List of The Adventures of Tintin characters

The Adventures of Tintin features a vast array of supporting characters.

This is the list of fictional characters in The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé.

The supporting characters Hergé created for his series have been cited as far more developed than the central character, each imbued with a strength of character and depth of personality which has been compared with that of the characters of Charles Dickens. Hergé used the supporting characters to create a realistic world in which to set his protagonists' adventures. To further the realism and continuity, characters would recur throughout the series. It has been speculated that the Nazi occupation of Belgium during WWII, and the subsequent restrictions imposed upon Hergé, forced him to focus on characterisation to avoid depicting troublesome political situations. The major supporting cast was developed during this period.

Main characters

Tintin

Main article: Tintin (character)

Snowy

Main article: Snowy (character)

Captain Haddock

Main article: Captain Haddock

Professor Calculus

Main article: Professor Calculus

Thomson and Thompson

Main article: Thomson and Thompson

Bianca Castafiore

Main article: Bianca Castafiore

Nestor

Main article: Nestor (Tintin character)

Chang Chong-Chen

Main article: Chang Chong-Chen

Rastapopoulos

Main article: Rastapopoulos

Jolyon Wagg

Main article: Jolyon Wagg

Supporting characters

Alfredo Topolino

Alfredo Topolino is a Swiss expert in ultrasonics residing in Nyon, Switzerland, who appears in The Calculus Affair. An acquaintance of Professor Calculus, he survives first an assault on his doorstep then the destruction of his house by Bordurian agents interested in Calculus's work. His manservant Boris works for the secret service of that country.

Allan Thompson

Allan is a criminal henchman, often involved in smuggling and other criminal activities. Originally the treacherous first mate of Captain Haddock, keeping him drunk and running the ship to smuggle opium, Allan moved on to take orders from Omar Ben Salaad in The Crab with the Golden Claws. He reappears in The Red Sea Sharks in league with Rastapopoulos, where his ship is used in slave trading. In Flight 714, he is the only one of Rastapopoulos' accomplices who Rastapopoulos does not mention he plans to betray. Allan incurs his wrath, however, when he accidentally throws a grenade near him, then mentions a proboscis monkey reminds him of someone he knows. Allan was shown savagely beaten by escaping Sondonesians, causing him to suffer severe injuries and loss of all his teeth, resulting in babyish speech. After escaping a volcanic eruption on the island and fleeing in a rubber raft with the other criminals, he and everyone aboard the raft are hypnotised by aliens and compelled to board a spaceship, which whisks them away to an unknown fate. While Rastapopoulos was apparently slated to return in the unfinished album Tintin and Alph-Art, Allan's ultimate fate remains unrevealed.

His name is Allan Thompson in the original French, but English translations leave out his surname to avoid confusion with Tintin's friends Thomson and Thompson.

Allan is portrayed by Daniel Mays in the motion-capture film The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn which merges plots from several books.

Alonso Perez and Ramon Bada

Alonso Perez and Ramon Bada are the chief antagonists in The Broken Ear. They work solely for themselves in obtaining a diamond concealed in a fetish. Perez, an engineer, is the leader of the two. Bada, the follower, is a knife thrower, and uses more Spanish in his speech than Perez. While engaged with Tintin in a hand-to-hand combat for the diamond, Ramon and Alonso fall into the sea and drown, and are shown being taken away to Hell by little smiling winged demons.

Aristides Silk

(French: Aristide Filoselle)

Aristides Silk is a pickpocket who becomes a pivotal character in The Secret of the Unicorn. Silk claims he is not a thief, but admits he is a kleptomaniac. He explains he adores wallets and displays his large collection, none of which have been emptied of their contents. He is first seen in the market near the start of the story, moving away from Thomson and Thompson just before their wallets are stolen. He later steals Tintin's wallet containing the parchments of Sir Francis Haddock that hold the location of Red Rackham's treasure. Somehow he is among the invited guests at the end of Red Rackham's Treasure in the Maritime Gallery at Marlinspike Hall.

Aristides Silk is portrayed by Toby Jones in the motion-capture film The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn which merges plots from several books.

Arturo Benedetto Giovanni Giuseppe Pietro Arcangelo Alfredo Cartoffoli da Milano

Arturo Benedetto Giovanni Giuseppe Pietro Arcangelo Alfredo Cartoffoli da Milano is the expert Italian driver of a Lancia Aurelia GT in The Calculus Affair. He eagerly helps Tintin and Captain Haddock pursue Syldavian agents who kidnapped Professor Calculus in the story's car chase scene. While speeding through a built-up area in the French Haute Savoie on market day, he was stopped by a gendarme who wanted to record his name. The flabbergasted gendarme meekly let them off with "Don't do it again." When they finally stopped the Syldavian car and didn't find Calculus inside, Arturo accused Tintin and the Captain of making up their story to get a free ride before zooming away. As an Italian driver, he has great pride in Italian cars, which he claims are number one in the world.

The Arumbayas

The Arumbayas are an indigenous people living in the South American rainforest (along the fictional river Coliflor). They first appear in The Broken Ear where, investigating the theft of an Arumbaya fetish with a broken ear, Tintin and Snowy venture into the San Theodoros jungle. The British explorer Ridgewell lives with them. Despite having a reputation for being vicious savages, the Arumbayas prove to be relatively civil when Tintin encounters them (their bad reputation may in fact be down to the actions of their near-neighbors, the Rumbabas, who behead anyone who passes their way, shrink the heads down, and put them on display). The Arumbayas return in Tintin and the Picaros, where they cooperate with the forces of General Alcazar.

Bab El Ehr

Bab El Ehr, a self-styled "sheik", is an Arab insurgent who fights Emir Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab, ruler of the fictional Middle Eastern state of Khemed; though overall he comes across as a villain rather than a noble fighter. In Land of Black Gold he is shown allied with Doctor Müller and his Skoil Petroleum Company, and fighting a guerilla war against Ben Kalish Ezab. Bab El Ehr's men mistake Tintin for a weapons smuggler working for the sheik, and rescue him from Ben Kalish Ezab's soldiers. After discovering the mistake, Bab El Ehr accuses Tintin of being a spy for the Emir, and makes him a prisoner. Tintin collapses from thirst after a long march on foot through the desert, and is left behind by Bab El Ehr. Bab El Ehr does not play a role in the second part of the story, the role of primary antagonist being taken by Doctor Müller.

Bab El Ehr plays a major behind-the-scenes role in The Red Sea Sharks, having used Mosquito fighter planes provided by J. M. Dawson to carry out a successful coup d'état and overthrow the Emir. After Dawson discovers Tintin spying on his arms dealership, he warns Bab El Ehr, who puts out a reward for the capture of Tintin and Haddock. Soon, the Marquis di Gorgonzola, the alias of Rastapopoulos, takes over the role of primary antagonist. At the close of The Red Sea Sharks, Bab El Ehr's regime is overthrown and he is presumably executed.

His name is derived from the Brussels dialect word babbelaar or "tattler".

The Bird brothers

(French: Les frères Loiseau)

The Bird brothers, Max and G. Bird, are the main adversaries in The Secret of the Unicorn. They are identified both as "gangsters" and as "antique dealers" in the book.

In the original French their names are Loiseau (L'oiseau, French for "the bird"). One of them, Maxime, is renamed Max in the English version—"bird" being English slang for time spent in prison, i.e., Max Bird meaning a long sentence and G suggesting Gustav or Gaol (jail bird). In the Golden Press edition translated into American English, the name is spelled Byrd.

The Bird brothers, like Tintin, are looking for the three parchments of Sir Francis Haddock which hold the secret of Red Rackham's treasure. They operate from their manor, Marlinspike Hall, where at one point they hold Tintin prisoner to force him to surrender the parchments. Furthermore, they threaten him with torture while refusing to accept Tintin's explanation that a pickpocket had stolen them earlier. Thus Tintin was forced to escape and managed to contact Captain Haddock and Thomson and Thompson, enabling them to arrive to help him before he came to harm. Amongst their other crimes is the attempted murder of their helper, Barnaby, just before he can tell Tintin of their plot. The Bird Brothers are eventually captured by Thomson and Thompson. Max escapes, but is later caught by the police while trying to leave the country.

