Tintin Forums

On page 54 of Tintin and the Picaros, the last panel has someone dressed in an Astrerix outfit (which is a cartoon around the same time as Tintin); he’s on the left-hand side, next to a palm tree.

Anyone know what to make of it?

Hergé seems to have used that carnival scene as a way of paying tribute to other comic strip and cartoon characters. As well as someone dressed up as Asterix, there's also someone dressed as Mickey Mouse (Tintin's exact contemporary), isn't there? (I don't have the book to hand to check.) And I think there may be other cartoon characters in that panel too.

It's a nice touch, especially as there was, I've read, some professional rivalry between Hergé and Goscinny-Uderzo, especially when Asterix - very much the "new-strip-on -the-block" in the 1960s - began to outsell the more senior Tintin, which up until then had enjoyed the top-spot position in European comic strips pretty much unchallenged.

Goscinny and Uderzo put a cameo appearance from the Thompsons into Asterix in Belgium, drawn in a pastiche of Hergé's clear-line style, complete with Tintinesque rectangular speech balloons. But I don't know whether this Asterix book came after Picaros or before. Someone on this forum will be sure to know!

Post-modernism.

I noticed that! I wonder why Hergé put him there?
Excuse my ignorance, but is there/was there/has there been any sort of rivalry between Tintin and Asterix?
I think I've heard a few things but I'm not sure.
Or are they on the same level and Hergé slipped Asterix in there as a cameo? I know cartoonists do that sometimes.

Well, Asterix in Belgium came after Tintin and the Picaros. That was in 1979. So, certainly it was Hergé's initiative to put in Asterix as a cameo and pay a tribute. It was later eventually paid back by Goscinny and Uderzo in their book, and it did make sense since the story was set in Belgium. If not Tintin, they had to meet someone from the comic world.


Professional rivalry was ought to be there. Asterix was gaining much popularity, and as Balthazar mentions, it was beginning to reflect on sale of Tintin books. I am sure that was a healthy competition.

And right next to Asterix is a character that could be interpreted as Zorro. On the other side of the bus, one costume is certainly meant to be Mickey Mouse. In later panels, there's certainly a Donald Duck (also ligne claire style, if I'm not mistaken), and Groucho Marx, in a premonition of the Simpsons' style of cartooning. Later still, Snoopy, obviously, and on the left side of that frame, another character I can't place, but doesn't look random.

Plus, on page 60 it appears that there is someone dressed as Dumbo the elephant (or at least a rough imitation of him). Technically, it could be any elephant but the extra-large ears and the cap make the difference. On the right hand side of the same frame there is also a character who resembles the Big Bad Wolf from Disney short cartoons and comic book stories.

I was taking a good look at this panel where the bus arrives in the capital for the party.

The first thing which make me laugh, or even shake my head, is the drinking in general.
We are not talking about a bottle of beer, but what realistically looks like straight spirits or whiskey, which can only lead to trouble.
I guess this was the 70's, and I've never been to Rio, so I will assume this craziness could be typical...

Anyway, to my main topic.
I noticed the number of famous characters walking around in the scene (others have pointed out Asterix, Mickey Mouse and the like), but maybe Hergé put other 'normal' characters here as homage to his other stories?

I did see sheriffs and Indians plus knights in armour (America), a maharajah (Cigars), possible Peruvian people, and even what looks like buccaneer pirates (Rackham).
These could all point to past characters perhaps?

In general I love the half page offerings by Hergé as from a visual point there is always so much to look at and appreciate - it reminds me very much of the Where's Wally? books.

Within the scene there is so much more going on when you look hard enough!

I remember reading a story in about the late 1980s in which the Brazilian police were apparently pleased with themselves since the number of deaths in a recent carnival had been fewer than usual. Carnivals are supposed to be fun, not about death either accidental, on purpose or caused by drinking - or coup d'etats for that matter.


They look more like musketeers to me. If Herge intended them to be pirates he's probably have given them more torn clothes and eye patches. But those two look more like d'Artagnan and Athos rather than Rackham and Sir Francis Hadoque.

What about the two Scots in kilts at the top of the panel? "Black Island", perhaps,

BTW, there are other famous faces on other pages, such as on page 59, in the fourth panel, when Colonel Alvarez says that they need a car, there is Donald Duck in the foreground; and, when the Picaros mount the float in panel 7, in the top left-hand corner is Groucho Marx.

On the next page (60), in the first panel with the float racing through the streets, on the left is Snoopy from "Peanuts". In the fourth panel, as the float approaches the prison, on the far right is what appears to be Disney's the Big Bad Wolf, but I can't be certain. Could be any number of wolves from hundreds of comics or may not be intended to be based on any character.