The Adventure of Tintin and Snowy

Characters

There are more than 350 characters in the Adventures of Tintin.

Here are the main ones :

• Tintin : He is the hero of this comic. He is a young Belgian reporter, but it is impossible to give him an age. He is always accompanied by his dog, Snowy.
  He knows how to drive a car, a motorbike, a plane, a tank, to fight and he is very smart.
  In general, Tintin fights anybody who does bad things (drugs, slaves traffic) and always helps the ones in need and often puts his own life in jeopardy to save others. He is very loyal in friendship and forgives easily.

  First apparition : 1929
  In : Tintin in the Land of the Soviets

• Snowy : He is the Tintin’s loyal dog. Even though he is only a dog, Snowy has a very human character. He is often split between his duty and his greed but he often helps his master out of difficult situations.
  He also loves alcohol and is afraid of spiders which in some cases puts him in very funny situations.

  First apparition : 1929
  In : Tintin in the Land of the Soviets

• Captain Haddock : He is Tintin’s best friend. He has been sailing for 20 years when he meets Tintin. At that time, he is the captain of the Karaboudjan and is facing great difficulties with alcohol. Tintin will try to help him out and since then, they will be best friends.
  He is a very expressive character, which shows all his states of mind : enthusiasm, anger or defeat. He has famous expressions like : "Thundering typhoons", "Billions of blistering barnacles", "Filibusters" and "Pirates".

  First apparition : 1941
  In : The Crab with the golden claws

• Professor Calculus : He is worldwide recognized scientific. He is a very nice person and very smart and he will be of a great help to Tintin and Captain Haddock in many adventures : he will be the one inventing the submarine used to find Red Rackham's Treasure, the rocket used to go on the Moon
  He is ear-impaired which puts him and other characters in funny situations.

  First apparition : 1944
  In : Red Rackham's Treasure

• Thomson & Thompson : They are very incompetent and stupid detectives. They look alike which suggests they are twins and their only difference, which enables everybody to who is who, is in their moustache.
  They are always on secrete missions and try to be discrete but they never succeed. Still, they are part of Tintin’s friends and annoy Captain Haddock most the time.

  First apparition : 1934
  In : Cigars of the Pharaoh

• General Alcazar : Tintin meets General Alcazar in his country, San Theodoros, in South America where Tintin becomes his aide de camp.
  He will meet him again in The Seven crystal balls where Alcazar, who lost the power in his country, has become a knife thrower under the name of Ramon Zarate.
  He will then meet him briefly in The Red Shark Sea . He will have a major role in Tintin and the Picaros where Tintin, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus will help him recover the power in his country.

  First apparition : 1937
  In : The Broken Ear

• Bianca Castafiore : She is an Italian opera singer. Nobody really likes to listen to her. She will help and save Tintin and his friends many times throughout their adventures.
  She is the only important feminine character. She is very fond of Captain Haddock and journalists in The Castafiore Emerald where journalists announce her and Captain Haddock’s engagement.

  First apparition : 1939
  In : King Ottokar’s Sceptre

• Tchang : Tchang is the first "human" friend Tintin makes in his adventures in The Blue Lotus. Tintin saves him from drowning in Yang Tsé Kiang river. To thank him, Tchang decides to stay with Tintin and help him. Later, he appears to be in the center of Tintin’s adventures in Tibet where Tintin is sure he survived a plane crash.
  Tchang is in fact inspired by a real friend of Hergé, Tchang Tchong-Jen, who helped him in his researches on China when he was preparing The Blue Lotus.

  First apparition : 1936
  In : The Blue Lotus

• Roberto Rastapopoulos : Worst enemy of Tintin. He is a billionaire and sometimes appears under the alias name Marqui di Gorgonzola. He is the incarnation of evil and takes part in many criminal activities.
  He appears the first time in Cigars of the Pharaoh where at first he seems very friendly with Tintin but finally turns out to be the brain of the opium traffic Tintin is fighting against.
  Tintin has to face him again in Coke in Stock where Rastapopoulos trades slaves. His last apparition is in Flight 714 to Sydney where he kidnaps billionaire Carreidas to obtain his Swiss bank account secret codes.
  He might appear is the last unfinished album, Tintin and Alph-Art under the name of Endaddine Akass but we don’t know exactly what happened to him after he’s been kidnapped by aliens in the previous adventures in Sydney.

  First apparition : 1932
  In : Cigars of the Pharaoh

• Mitsuhirato : He is Japanese and Tintin’s enemy in The Blue Lotus.
  At first, Mitsuhirato appears to be a honest businessman, owner of a ladies clothes shop. Tintin finds out that Mitsuhirato owns the Blue Lotus, an opium place and that he is involved in a drug traffic. He also discovers that Mitsuhirato is a Japanese spy in China.
  Tintin, with the help of Tchang will manage to have Mitsuhirato and his boss Rastapopoulos arrested. At the end of the album, we find out that Mitsuhirato committed hara-kiri.

  First apparition : 1936
  In : The Blue Lotus

• Doctor MÜller : He is one of Tintin’s enemy. Tintin fights him for the first time in the Black Island. Under cover of his medical activities, Müller is in fact part of an international counterfeiters group. Discovered, Müller goes to live in Khemed (Land of Black Gold).
  He is the one who kidnaps Abdallah, Ben Kalish Ezab’s son. Tintin beats him again and delivers Abdallah. His last apparition is in The Red Sea Sharks where he seems to be a general in Bab El Ehr’s army.

  First apparition : 1938
  In : The Black Island

Top of the page

Homepage			Popquiz
	Hergé	Albums

Ariane Nade - December 2010