In Red Rackham's Treasure, Max Bird has escaped again and is spotted near the Sirius, a ship about to set sail with Tintin and Haddock in their search for the treasure. Thomson and Thompson are thus sent as part of the expedition in order to look out for him, but he never appears, the detectives concluding at the end of the book that he was discouraged to take action due to their presence.

The Bird brothers have not been seen since, though they were depicted in sketches for the never finished Tintin and Alph-Art.

Bobby Smiles

Bobby Smiles is the Chicago boss of the rival gang fighting Al Capone in Tintin in America. He remains Tintin's adversary throughout much of the story. Smiles even manages to turn the American Indians against Tintin. He is eventually captured and sent to the police.

In the animated series, Smiles works for Capone, rather than against him.

Captain Chester

(French: Capitaine Chester)

An old friend of Captain Haddock, Captain Chester is a gruff merchant skipper with red hair and a bushy red moustache. He first appears in The Shooting Star in Iceland, where he bumps into Captain Haddock at the docks and launches into a bizarre greeting ritual with Haddock which Tintin at first interprets as the build-up to a fight. However, Haddock and Chester warmly clasp hands and take Tintin to a local bar to reminisce over a bottle of whisky. Chester is captain of the Sirius, a merchant trawler, and uses it to secretly refuel Haddock's research vessel in Iceland when their competitors block the supply, allowing his friend to continue his voyage.

Chester later lends the Sirius to Haddock when he and Tintin set off to find Red Rackham's Treasure. Chester is briefly mentioned in The Seven Crystal Balls—Tintin and Haddock attempt to visit him while he is docked at a port, but he departs before they arrive—and is one of the people that sends Haddock telegrams in The Castafiore Emerald.

Chiquito

Chiquito a full-blooded Peruvian Quechua, is first seen as the sidekick to General Alcazar in The Seven Crystal Balls. His real name is Rupac Inca Huaco and he is one of the few remaining descendants of the Incas.

He assists Alcazar in his knife-throwing act but this serves as a cover since Chiquito, unknown to the General, is out to punish the European explorers who violated the tomb of his ancestors. He does so by breaking into the homes or offices of the explorers and breaking crystal balls in their presence. It is later revealed that the balls contain a coca-derived drug that plunges them into a deep sleep.

One night, at the home of Calculus's friend Professor Tarragon, Chiquito breaks the final crystal ball in Tarragon's room after climbing down the chimney. He also seizes the jewelry of Rascar Capac, the Inca mummy whose tomb was violated. As he escapes he is shot and wounded by a police officer and hides in a tree. In the morning, Calculus finds a bracelet that belonged to Rascar Capac and puts it on. He is promptly kidnapped by Chiquito and his men for sacrilege. To get past a roadblock he and his accomplices switch cars. Chiquito takes the professor to Peru and Tintin and Captain Haddock go after them. He appears in Prisoners of the Sun on the Pachacamac and catches Tintin who has found Calculus. When Chiquito calls for his companion, Tintin takes the opportunity to escape and jumps into the water, swimming back to Haddock's boat as Chiquito shoots at him. Their next meeting is at the Temple of the Sun, high in the mountains, where the Incas perform the ceremony of burning Tintin and his friends at the stake, only to be interrupted by an eclipse.

Chiquito is often confused with Huascar who bears a close resemblance to him, however Chiquito is the more ruthless of the two.

Christopher Willoughby-Drupe and Marco Rizotto

(French: Jean-Loup de la Battellerie et Walter Rizotto)

A writer and photographer working for the magazine Paris Flash, they first appear in The Castafiore Emerald where, to the fury of Captain Haddock and the amusement of Bianca Castafiore, they write a sensational article for their magazine announcing that the captain and the diva are engaged. They later appear briefly in Tintin and the Picaros. In the redrawn version of The Black Island, Willoughby-Drupe is shown interviewing the old man in the pub while Rizotto is in the crowd of reporters welcoming Tintin at the docks.

Hergé created the pair after being interviewed for Paris Match and finding the resulting piece dubious.

Colonel Jorgen

Colonel Jorgen is a sworn enemy of Tintin. They first meet in King Ottokar's Sceptre, where he is known simply as "Boris" and is a relatively minor character, supposedly in service of King Muskar XII as aide-de-camp. In fact Jorgen is a double agent for the neighboring republic of Borduria. To all intents and purposes he is a Syldavian, but he is actually a traitor out to betray his country one way or the other. His fate at the end of the novel is not shown, but he is apparently arrested or discredited after the Bordurian plot is foiled.

Colonel Jorgen returns in Destination Moon and confronts Tintin again in Explorers on the Moon, having stowed away on the moon rocket that Tintin and his friends are piloting. Frank Wolff was told he would be a journalist; he only reveals his true objective when on the moon. When most of the group leaves on the moon-tank, Jorgen knocks Tintin out from behind, ties him up, and leaves him below. He and Wolff attempt to maroon the rocket's crew on the moon, but is prevented from doing so by Tintin, who severes the wires and holds Jorgen at gunpoint. Jorgen escapes custody during the return flight when Thomson and Thompson think handcuffs would be more secure than rope, and attempt to kill the rocket crew. Wolff turns on Jorgen for this, and in the ensuing struggle Jorgen inadvertently shoots himself through the heart, dying instantly. His body is subsequently ejected into space.

Colonel Sponsz

The monocle-wearing Colonel Sponsz is a native of the nation of Borduria, and first appears in The Calculus Affair. In this book, he is the Chief of Police of the Bordurian capital Szohôd, as well as the head of the Secret Police or ZEP, which operates on behalf of the country's dictator Marshal Kûrvi-Tasch. He is the mastermind behind the kidnapping of Professor Calculus by the ZEP to force Calculus to use his research on ultrasonic waves to create a weapon of mass destruction. He also arranges for Tintin and Captain Haddock, who are attempting to rescue Calculus, to be shadowed by ZEP agents Krônik and Klûmsi, who pose as translators. After Tintin and Haddock escape from Krônik and Klûmsi and hide in the Opera, Sponsz orders the police to surround the Opera while going to hear Bianca Castafiore sing. Unbeknownst to Sponsz, Tintin and Haddock are hiding in Castafiore's closet when Sponsz visits her in her dressing room. The two protagonists thus hear the entirety of the Bordurian plan for Calculus. Tintin and Haddock also manage to steal passes for two Red Cross representatives and a release order for Calculus from Sponsz's coat; they use these and some disguises obtained from the Opera to sneak Calculus out of the fortress of Bakhine, into neighbouring Syldavia, and home.

Sponsz reappears again as the primary antagonist of Tintin and the Picaros. In this book, he has been transferred by General Kûrvi-Tasch to become a technical adviser to General Tapioca, the new ruler of San Theodoros, and is tasked with reorganizing the Secret Police there. In San Theodoros, he takes the Spanish spelling of his name, Esponja. Sponsz plants false documents in Bianca Castafiore's luggage, which provides "proof" of a conspiracy led by her against General Tapioca, justifying the arrest of Castafiore. Sponsz later arrests Thomson and Thompson as well. His motivation in this act was the humiliation subjected upon him by Tintin and Haddock in The Calculus Affair, and thus aimed for the entrapment and capture of Tintin and Captain Haddock, whom he knew would come to the rescue of Castafiore. He then uses Pablo, Tintin's ally in The Broken Ear but now a double agent for Tapioca in the camp of General Alcazar and the Picaros, to set up a second trap for Tintin, Haddock, Calculus, and General Alcazar. Sponsz appears again in the end of the book as he is captured by the Picaros along with General Tapioca, and is sent back to Borduria.

Corporal Diaz

(French: Caporal Diaz)

In The Broken Ear, Corporal Diaz was demoted from Colonel by General Alcazar who replaced him with Tintin after Diaz complained that San Theodoros had too many colonels and too few corporals. In revenge, he engaged in repeated, unsuccessful assassination attempts against Alcazar, the last of which killed Diaz himself when he assumed that the bomb was due to go off an hour later than it was. Ironically, Alcazar had arrested and sentenced Tintin to death due to faked evidence against him and promoted Diaz back to colonel just before he died.

Cutts the Butcher

(French: Boucherie Sanzot)

Cutts the Butcher runs the local butcher's shop whose phone number of 431 is frequently mistaken for 421 to Marlinspike Hall. As a result the mansion's inhabitants are endlessly plagued by orders for lamb chops and sausages.

