:krofl

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LONDON (AFP) - Sales of a Tintin comic book have rocketed since Britain's Commission for Racial Equality claimed it was racist, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Sales of "Tintin in the Congo" have shot up by 3,800 percent after the CRE watchdog claimed it contained potentially highly offensive material, said The Daily Telegraph.

The comic has reached number eight on Internet retailer Amazon's most popular books list, the broadsheet reported.

A CRE spokesman accepted that its interjection could have sparked the rise in sales.

"It is a delicate balance but because we had a complaint from a member of the public we felt we had no choice," he said, according to the newspaper.

Borders, a British chain of bookstores, said Wednesday it had yanked copies of "Tintin in the Congo" from its children's sections following the CRE saying that it "beggared belief" that they should sell the comic.

"This book contains imagery and words of hideous racial prejudice, where the 'savage natives' look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles," a CRE spokeswoman had said.

"How and why do Borders think that it's okay to peddle such racist material?"

The CRE said it was contacted by a Borders customer last month who saw the book on sale in London.

"Tintin in the Congo", which first appeared in Belgian newspaper Le Vingtieme Siecle as a comic strip in 1930-1931, is part of the series "The Adventures of Tintin" by the Belgian author and illustrator Herge.

But its tale of boy reporter Tintin's trip with his dog Snowy to what was then the Belgian Congo is seen as controversial by some because of its depiction of colonialism and racism, as well as casual violence towards animals.

Herge later said the book was merely a reflection of the naive views of the time. Some of the scenes were revised for later editions.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070714/ennew_afp/entertainmentbritainbelgiumbookscomictintin_070714083801