A Congolese accountant, Bienvenu Mbutu, has unearthed longstanding controversy over the highly popular Adventures of Tintin comic strip series in his demand that one of its books be banned in author Hergé’s home country, Belgium. Were Hergé alive today, he might be on board with Mbutu’s requests. 

Three years ago, the UK’s Commission for Racial Equality demanded the book in question—Tintin in the Congo—be banned for portraying gross racial stereotypes. For instance, a black woman in the book bows to Tintin, proclaiming that, “White man very great. White mister is big juju man!” The book still sits on shelves in the UK, but is sold with a label warning buyers of its offensive content.

While he was living, Hergé himself grappled with his depictions of the Congolese and their relationships with his famed character. First published in 1931, Tintin in the Congo initially included references to the Congo as a Belgian colony. Hergé redrew the book in 1946, sans the overt colonial spin.

And in response to criticism about the book he received, the author-illustrator conceded that his drawings and words reflected the attitudes toward Africans at the time, which were offensive and demeaning.

One translation from an interview with Hergé quotes him as saying, “With Congo … I was imbued by the prejudices of the middle-class milieu in which I lived. In fact, Soviets and Congo were the sins of my youth … If I had to redo them, I would certainly write them quite differently … I admit that the books of my youth were typical of the bourgeois mentality of that time.”

The Tintin controversy in Belgium will likely proceed as it did in Britain, resulting in a warning label instead of an outright ban, which Mbutu says he’s willing to accept. It might be of consideration to include Hergé’s explanations on the warning, too.