The irony is that when making calls himself Captain Haddock usually ends up getting put through to Cutts' shop, rather than the place he was actually calling.

The unseen delivery man from Cutts' butcher shop plays a vital role in The Calculus Affair by offering Professor Calculus a lift to the village just in time to save him from a Bordurian kidnapping attempt.

It would appear that Cutts is also the local mayor, since he can be seen dressed very formally along with the local municipal band congratulating Haddock and Bianca Castafiore on their "engagement" in The Castafiore Emerald.

He had one last reference at the start of Tintin and Alph-Art, where a call for him was made. Later, Captain Haddock mistakes the name "Fourcart" for Cutts, and is embarrassed to find he was mistaken.

He also appeared in a TV ad for cooking oil with Professor Calculus in 1979.

In French the name of the butcher's shop Boucherie Sanzot is a pun. Sanzot sounds like sans os, which means without bones. The English translation uses Cutts to make a different pun.

Decimus Phostle

(French: Professeur Hippolyte Calys)

Professor Decimus Phostle appears in The Shooting Star as the director of an observatory whom Tintin consults about a large bright star he saw in Ursa Major. Phostle claims that it is a ball of fire which will hit the Earth and cause the end of the world the following morning, and actually looks forward to this, thinking that predicting the end of mankind would make him famous. Initially disappointed that the meteor has missed the Earth, Phostle consoles himself by naming an unknown metal fallen from the asteroid after himself: "phostlite".

Professor Phostle then leads an expedition of scientists to follow Tintin and Captain Haddock to attempt to retrieve the fallen phostlite from the sea.

Phostle was to return in Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon as a villain, but that early draft by Bernard Heuvelmans was abandoned by Hergé.

Doctor Müller

(French: Docteur Müller)

Doctor J. W. Müller is a doctor whose position and qualifications serve as a cover for more villainous activities, including that of criminal, Nazi secret agent, and mercenary. Müller frequently uses profanities such as “Kruzitürken” that are of Bavarian origin, suggesting his background to be Bavarian or Austrian. Müller's first appearance was in The Black Island.

Doctor Müller also appeared in Land of Black Gold and The Red Sea Sharks. In both, he helped the rebel Bab El Ehr in his attempts to overthrow the Emir, Ben Kalish Ezab. He designed Formula Fourteen, which increased the explosive properties of petrol, and sabotaged the pipelines of Arabex, the Emir's preferred petrol company. While in his initial appearance he wore a goatee and mustache and had a plump physique, in later appearances he wears a full-grown beard and is leaner, enabling him to pose as an Arab. In The Red Sea Sharks he had changed his name to Mull Pasha (shown in the pile of newspaper clippings near the end of the story).

Once Bab el Ehr is overthrown at the end of The Red Sea Sharks, Doctor Müller is also captured and presumably executed or incarcerated.

Doctor Krollspell

(French: Docteur Krollspell)

Doctor Krollspell appears in Flight 714. He is an associate of Tintin's enemy Rastapopoulos, but he later changes sides when it is in his best interest to turn from his employer.

Doctor Krollspell was the head of a psychiatric clinic in New Delhi (Cairo in the English version of the story). He developed a truth serum that Rastapopoulos intended to use on kidnapped millionaire Laszlo Carreidas in order to learn where Carreidas had left a large part of his personal fortune.

It's been suggested that Krollspell is an ex-Nazi scientist, probably based on Josef Mengele, the infamous "Angel of Death", or Adolf Hitler's quack doctor, Theodor Morell. In an interview, Hergé himself suggested that Krollspell had worked in a concentration camp—Flight 714 having been published some 20 years after the war.

"Kroll" is also part of the name of the Krolloper Berlin Opera House, where the Nazi-dominated German parliament met following the Reichstag fire of 1933. However, "Krollspell" is simply Brussels dialect for krulspeld, which means "hair curler".

By the end of Flight 714, Doctor Krollspell had lost his memory of the events that had occurred. A news program in the story announced that Krollspell was found in India with no memory of how he got there.

Doctor Patella

(French: Docteur Rotule)

A ginger bearded osteopathic doctor who appears briefly in Destination Moon (whose model skeleton is arrested by Thomson and Thompson) and Explorers on the Moon, where he attends to an unconscious Captain Haddock after his arrival back on Earth. He also sent a congratulatory telegram to Haddock when (incorrect) news of his engagement to Bianca Castafiore was announced in The Castafiore Emerald.

The name Patella (Rotule) has a medical origin. It means "kneecap".

In 2000, on one episode of the French-language version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, 73 percent of the voting audience correctly identified Doctor Patella (Doctor Rotule) as the doctor who treated Captain Haddock in Explorers on the Moon. This led to allegations that the show was rigged: one Tintin fan questioned how such a large portion of the audience could pick from four options the correct answer, especially given Doctor Patella's very minor role in the series. A psychoanalyst postulated that children remember proper names much better than adults, hence its retention by members of the audience who read Tintin in their youth.

Endaddine Akass

Akass is a villainous guru who appears in Tintin and Alph-Art. His voice sounds familiar to Tintin, but as the book was unfinished, we do not know if his true identity is Rastapopoulos.

The Fakir

This fakir, called "The Eyes", appears in Cigars of the Pharaoh where he is a high-ranking member of an opium smuggling ring. He uses the dangerous Rajaijah juice which drives people literally mad. Among his talents are hypnosis, the Indian rope trick, and escapology (to the point where he is offended by Tintin thinking he could tie him up). He is eventually captured when the leader accidentally knocks him out with a rock that had been intended to knock Tintin out instead.

In the original black-and-white version published in 1932–1934, the Fakir tells his boss on the phone how he intends to bribe an asylum guard into arranging Tintin's "suicide". It is also later hinted that he is the chairman of the meeting of the hooded leaders of the drug cartel.

In the sequel, The Blue Lotus, the Fakir escapes from prison and again uses his darts to poison a Chinese man sent to warn Tintin against Mitsuhirato, another leader of the drug smugglers.

When the Blue Lotus was originally published in black-and-white in 1934, the Fakir can be seen escaping through the forest with his blowpipe after shooting the dart at the Chinese man. Not taking any chances, Tintin tells the Maharajah that he will not leave until he knows that the Fakir is unable to do the Maharajah any harm. The next day they receive a telegram from the police announcing The Fakir had been captured.

Frank Wolff

Wolff appears in Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon. In an interview, Hergé described him as clever, stating he had a PhD in Mathematics with Mechanics and a BEng in Chemical Engineering, but also described him as feeble and quiet. He is the rocket engineer who assists Tintin's friend Professor Calculus during the Syldavian expedition to the moon.

Wolff is ultimately exposed as a spy who was coerced into helping an unnamed foreign power hijack the moon rockets he had helped build, after they learned of his former compulsive gambling and heavy debt. As the rocket ship is returning to Earth without enough oxygen for Tintin and his friends, Wolff, still overcome with guilt over the way he had betrayed his companions, redeems himself for his past mistakes and sacrifices himself for the survival of the group by throwing himself into space. Even the cynical Captain Haddock who had, until the last moment, still suspected Wolff of treachery, was moved by his selfless act.

General Alcazar

A close friend of Tintin and a general in the army of San Theodoros, General Alcazar is involved in a never-ending struggle for power with his arch-rival General Tapioca, both men claiming leadership of the country and renaming its capital after themselves when arriving in power. Alcazar runs the country of San Theodoros in The Broken Ear, but has lost power and become a cabaret act in Europe by the time of The Seven Crystal Balls. In The Red Sea Sharks, Alcazar seems to have returned to politics as he is discovered to be buying weapons from a dealer. Finally in Tintin and the Picaros Alcazar has returned to his country and is finding it difficult to lead the Picaros on a guerilla operation in the tropical forest. He is also now married to a harridan who bullies him. Tintin, though uninterested in his cause, devises a stratagem to return him to power in order to rescue his own friends. As the book ends, Alcazar is once again in charge of the country but it is suggested that he and Tapioca are interchangeable.

General Tapioca

General Tapioca is the arch-rival of Tintin's friend General Alcazar. Tapioca and Alcazar are both generals in the army of the fictional South American Republic of San Theodoros. He assumes dictatorial leadership of the country with comedic frequency. In Tintin and the Picaros, General Tapioca was exiled to Borduria after General Alcazar took control.

