the narrative at times. Ultimately, I just can't help feeling that this is Hergé going through the motions, rather than firing on all cylinders. Coming after a trio of superb Tintin books,
Destination Moon,
Explorers on the Moon, and
The Calculus Affair, this subpar adventure seems all the more disappointing.