Land of Black Gold had had a troubled publishing history, but the completed adventure eventually appeared in 1948–50. It was set in the British Mandate of Palestine and featured the conflict between Jews, Arabs and British troops. When Methuen was translating the Adventures of Tintin into English, Israel had long since been in existence, and Methuen asked for it to be edited. Hergé took the opportunity to redraw the few problematic pages, as well as the pages before that: the freighter that appeared before that was based on Hergé's imagination, due to lack of resources at the time. The earlier version, published in 1950, was reprinted by Casterman as a facsimile edition, but internationally was completely replaced by the newer version.