Hector Alembick

(French: Professeur Nestor Halambique)

Professor Hector Alembick is a sigillographer—that is, an expert on seals used to officiate state documents. He appears in King Ottokar's Sceptre; Tintin meets him when returning a briefcase the professor had forgotten on a park bench. Professor Alembick is a bespectacled, chain-smoking academic. He tells Tintin of his desire to visit Syldavia to research an ancient seal belonging to the Syldavian monarch King Ottokar IV that he had discovered recently. Tintin then learns that he and the professor are under surveillance by some strange men and warnings are issued to him to mind his own business. He thus offers to act as Alembick's secretary on his journey. On the day before the trip, Alembick calls Tintin by telephone; in the midst of the conversation Tintin hears a struggle and a cry for help before the connection is cut short. When Tintin rushes to the professor's apartment to investigate, he is startled to find the professor calmly packing his bags. Although Alembick's appearance seems unchanged, subtle changes in his behavior lead Tintin to suspect that something is amiss. At the end of the adventure, Tintin discovers that Hector Alembick had indeed been kidnapped and impersonated by his twin brother Alfred (who has unimpaired vision and does not smoke).

Professor Alembick's name is a pun on Alembic, an alchemical still.

Huascar

In Prisoners of the Sun, Huascar is a leading member of the Incas, who worship the Sun in a hidden city in the mountains. Wearing a hat and poncho, Huascar spies on Tintin and Captain Haddock when they arrive in Peru to rescue their friend Cuthbert Calculus. He listens in on their conversation with the chief of police and follows them through the streets of Callao.

At Santa-Clara, he arranges a train "accident" that nearly gets them killed by threatening a guard with the consequences of disobeying the orders of the Inca.

At Jauga, however, he sees Tintin defending a young orange seller named Zorrino from two white men. Surprised that a white foreigner such as Tintin should do such a selfless act, he advises him to stop searching for Calculus since he will be risking his life. Tintin states he will continue anyway, so Huascar gives him a talisman that he claims can keep danger away. Later captured by the Incas, Tintin gives the talisman to Zorrino. The Incas, who intend to kill them for treachery, are then forced to spare the younger boy's life. Present at the scene, Huascar is revealed to be a High Priest of the Sun. He uses a large magnifying glass to set fire to the stake used to burn the westerners, but is thwarted by an eclipse which leads to their release.

Prisoners of the Sun, originally published in Tintin Magazine with additional scenes not included later in book form, included a scene with Huascar. In the magazine version, Tintin and Haddock are at the bridge waiting for an unknown guide when they meet Huascar, who tells them that their guide has gotten sick. He smiles at Haddock's insults and walks away. Zorrino then calls them over to the bridge. He claims that Huascar took him prisoner but that he escaped.

Huascar is sometimes confused with Chiquito who bears a close resemblance to him, however Huascar is the more noble of the two.

Igor Wagner

Igor Wagner is the quiet pianist working for Bianca Castafiore. He is driving with his employer when she first encounters Tintin in King Ottokar's Sceptre. He does not contribute to a plotline until The Castafiore Emerald, when he is discovered to be a gambler who bets on races in secret. He has a small moustache and dresses formally in black. After the thievery of Castafiore's emeralds, his attempts to help only incriminate himself, as it was his footprints found near Castafiore's window, it was him suspiciously rummaging in the attic, and it was he who broke a step on the staircase. He tries to sneak out of his practise sessions (dictated by Castafiore) and instead of practising is caught using a playback tape recorder. He was imprisoned along with Irma and Castafiore in Tintin and the Picaros, before being freed by Tintin.

His name is made up of a humorous reference to two well-known composers: Igor Stravinsky and Richard Wagner.

Irma

The maid of Bianca Castafiore, Irma first appeared in The Calculus Affair before appearing in The Castafiore Emerald. Castafiore describes her as a faithful, loyal, and honest servant. Despite giving a meek impression, she has a strong sense of personal pride: when Thomson and Thompson accuse Irma of stealing Castafiore's emerald, she becomes angry and assaults them with a walking stick. In Tintin and the Picaros she is arrested and put in jail along with the others. She also appears in Tintin and Alph-Art as a background character and is the person who informs Castafiore of Tintin and Captain Haddock's arrival to Endaddine Akass's Villa.

Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine

Appearing in The Secret of the Unicorn, Mr. Sakharine is a collector of models of ships, among which is one of those of the Unicorn. Noticing another model of the Unicorn in a market place, he and another man called Barnaby try to buy it only to find that it has already been claimed by Tintin. Tintin declines all the offers made by Barnaby and Sakharine to buy the model off him.

Tintin's Unicorn is later stolen and he suspects Sakharine of the theft. Visiting Sakharine he discovers the other Unicorn model. Sakharine is later attacked by Barnaby who steals the parchment from the second Unicorn. It is one of three parchments which lead to a treasure. The Bird Brothers are later arrested and claim that the parchments they obtained have since been stolen. Tintin thinks Mr. Sakharine stole the two parchments, but he soon discovers that it was a third party and recovers them.

At the end of Red Rackham's Treasure, Mr. Sakharine can be seen attending the exhibition held at Marlinspike Hall, together with his landlady, showing off the various items recovered from the actual ship itself. He himself has apparently offered Captain Haddock his Unicorn model, which is shown in the display with the other two.

Hergé died while in the planning stages of another Tintin adventure Tintin and Alph-Art which, at his request, remains unfinished. Surviving drafts of the story suggest that Haddock and Tintin notice Sakharine at a meeting hosted by mystic Endaddine Akass.

In the film adaptation The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, he is reimagined as the main antagonist. The film portrays him as the descendant of the pirate Red Rackham, seeking revenge on behalf of his ancestor against Captain Haddock, descendant of Sir Francis Haddock, who killed Rackham.

Sakharine is known as a Russian heritages, due to his Russian name (Russian: Иван Иванович Сахарин Ivan Ivanovich Sakharin)

J. M. Dawson

J. M. Dawson is the Chief of Police of the International Settlement of Shanghai in The Blue Lotus. Although his nationality is not specified by Hergé, the holder of this position was always British throughout the history of the International Settlement. In revenge for Tintin's rebuking of his American friend, the businessman Gibbons, Dawson attempts to have Indian prison guards assault Tintin. Dawson subsequently turns Tintin over to the Japanese who have a price on his head, calmly dismissing Tintin's protest that he is on neutral ground by pointing out that since he does not have papers allowing him to be in the settlement, Dawson has every right to throw him out. Appearing in a more sinister role in The Red Sea Sharks, Dawson sells weapons to both General Alcazar and General Tapioca using the pseudonym Mr. Debrett (French: M. Dubreuil), and is being patronized by Rastapopoulos. He has Tintin and Captain Haddock denied entry to Khemed and plants a bomb on their return plane. His plan ultimately fails; his fate is unknown.

King Muskar XII

King Muskar XII is the monarch of Syldavia. He appears in King Ottokar's Sceptre. A keen motorist who drives his own car and keeps his own gun for protection, he is married to an unnamed queen consort. Because the Crown's sceptre once saved the life of King Ottokar IV in 1360, every year on Saint Vladimir's Day the current king must show the people that he has the sceptre. Otherwise he will be forced to abdicate.

Tintin discovered a plot to steal the sceptre and set out to warn King Muskar XII, though traitorous elements in the king's entourage, led by his aide-de-camp Colonel Boris, were ready to stop him. After punching Boris out of his way, Tintin found himself face-to-face with the king and his aimed gun. After explaining the plot, the monarch was fair-minded enough to check out Tintin's claims, which turned out to be true: the sceptre had been stolen, a constitutional crisis was imminent, and Syldavia was about to be plunged into an invasion by its long-term enemy Borduria. In contrast to many modern monarchs, Muskar then mounts an active role in his government, ordering his ministers and generals to prevent the coup and invasion.

A political party in the story called the Iron Guard may have been inspired by the Fascist paramilitary groups that were widespread in Europe between the wars. The abdication crisis was very similar to that of the Anschluss in Austria in 1938, though the conclusion was not the same.

King Muskar XII and his country do not appear to have been based on definitive models—both apparently were inspired by various Eastern European and Balkan states. Many of these states were monarchies ruled by Carol II of Romania, Zog I of Albania, Alexander I of Yugoslavia, and Boris III of Bulgaria. The king's costumes may have been inspired by the portrait of Spanish king Alfonso XIII and the Rumanian prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza. The king bears a striking resemblance to Zog of Albania, a man who also carried a gun and confronted numerous violent conspiracies.

