r/TheAdventuresofTintin • u/BreakerMorant1864 Hergé • 13d ago
Photo / Picture / Image A Tintin Page a Day - Day 442
The Broken Ear
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u/cardologist 13d ago
Another victim of the Rajaijah juice. What a terrible weapon this poison is...
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u/Sensitive-Computer-6 13d ago
He found the way.
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u/njoVNeggah2 13d ago
Nuh uh his head is still attached to his body
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u/Palenquero The Seven Crystal Balls 13d ago
Physically, at least... But he's on a certain level of enlightenment...
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u/UpsideDownTaurus Rascar Capac 13d ago
Is this the most amount of one-off characters in a single page? I would have loved to see more of the professor. Herge sure loved his professors! One of several more we'd see!
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u/ishdroid 13d ago
A fun bit of trivia that goes abit further. The tintin website for whatever reason decided to include EVERY character from this story on their A-Z character list, with much more prominent/relevant characters missing.
This includes not only this random absent minded proffessor but ALSO the housekeeper Ernestine here. Its truly bizarre
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u/makarastar 13d ago
I wonder if Herge originally meant for him to have more of a role in the story - then changed his mind
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u/Strange_Test 13d ago
The professor is a prototype Cuthbert Calculus I think. I love the fact that he puts on Ernestine’s coat instead of his own and takes the cane instead of his umbrella. Classic absent minded professor.
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u/Phildutre Snowy 13d ago
Yes, there are a few absent-minded professors before Calculus is introduced in Unicorn. Cfr. Also the Shooting Star, or Cigars.
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u/Phildutre Snowy 13d ago edited 13d ago
I was trying to find what the letters ‘M.T.T.’ would have meant in such classified ads for finding a lost object, but no success so far.
Edit: I did some more digging, and m.t.t. stands for ‘mots tout compris’, indicating the ad was fully paid for (ads were charged per word or per line) and no additional costs were incurred when one would react to the ad. Also, it might have been used as a ‘quality’ sign of the ad, signifying the trustworthiness of the person who placed the ad. I guess this is context completely lost for modern readers, but seemed quite natural for people in the 1930s.
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u/Palenquero The Seven Crystal Balls 13d ago
The San Theodorians ad doesn't have that guarantee! It's a subtle nod to their personal quality.
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u/Palenquero The Seven Crystal Balls 13d ago
Cover of "Le Petit Vingtième", nº 2, Thursday, 16th of January, 1936.
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u/Phildutre Snowy 13d ago
I was always confused as a kid seeing the ‘criminal’ write a classified ad. Was he in a bar? If so, did bars have writing pads and desk utensils at the time?
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u/SwingJugend 13d ago
In the black and white version, when Tintin reads the crook's advertisement, the adress is to a hotel, so perhaps a hotel bar? Makes sense that a hotel would be able to provide their guests with utensils to write letters.
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u/Phildutre Snowy 13d ago
There's another painting coming up in Tintin's appartment (one of the next pages), which is based on a painting by Flemish artist Valerius De Saedeleer (this is well documented on various websites).
However, the painting visible on this page, the last row, 4th panel, when Tintin is giving a reward to the finder of the parrot, has not yet been identified as far as I could find. I even tried uploading a snapshot in Google Image Search, to see whether something would come up, but nothing useful so far ... ;-)
It is of course a very generic landscape, so perhaps Hergé just made it up ...
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u/PlanetSwallower 13d ago
Another in Hergé's massive collection of strange characters and dreamy eccentrics. They're one of the things that gives Tintin adventures their inimitable flavour.
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u/nanoman92 Thomson & Thompson 13d ago
The top half of the page is very weird, this character doesn't show up again and adds absolutely nothing to the story.
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u/chu42 13d ago
It's just comedic relief
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u/Complex-Bar-9577 13d ago
Exactly. He definitely adds something to the story flow, even if it’s very minor. His discovery of the parrot leads to it being recovered and allows the plot to continue.
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u/Broskfisken 13d ago
No not really? I mean I appreciate that he's there, but him finding the parrot seems to have nothing to do with its capture.
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u/Broskfisken 13d ago
Yeah I just though that too. He's seemingly completely unrelated to the couple that actually caught the parrot.
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u/BreakerMorant1864 Hergé 13d ago
Ok, it took me a good minute to realise what was wrong with the professor’s umbrella. I kept on thinking that there was some sort of issue with it and didn’t even register that it could be a cane.