Tintin Forums

I have always wondered what's with the cover shown here?

This scene never appears in the Prisoners of the Sun; what are its origins? Is it a deleted frame from the book?

Aha, that's one of the old mysteries that always intrigued me. Way back in late 80's and early 90's there used to be softcover Tintin books that had "Making of Tintin in the World of the Inca" cover printed on their back covers. I always wondered that this is some new volume that I never came across. I was in school and I searched a lot in bookstores and libraries but I never found that book. The cover picture never appears in the Prisoners of the Sun, and that lead me to think that it might be a new volume or some extension of those stories.

Well, a few years ago I came to know about these Making of Tintin books and now I am a proud owner of this series.

Right now, I am flipping through the pages at the end of this book that includes a full colour section on how these adventures came into being, it finds some mention. That image is an adaption of a bas-relief on the Gate of the Sun at Tiahuanaco. You can find similar images in the scene where Tintin and Captain accidentally enter the temple of the Sun.

Your image shows that Hergé had drawn the same in the Tintin magazine. So, it must appear in some scene in that particular magazine. Is there anyone who owns it?

There are some things in Prisoners of the Sun that were inspired by the gate of Tiahuanaco, but I don't think that the one on the cover is one of them. Here, check out this picture.

Although there are a few little scenes in the original Tintin Magazine version of Prisoners of the Sun that didn't make it into the book version, I don't think the scene pictured on this magazine cover is one of them.

I believe that when Prisoners of the Sun was first published in Tintin magazine, they also ran an educational series about the Incas alongside the comic strip (on the same double page spread, I think). So maybe this Tintin Magazine cover is portraying Tintin and Haddock discovering the world of the Incas generally - a kind of symbolic picture of both the educational part and the adventure - rather than literally portraying an actual scene from the adventure.

Or maybe this cover was drawn to flag up the new story at the start of its run, before Hergé knew exactly how the story would pan out in the coming weeks. So it shows how he envisaged Tinin and Haddock would encounter the Inca temple months before he actually plotted those scenes in detail.

Those are just two guesses on my part, though. Someone will probably have a more authoratitive answer.

No, it didn't. It appears to be one of those instances when a scene on the cover is not always reflected in the actual story. Marvel comics did a lot of them back in the 1970s I believe: there is a cover of a Fantastic Four comic in which the Thing is physically attacking Mr Fantastic, accusing him of murder, but in the comic itself the events are quite different.

The original comic publication of Prisoners of the Sun is availble in book form (in French) and actually contains dozens of scenes that never made it in the book that is most commonly available at the moment.

It's quite possible considering the fact that it's not a mainstream book cover.
Hergé had done it only once for the Explorers on the Moon book. I wonder whether that had any special significance.

As far as this cover is concerned, maybe that was the most beautiful way to depict the mysterious World of the Inca on a single page. Well, this is not a justification of why it wasn't printed inside.

I would like to logically reason the irrelevance of that scene as regards to the story flow.
The location seems to be a main part of the Temple of the Sun. As we all know that Tintin and Captain accidentally discover the Temple.
So, there never arises a question of discovering such a huge idol before that moment. The element of surprise lies in the door push sequence where they land up in front of the Inca lord. After that, they never had a chance to go and look around the temple since they find themselves in prison. Later there was no turning back till they are set free.
Finally, as Balthazar mentioned, it certainly seems to be a symbolic representation of the Inca world.

Just a thought, but maybe it was a description of things to come.

It happens to be the cover of the very first edition of Tintin magazine which was dated September 1946. The latest instalment of Tintin was published in that magazine, but it was a continuation of the "Seven Crystal Balls" which had been published in the paper "Le Soir" during the war.

The story takes up with Tintin on his way to Marlinspike following his visit to the hospital where he witnessed the mass panic attack of the explorers. It includes scenes of Snowy having a fight with a hedgehog and getting covered in spikes; and Tintin being so engrossed with his newspaper that he misses a little bridge and falls into the river.

The banner at the top shows Tintin, Snowy and Haddock in the jungle facing a pair of Incas, but otherwise there is little to indicate their ultimate destination.

The cover may have been a way to suggest patience to the readers.

Hi guys,

The answer to why this first cover of Tintin magazine didn't look like anything that was to come, lies in the co-operation between Hergé and Edgar Jacobs.

As you might know, during the war and just time after that, when he wasn't allowed to publish anything new, Hergé had taken up the task of colouring and sometimes redrawing his black and white albums.
As this was too big a job to do alone, he got help from his wife, and from Edgar P. Jacobs, who would later on become the author of Blake & Mortimer (The Yellow "M", etc.).
Jacobs, also a good friend to Hergé at that time, become more than just an assistant for colouring: they'd also sketch together (and each other), think of new plotlines and gags, etc., etc.
This was still going on when Tintin magazine was first published.
When you look close you can see that the background of the first Tintin magazine cover illustration is very much more in the mold of Jacobs then Hergé.

Later on, when Hergé wasn"t able to produce a full double center page every week, he gave up the space of the last strip for a box with facts about the Inca.
In these boxes you can see illustrations of some Indians dressed and equiped with weaponry that are more in Jacobs' rather then Hergé's style.

Shortly after this, when still no Inca had appeared in the story, Jacobs demanded co-authorship for the story. Hergé, feeling he was the one and only true "father" to Tintin, refused and the co-operation as well as the friendship ended there.
Hergé finished the largest part of Prisoners on his own and re-created his own Inca-style, much different as we can now see.