King Muskar XII is also a military officer. He is sometimes shown wearing a military uniform, holding the rank of Colonel of the Royal Guards. The king's military service is similar to members of other real European royal families, who have members that have served in their nation's militaries.

King Muskar XII is noticeably absent from the other post-war stories set in Syldavia: he does not appear at the launching of the moon rocket in Destination Moon, and Tintin does not call on him for help when his friend Professor Calculus is kidnapped by Bordurian and later Syldavian agents in The Calculus Affair.

Krônik and Klûmsi

(French: Kronick et Himmerszeck)

Krônik and Klûmsi are inept Bordurian secret service agents ostensibly assigned by Colonel Sponsz to ensure Tintin and Captain Haddock's safety and well-being during their visit to the Bordurian capital Szohôd in The Calculus Affair. Presumably based on KGB agents, their real objective is to prevent the two visitors from making indiscreet inquiries in their hunt for Professor Calculus. Tintin and Haddock neutralize the agents by plying them with drinks at dinner and then locking them in their respective hotel rooms. Their names are undoubtedly puns on "chronic" and "clumsy". They appear to be the Bordurian equivalents of Thomson and Thompson.

Kûrvi-Tasch

(French: Maréchal Plekszy-Gladz)

Marshal Kûrvi-Tasch is dictator of the fictional regime of Borduria. Although he never appears as a character in the series, he is mentioned by name and glimpsed in statues and portraits in The Calculus Affair and Tintin and the Picaros. His name is an allusion to his curved moustache, which also appears as diacritical mark in the Bordurian language (an example of this can be seen in his own name). "By the whiskers of Kûrvi-Tasch" is an amusing catch phrase Bordurians often exclaim, referring to their great leader.

Kûrvi-Tasch's Bordurian government closely resembles the Nazi Third Reich. For example, the usage of the country's national insignia (naturally resembling the marshal's moustache) on badges and armbands is similar to the swastika. The greeting "Amaïh Kûrvi-Tasch" (meaning "Hail Kûrvi-Tasch") is similar to the saying "Heil Hitler!"

Laszlo Carreidas

A wealthy aircraft construction tycoon, Laszlo Carreidas becomes embroiled in the adventure Flight 714. While Tintin and his friends are traveling in Indonesia on their way to Sydney, Australia, Captain Haddock mistakes Carreidas sitting in the Jakarta airport for a tramp. His unassuming figure notwithstanding, Carreidas is revealed to be a cunning individual with a long history of unscrupulous behavior not limited to the business world; he is not above cheating Captain Haddock at a game of Battleships with the help of closed-circuit television. A large part of his personal fortune, over ten million dollars, is in a Swiss bank account under a false name and signature, presumably for taxation purposes.

Carreidas is the owner of a brand of soft drink called "Sani-Cola" (a pun on the French pronunciation of "Saint Nicolas"), which apparently contains chlorophyll. The healthfulness of this beverage is brought into question when the whisky-loving Captain Haddock discreetly empties a cup forced upon him by Carreidas into a potted plant—that promptly wilts dramatically.

An aircraft industrialist, Laszlo Carreidas naturally travels in a prototype supersonic business jet, the Carreidas 160. This aircraft is a private plane of the sort owned by wealthy businessmen, with the added particularity that it has swing-wing capabilities. It is possibly the purest, most practical example of the concept to-date. It was designed by Roger Leloup, a Studios Hergé artist whom Hergé would rely upon to create detailed, realistic drawings and elaborate decoration.

Carreidas is kidnapped by the criminal mastermind Rastapopoulos, who intends to take his Swiss fortune, which launches the adventure of Flight 714.

Despite the caution he appears to take with his money, refusing to pay any ransom and with the multiple efforts he has gone to in order to keep his accounts secret, Carreidas generally appears to have a random attitude about his finances, ordering the purchase of multiple paintings simply because a rival ("Onassis") is after them when he originally rejected the idea of purchasing them and appearing more concerned about the loss of a rare hat ("a pre-war Bross & Clackwell") at the conclusion of the novel than the loss of his prototype airplane.

Carreidas' name is a pun: carré d'as means "four aces" in French. Accordingly, the logo on the tail of his business jet consists of four aces.

It seems that Hergé based Carreidas on Marcel Dassault, who possessed a similar combination of wealth, aeronautical engineering genius, and quaint notions of fashion (Dassault's wardrobe remained frozen in the mid-1930s).

Martine Vandezande

Martine Vandezande is a character that only appeared in one book, Tintin and Alph-Art. She wears large glasses and is a follower of Endaddine Akass. She is the assistant of Henri Fourcart.

Mik Kanrokitoff

(French: Mik Ezdanitoff)

Russian writer for the magazine Space Week, Mik Kanrokitoff appears in Flight 714 and helps Tintin, Captain Haddock, and their friends escape from an Indonesian island after Rastapopoulos and his cohorts set off an explosive charge, stirring up the island's volcano. Kanrokitoff wears a small antenna and transmitter which enables him to communicate telepathically with other people and even subject them to mass-hypnosis. He maintains close touch with an unseen race of extraterrestrials and it is their spaceship that enables Tintin and the others to escape the island.

Mik Kanrokitoff was inspired by the Russian-born writer and journalist Jacques Bergier.

'Ezdanitoff' in the original version is a mock Russian surname, another example of Hergé's Bruxellois wordplay, is dat niet tof in Dutch, meaning "isn't that nice".

Miller

Miller is the calculating spymaster from an unnamed power who masterminds the plot to hijack the Syldavian rocket programme in Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon. He was probably the man who offered to help Frank Wolff out of his gambling debts in exchange for information on the rocket programme carried out at the White Sands: Miller is shown in one scene checking a list of personnel at the Centre and presumably finds Wolff's name among them.

Miller is first seen on the plane to Syldavia in Destination Moon. He was seated in the row ahead of Tintin and Captain Haddock and was astonished to hear the Captain mention the name "Calculus". This shows that he was already planning to take over the moon programme which Calculus was working on. He discreetly followed Tintin and Haddock through Klow airport but pulled back when he realised that they were being escorted by the local secret police or Zepo.

With an associate known as the Baron, he then set about parachuting agents into the area of the Centre and obtaining the plans for the experimental unmanned rocket X-FLR6. When X-FLR6 was launched, Miller's technicians were able to intercept it and divert the rocket to their own territory. However, Tintin and Calculus had expected this and destroyed the rocket before it could land.

Miller threatened to have Wolff killed, as he suspected him of double-crossing him, but refrained when it was announced that a manned rocket was to go to the moon. Miller arranged for Colonel Jorgen, an old enemy of Tintin's, to be smuggled aboard. He himself stayed up-to-date with events by listening into radio broadcasts between Earth and the rocket. Ultimately though, his attempt to control the rocket failed—his agents Jorgen and Wolff both perishing in the process. Miller is last seen cursing the rocket's crew and his agents' bungling, wishing that they would all perish in the last stage of the return journey.

Like any good spymaster, Miller designated various codenames to his targets and operations: the Centre was referred to as the "Main Workshop"; Calculus and Haddock were "Mammoth" and "Whale"; and the operation to hijack the manned rocket to the moon was called "Ulysses" (after the Greek hero who also goes on an epic journey and is himself a master of intrigue and deception in Homer's Odyssey).

Mitsuhirato

Mitsuhirato is a sadistic Japanese double agent who appears in The Blue Lotus. He owns a women's clothing shop in Tai P'ing Lu in Shanghai, but is also involved in a drug trafficking cabal with Rastapopoulos and is also working for the Japanese government. Mitsuhirato is, along with the other Japanese principal characters, characterized as an evil, scheming person, exploiting political turmoil in China to his and his country's advantage. After his subsequent capture at the end of The Blue Lotus, he committed suicide by hara-kiri, or seppuku.

Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab and Abdullah

Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab is the Emir of the fictional Middle Eastern state of Khemed, and Abdullah is his extremely spoiled, mischievous, hyperactive son. After first appearing in Land of Black Gold, the Emir and his son reappear in The Red Sea Sharks, when Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab has been temporarily overthrown by his rival Sheikh Bab El Ehr and entrusts his son to Tintin's care. Abdullah is a serial practical joker whose favourite victim is the short-tempered Captain Haddock. At the end of The Red Sea Sharks, father and son were reunited.

The Emir can be described as kind and jovial to his friends and vicious and cruel to his enemies. One moment he gives the impression of being mild mannered, in the next moment he is angrily promising flogging and execution. Doctor Müller, an old adversary, who once kidnapped his son and referred to him as a merciless fiend, attempted suicide rather than be caught and handed over to him. More than anything else Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab dotes on his son Abdullah, whom he sees his treasure.

Abdullah has a tendency to dislike people and promise punishments from his father to everyone who annoys him—even as he's playing pranks on them. He grows to heavily like Captain Haddock however, finding his tantrums and general behavior hilarious. He refers to the captain as "Blistering Barnacles" and one of his most common lines is "Do it again, Blistering Barnacles! Do it Again!"

Kalish Ezab is a wordplay; in Dutch/Brussels dialect it means "liquorice juice" (kalisjensap).

Mr. Bohlwinkel

Mr. Bohlwinkel is a financier who appears in The Shooting Star. As the owner of a major banking concern and a petroleum firm called Golden Oil, he uses his wealth and resources to attempt to beat Tintin and his friends in the race to find a recently fallen meteorite. Apart from financing the exploratory vessel Peary, he unsuccessfully attempts to sabotage the competing expedition's ship Aurora, helmed by Captain Haddock. This includes depositing lit dynamite onto its deck (which Snowy puts out), instructing another ship under his control to ram the Aurora during a storm, refusing to allow the Aurora to refuel at a Golden Oil depot (only to have Haddock's old friend Captain Chester fuel the Aurora by having the oil the depot is pumping into his tanks be siphoned off), and sending a fake S.O.S. to throw the Aurora off course (Tintin contacting multiple shipping agencies to determine that the ship and company that sent the distress call don't exist). The Shooting Star ends with a dismayed Bohlwinkel listening to a radio announcement which reveals that the police are onto him.

It is conspicuous that Bohlwinkel has physical traits reflecting a stereotypical Jew in Nazi propaganda. In the original edition of The Shooting Star (published during World War II) he was referred to as Blumenstein, and his bank was explicitly stated as being located in New York. In later editions of the book, Hergé attempted to alter the financer's antecedents by relocating him to the fictitious South American country São Rico, and changing his name to a Brabantian dialect word for a sweet shop, bollewinkel. He also modified the spelling of the new name. Hergé however subsequently learned that Bohlwinkel is also a Jewish surname.

Mr. Bolt

(French: Isidore Boullu)

A joiner who appears in The Castafiore Emerald, he is hired by Captain Haddock to fix the broken step in Marlinspike Hall. However, Mr. Bolt repeatedly fails to turn up, offering a never-ending stream of excuses. Mr. Bolt is one of the people who send the Captain a telegram when his engagement to marry Bianca Castafiore is erroneously announced, and is also a member of the band that plays outside Marlinspike as part of the "celebrations". At the end of the book, Mr. Bolt finally comes and fixes the broken step. However, the Captain wastes no time tripping on the step, instantly undoing Mr. Bolt's work. By the time of Tintin and the Picaros, Mr. Bolt seems to have finally fixed the step.

Oliveira de Figueira

A native of Portugal, Oliveira de Figueira is a friendly salesman who can sell even the most trivial of items, from umbrellas to roller skates, to his Arab patrons. He and Tintin first meet in Cigars of the Pharaoh. Tintin and Snowy have been cast adrift in the Red Sea when they are picked up by a dhow. De Figueira is a passenger, and quickly talks Tintin into buying a variety of superfluous objects. He later appears in Land of Black Gold, where he plays a valuable role in helping Tintin infiltrate Doctor Müller's headquarters, taking Tintin there disguised as his nephew while keeping the guards distracted with an elaborate story. In The Red Sea Sharks, he hides Tintin and Captain Haddock in his house so they can speak to the Emir. He gets a brief mention in The Castafiore Emerald, when he sends good wishes to Captain Haddock following a news report claiming that he and Bianca Castafiore are engaged.

Oliveira de Figueira is the form used by Hergé in the later appearances of this character. He is named Oliveira da Figueira (lit. "Olive-tree of the Fig-tree") in his initial appearances. For The Red Sea Sharks Hergé changed his name to Oliveira de Figueira. (Both spellings are correct in Portuguese: "de" means "of", while "da" means "of the".)

Omar Ben Salaad

Omar Ben Salaad is an Arab merchant who appears in The Crab with the Golden Claws. He is a wealthy businessman based in the fictional port city of Bagghar in Morocco, then a French possession. A shopkeeper claims he is the wealthiest man in Bagghar, and he is revealed to be one of the most respected men in the city, owning a palace with servants, horses, cars, huge amounts of land, and a plane.

Tintin however discovers him to be behind an opium trafficking ring which uses tins of crab to smuggle the drug. When Tintin was captured early in the book, it was Salaad who wired the initial order to have Tintin thrown overboard, but Tintin's escape prevented it. Later, Tintin discoveres the base where the opium is stored is in Salaad's cellar, with an entrance behind a bookcase. Ben Salaad tries to shoot Tintin but is knocked out when Snowy bites him, causing him to shoot a chandelier onto himself, and is arrested. It is later revealed that his activities went all the way to the Far East.

It is theorized that Salaad may be the villain in Tintin and Alph-Art in disguise, as his nose is the right shape.

Omar Ben Salaad's city Bagghar sounds like bagarre, the French word for "fight" or "brawl". "Omar" is a common Arabic name, but Omar Salaad also sounds like homard salade ("lobster salad").

Omar Ben Salaad is portrayed by Gad Elmaleh in the motion-capture film The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn; however, in the film he has no part in any conspiracy, merely owning an opera house at which Bianca Castafiore performs.

Pablo

Pablo is a native of San Theodoros and lives in the capital Los Dopicos. His first appearance is in The Broken Ear, in which the story's villain R. W. Trickler hires Pablo to bring an end to Tintin. Pablo's attempt fails, Tintin captures Pablo, who begs for mercy, and Tintin lets him go. Trickler then frames Tintin for espionage and the young man is soon sentenced to death. Pablo, grateful that Tintin spared his life, assembles a gang of men, breaks into the prison and frees Tintin and Snowy.

In the 1935 serialized version of the story, Pablo's full name was given as Juan Paolino, the Terror of Los Dopicos, and the best shooter in the entire country.

Pablo returned in Tintin and the Picaros, where he appeared to help Tintin and his friends escape their current captivity, but really putting them in a position where they could be shot while trying to escape. When Tintin discovered his treachery, he allowed Pablo to go free, as he remembered Pablo once saved his life.

Philippulus

Professor Philippulus is an astronomer who appears in The Shooting Star. After observing a ball of fire making its way towards Earth, Philippulus goes insane, dresses himself in white sheets and goes around town beating a gong and claiming to be a prophet tasked with announcing the end of the world. The madman also decides that Tintin is a spawn of the Devil after the reporter advises him to go home, and takes to harassing him at his home.

Philippulus later escapes a mental asylum where he has been sectioned, and tries to stop the expedition looking for a fragment of the shooting star in the ocean. He makes it to the expedition's ship, the Aurora, and causes a great deal of trouble, eventually taking refuge up the main mast and nearly setting off a stick of dynamite in the belief that it is a firework. Tintin tricks him into climbing down by using a megaphone to shout supposedly heavenly instructions for him, and Philippulus is taken back to the asylum.

The Picaros

The Picaros are a band of guerillas in the country of San Theodoros, supposedly under the control of General Alcazar in Tintin and the Picaros. Alcazar has returned to his country and is attempting to command the Picaros to mount a guerilla operation over of his arch-rival General Tapioca. However, the Picaros have become corrupt drunkards since Tapioca started dropping copious quantities of alcohol near their camp.

Tintin offers to cure the Picaros of their alcoholism if Alcazar agrees to refrain from killing Tapioca and his men. Alcazar reluctantly agrees. Moments after the Picaros are cured, a musical troupe called the Jolly Follies arrive, intending to perform at the upcoming carnival in San Theodoros. Alcazar, with a little advice from Tintin, launches an assault on Tapioca's palace during the carnival by dressing the Picaros in the troupe's costumes and sneaking them into the capital.

Piotr Skut

(French: Piotr Szut)

An eyepatch-wearing Estonian pilot, he appears in two albums: The Red Sea Sharks and Flight 714.

In The Red Sea Sharks, Skut flies one of the DeHavilland Mosquitoes used by Sheik Bab El Ehr to seize power in Khemed, and his squad strafes the boat Tintin and Haddock are using to cross the Red Sea. Tintin shoots down Skut's plane with an assault rifle in self-defence, but later rescues Skut from the waters onto a hastily-assembled life raft. Grateful for his rescue, Skut becomes a faithful friend and later refuses to betray Tintin and Haddock, instead sharing the rest of the adventure with them. He repairs the sabotaged radio of the S.S. Ramona and calls for help, which arrives just in time to save the boat from a submarine's attack.

In Flight 714, Skut has become a supersonic business jet pilot of the Carreidas 160, the prototype jet for millionaire Laszlo Carreidas. The aircraft is then hijacked by his own crew, who were under the pay of criminal mastermind Rastapopoulos. Skut aids Tintin and Haddock in rescuing the other captured passengers and, after an adventure involving extraterrestrials, returns with them to civilization.

Neither Piotr, Skut, nor Szut (in the original French) are plausible Estonian names. Piotr is Polish for Peter while the correct Estonian version would be Peeter. The name Skut was rather an excuse for a gag, as Captain Haddock believes he is telling him to "scoot" rather than introducing himself. (In the original French, the Captain mistakes the name "Szut" for "zut", the French exclamation of frustration. In other international versions the last name is likewise often changed by the choice of language, to entail a rudely dismissive or slightly offensive term.)

Some claim that the Skut character is based on Reem Milk, an Estonian pilot who escaped to Sweden from Estonia in a pontoon Arado.

Puschov

(French: Wronzoff)

Puschov is the leader of the international gang of banknote counterfeiters in The Black Island. He is a cunning and deceptive figure, tricking Tintin and the authorities several times: framing Tintin for the assault on the train and, upon seeing Tintin "return from the dead", falling on his knees and begging the "ghost" for mercy, only to trip him over in order to acquire his gun.

He is also the master of Ranko, a gorilla inhabiting the gang's hideout on the Black Island, whose nightly screams inspired legends of the island being occupied by a murderous creature.

R. W. Trickler

(French: R. W. Chicklet)

R. W. Trickler is an unscrupulous businessman who represents General American Oil in the South American republic of San Theodoros. Trickler attempts to engineer a war in order for San Theodoros to seize total control of the supposedly oil-rich Gran Chapo region from neighbouring Nuevo Rico and hand it over to his company. He further seeks to profit even more through the sale of arms by his associate Basil Bazarov to both countries.

Trickler tries unsuccessfully to bribe Tintin into convincing General Alcazar to start a war against Nuevo Rico. When that fails he tries to have Tintin assassinated, and bribes Alcazar in person, then has Tintin framed as a spy and nearly executed. In the end, it turns out the Gran Chapo region has no trace of oil.

He appears anonymously in the Calculus Affair on p. 47, staying in hotel Zsnorr; presumably he is in arms traffic.

In the unfinished adventure Tintin and Alph-Art, surviving drafts of the story show Haddock and Tintin visiting Bianca Castafiore at an island villa. There they meet a number of guests, including a Mister "Chicklett", a misspelling of "Chicklet", Trickler's name in the original French.

Rascar Capac

Rascar Capac is the mummy in The Seven Crystal Balls. He is an ancient Incan priest dug up by the Sanders-Hardiman Expedition. Professor Tarragon displays the mummy in his house. When lightning strikes into the chimney, it sends a fireball hurling through the living room, and the fireball crashes into Rascar Capac, apparently vaporizing him. That night, Tintin, Captain Haddock, and Professor Calculus all have the same dream: Rascar Capac climbs into the room carrying a crystal ball and smashes it onto the floor. What happens to the apparently resurrected mummy afterward is unclear.

Red Rackham

(French: Rackham le Rouge)

Rackham is the pirate who attacks The Unicorn, the ship captained by Sir Francis Haddock (Captain Haddock's ancestor). In the story, Rackham engages Haddock in battle, resulting in the almost total destruction of Rackham's ship. As his ship is sinking, Rackham and his men board The Unicorn and manage to gain control of the vessel. Haddock is captured and tied to the ship's mast and the crew is cast overboard. Rackham intends to have Haddock tortured by his men the following day, but before he can, Sir Francis frees himself and engages in single combat with him using cutlasses. Rackham is killed in the duel and Sir Francis manages to blow up the Unicorn and get away safely. He is a reference to real-life pirate Jack Rackham.

Red Rackham is portrayed by Daniel Craig in the motion-capture film The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn which merges plots from several books.

Ridgewell

Ridgewell first appeared in The Broken Ear and later in Tintin and the Picaros. He is a British explorer who traveled into the South American rainforest occupied by the Arumbayas. Ridgewell settled down with the Arumbayas and decided to stay, not caring if the outside world knew if he was dead or alive. When Tintin ventured into Arumbaya territory, Ridgewell initially fired darts at him in order to scare him away but later agreed to take him to the Arumbaya village for information.

Ridgewell did bring some of Western civilization to the Native South Americans, such as introducing them to the game of golf. However, the players do not appear to have mastered it well—on one occasion hitting Tintin's ear hole (another "Broken Ear") rather than the hole in the ground.

Ridgewell's influence on the Arumbayas resulted in him gaining an enemy in the local witch doctor. When Ridgewell was captured by an enemy nation called the Rumbabas (bibaros in the original French), the witch doctor kept this from the other Arumbayas, hoping to be rid of his rival. When one Arumbaya expressed concern for Ridgewell, the witch doctor threatened to turn him and his family into frogs. But Ridgewell got away and fired a dart into the witch doctor's bottom as punishment. Fortunately, unlike the Arumbayas, the British man did not use poisoned darts.

Ridgewell was also a ventriloquist and had a sense of humour, shown on occasions such as when, in Tintin and the Picaros, he fired a dart into the cigar of General Alcazar, with whom he was acquainted. In that adventure he reestablished ties with Tintin, and was shown to lament changes in the behavior of the Arumbayas, namely the spread of alcoholism.

Sanders-Hardiman Expedition members

(French: Expédition Sanders-Hardtmut)

They are members of the expedition which brought the Incan mummy Rascar Capac back to Europe in The Seven Crystal Balls. The members of the Sanders-Hardiman Expedition are: Peter Clarkson (French: Clairmont, photographer), Professor Sanders-Hardiman (French: Professeur Sanders-Hardtmut, head of the expedition), Professor Reedbuck (French: Professeur Laubépin), Mark Falconer (French: Marc Charlet), Professor Paul Cantonneau (who made an appearance in The Shooting Star), Doctor Midge (French: Docteur Hornet, director of the Darwin Museum), and Professor Hercules Tarragon (French: Professeur Hippolyte Bergamotte), who has the Rascar Capac mummy in his possession. They were cursed by the Incas as punishment for the theft of the mummy, put into comas and made to suffer nightmares. Tintin visited the Incas' hidden temple in order to save Professor Calculus, who had been kidnapped by them. He persuaded the Inca leader to lift the curse, assuring the Incas that the expedition's purpose was not to steal from their people but simply to teach others about them.

Sir Francis Haddock

(French: Chevalier François de Hadoque)

Sir Francis Haddock is an ancestor of Captain Haddock. He is a knight and a Ship-of-the-Line Captain in the French Royal Navy under King Louis XIV (but in movie he is known as British commander of the Unicorn, due to Francis commands the redcoats), and was awarded by the king with the ownership of Marlinspike Hall in 1685 just before the king's death (8 February). Sir Francis was the commander of three-masted armed navy vessel The Unicorn, which he was forced to destroy when it was taken by pirate captain Red Rackham. After the Unicorn sank, Sir Francis lived for two years among the natives of the nearby tropical island. Upon returning home, Sir Francis concealed a treasure stolen from Rackham in the cellars of Marlinspike Hall.

Sir Francis Haddock is portrayed by Andy Serkis (who also portrays Captain Haddock) in the motion-capture film The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn which merges plots from several books.

The Sondonesians

The Sondonesians are a fictional Southeast Asian people who appear in Flight 714. The name sounds similar to "Indonesians".

Rastapopoulos hires the Sondonesians as mercenaries to collaborate in his scheme to steal the fortune of Laszlo Carreidas, explaining that he will help them in their war for independence. They assist in capturing Carreidas' plane and diverting it to an Indonesian island, keeping the passengers and pilot imprisoned in old Japanese WWII bunkers. Rastapopoulos has mined the Sondonesians' junks so that they will be eliminated.

When Allan corners Tintin and his entourage in a cave, the Sondonesians refuse to enter, pointing to signs the gods have left on the cave threatening punishment for anyone who enters. In fact, these "gods" are extraterrestrials who have been using the island for years, and a landing of theirs had occurred just the previous night, as signified by some strange lights in the sky that the Sondonesians mentioned had frightened them. When the main characters meet Mik Kanrokitoff, he explains that he has hypnotized and freed the Sondonesian guards (whom Tintin and Capt. Haddock had bound and gagged) and let them spread fear among their compatriots. When an earthquake occurs shortly afterwards, the Sondonesians' nerves are finally stressed beyond their breaking point. Allan frantically attempts to stop them, but they assault him and flee the island.

Hergé depects the Sondonesians using the real Indonesian language. While on duty, two of Tintin's captors talk about a particular Indonesian dish that originated in Java: sambal rujak (ground chilli sauce with shrimp paste).

Sophocles Sarcophagus

(French: Philémon Siclone)

Sophocles Sarcophagus is an absent-minded Egyptologist in search of the tomb of the Pharaoh Kih-Oskh whom Tintin meets on a cruise ship at the beginning of Cigars of the Pharaoh. At this stage he is already a bit of an eccentric: rowing a boat, unaware that it is not even in the water; saying goodbye to Snowy the dog as if he was a little boy; and bumping into things and people.

He leads Tintin to the tomb hidden under the sand, but disappears soon after finding it. He, Tintin, and Snowy end up in sarcophagi in the middle of the Red Sea. Sophocles is then picked up with a ship captained by Allan, a drug smuggler whose gang uses the tomb of Kih-Oskh as a base. With Sophocles as a prisoner the ship sets off for India.

(When Cigars of the Pharaoh was first published in the 1930s, he was an unnamed and beardless scholar who wore sunglasses. When Tintin explored the tomb he found sarcophagi for himself and Snowy but not for the scholar, who does not even turn up in the Red Sea incident—thus, how he ends up in India is left unresolved. In fact, Tintin even speculated that the scholar was a member of the gang of drug smugglers that he found himself pitted against.)

Tintin later finds Sophocles in the Indian jungle painting the symbol of Kih-Oskh on palm trees. He is now completely mad and imagines himself to be the Pharaoh Ramesses II. He is eventually committed to a sanatorium in India for treatment.

He does not appear in any other Tintin stories, but is the first of a number of eccentric scientists and scholars which would culminate in the character Professor Calculus.

Spalding

Spalding appears in Flight 714. He is the secretary for millionaire Laszlo Carreidas and is one of the hijackers of that flight. Rastapopoulos planned to eliminate him and the other conspirators.

In an interview with the Sunday Times in 1968, Hergé is quoted as saying that Spalding was "an English public school man, obviously the black sheep of his family". Spalding has a formal manner, stiff upper lip, and fashionable clothes. Captain Haddock mistakes him for Carreidas when they first meet.

Tharkey

Tharkey is a Sherpa guide who helps Tintin locate the ill-fated Patna-Kathmandu flight carrying Chang Chong-Chen in Tintin in Tibet.

Although reluctant to risk the perilous attempt to find Chang, whom he believes to be dead, Tharkey leads Tintin and Captain Haddock to the crash site of the aircraft. After initially leaving the site to return to his village, he feels guilty for leaving them alone and returns just in time to help Tintin and Haddock out of a dangerous situation. However, he subsequently breaks his arm and must return to the plains after partly convalescing at a Buddhist monastery while Tintin and the Captain continue their search for Chang.

He may have been based on Tenzing Norgay, one of the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest on 29 May 1953.

Tintin's Double

Tintin acquired a double at some stage in his career. This was a one-off character that only appeared in one panel, but his involvement very much influenced the course of Tintin's adventure, and although they never met it also lead to entanglements both comical and melodramatic.

The double appeared in the early editions of Land of Black Gold when they were published in newspapers in 1939–1940. He also appeared when the story was redrawn, colourised and completed in Tintin magazine and in book form in the late-1940s, early-1950s. In these early versions, the action was set in the British Mandate of Palestine.

The double was a member of the Irgun, a Jewish Zionist terrorist group seeking to expel the British and the Arabs from Palestine and set up a Jewish state. He was given a number of names, depending on the time and the publisher.

His first appearance was in Le Petit Vingtième when Land of Black Gold was published in 1939–1940. Upon arriving in the Middle East, Tintin was arrested by the British authorities when compromising documents were found in his cabin, of which he knew nothing. A member of the Irgun saw him being taken into custody and mistook him for an associate, Finkelstein, whom they were expecting. The leader of the group (Menachem Begin in history, though this name is not given in the story), who dressed as a Rabbi (as did the real Begin during this period), ordered his subordinates to engineer his escape. With a bomb of sleeping gas, three members of the Irgun knocked out Tintin and his escort and fled out of Haifa in a car with the unconscious Tintin.

At that moment the leader of the group received in his office a visitor whom he recognised as the real Finkelstein. He bore an uncanny physical resemblance to Tintin, though he had a nasty and unpleasant smirk on his face. Meanwhile, the escaping Zionists in the car had also realised that Tintin was not the man they wanted. Before they could decide what to do with him, their car was stopped by a roadblock of rocks and barrels. As they cleared it, Arab gunmen emerged from a nearby wheat field and took Tintin, whom they too believed was Finkelstein, into the desert where he met Sheikh Bab El Ehr, the Arab insurgent who was also fighting the British and the Jews. Meanwhile the Zionist militants were arrested and interrogated by British officials.

Almost like the books in the Tintin series themselves, various changes were made to the episode of the double in different publications:

1. When he appeared in Le Petit Vingtième on 11 January 1940, he was named Finkelstein;
2. Later that same year the story was published in occupied France in the weekly French Catholic magazine Coeurs Vaillants (Valiant Hearts). Mentions of the political situation in the Middle East were taken out of the speech bubbles in an effort to avoid trouble with Marshal Pétain's censors: all references to Zionism were removed, Finkelstein was given the more French-like name of Durand and the Arabs were referred to as Rebels. The illustrations were unaffected: the leader of the Irgun still dressed as a Rabbi.
3. In 1946, long after Pétain's fall, the same edited version was published in the Catholic paper, La Voix de l'ouest (The Voice of the West), a local paper based in Brittany. In an unusual move which could be interpreted as political correctness, the story was renamed Tintin et Milou au pays de l'or liquide (Tintin and Snowy in the Land of Liquid Gold). The double was still named Durand, the British were referred to as the police and some curses made by a Jewish militant about Arabs who have blocked the road were also taken out.
4. When the story was redrawn, colourised and published in Tintin magazine in 1948, the double was named Salomon Goldstein.
5. In the final 1971 version that is most commonly available today, the whole episode was taken out with the action set in the fictional Middle Eastern state of Khemed and Tintin kidnapped by Arabs led by Bab El Ehr. Finkelstein/Durand/Goldstein did not feature, disappearing as mysteriously as he had appeared.

W. R. Gibbons

W. R. Gibbons is an American businessman first seen in The Blue Lotus. He is rude and insensitive to a Chinese youngster, for which Tintin has a fight with him and gets the better of him. He reports Tintin to the Japanese authorities in retaliation only to get himself arrested as a liar when his information is found inaccurate.

Wang Chen-Yee

Chinese leader of the Sons of the Dragon brotherhood who features in The Blue Lotus. He serves as Tintin's host during his stay in China, and later adopts Chang Chong-Chen.

Zorrino

Zorrino appeared in Prisoners of the Sun. He is an indigenous Indian Peruvian boy who made a living by selling oranges in the mountain town of Jauga. He led Tintin and Captain Haddock on the trail of their kidnapped friend Professor Calculus to the Inca civilisation in the mountains. At the end of the book, Zorrino is invited to stay in the Inca city and follow their way of life, an invitation which he accepts.