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Just noticed that in King Ottokar’s Sceptre the symbol for Borduria looks something like the Mercedes symbol, but in The Calculus Affair it's the Plekzy Gladz (Kurvi-Tasch) moustache that we have all come to know.

I would guess that it was representative of the flag or nation somehow. Since in The Calculus Affair we see the moustaches everywhere, wouldn't that also include the air force? The army uses it on their tanks.

The Bordurian soldiers in Ottokar, on the other hand, are without any sort of insignias at all, so it isn't really clear about the “Mercedes” symbol. Would the plane alone be evidence enough for this theory?

Could this change in nation symbol be connected to an eventual shift in power? Maybe from national-socialistic to communistic? What's your take on this?

I think it was just a change of government from Nationalist to Communist, or a coup-d'etat in Borduria.

Hello
I thought they were fascist not communist?

I would say that Borduria in Ottokar was right-winged but the Borduria in Calculus Affair looks more eastern-bloc and could therefore maybe be considered communistic. The placement of Borduria in eastern europe would have it more connected with Soviet than anything else. The Ottokar adventure takes place when Germany was on the rise and therefore then it was more fascistic but as the world history changed with east-european countries joining (being forced) in with Soviet the Borduria of the fifties should be member of the Warsaw Pact also.

Borduria 1938 = Axis
Borduria 1956 = Warsaw Pact

And with some degree of imagination one could se the older symbol (the one on the Messerschmitt 109 )as a Bordurian swastika.

Strange thing is that Plekszy-Gladz seems older than the fifties style, with saber and big coat.
http://monsu.desiderio.free.fr/case/bordure7.jpe
More Preussian in apperance than cold war Soviet if you ask me. But I always imagined old PG to be dead and that the country still saw him as the Father (founder) of the land.

midnightblueowl I thought they were fascist not communist?

I think midnightblueowl has summed up the dichotomy. There are obvious allusions to right-wing/left wing regimes in Ottokar and Calculus Affair but I don't believe it can be said for certain what Borduria's politics are/were. Hergé said himself "one can take it to be any totalitarian regime" - I think he was very clever in parodying them whilst keeping politics out of it. He did the same in Picaros; they become interchangable. Borduria is really "Tashist" ;)

labrador road 26 I always imagined old PG to be dead and that the country still saw him as the Father (founder) of the land.

Interesting observation which fits the "Big Brother" mode. And I think he looks a little bit like Kaiser Wilhelm www.greatwar.nl/kaiser/kais09.jpg although Kurvi's tash is far superior!

Couldn't the moustache symbol just stands for a shift in fashion, and not in politics?

Is Tintin's plane symbol in B&W Ottokar's Sceptre a moustache or a 'Mercedes star'?

To see the star & moustache emblems and other imaginary flags that appear in Tintin, go to

http://www.doublet.fr/votreespace_drapobd.asp?position=votreespace

There is also some interesting information on this site which has a number of the flags and emblems from the books http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fic_tint.html

Is Tintin's plane symbol in B&W Ottokar's Sceptre a moustache or a 'Mercedes star'?

I suppose it could be a sideways moustache...
The flag from the b&w Ottokar is described on the aforementioned site as "a black flag with a red disc centered charged with a black device similar to a hourglass". I haven't ever seen a colour representation of it before - perhaps it was on the cover of a Petit Vingtième?

Also, could someone with a copy of L'Affaire Tournesol say what the French equivalent of "Tashist" is? (given that the original name of Kûrvi-Tasch is Plekszy-Gladz)

French equivalent of "Tashist"

Parti 'moustachiste' (The Emerald, p.48, D3) and regime 'plekszy-gladzien' (Calculus Affair p.60, C1) are the words!

+ Agression 'pleksziste' = 3 homonyms or avatars.

Are all three rendered by the same plain 'Taschiste' in the English version?

Thanks for that.

The word "Taschist" (correct spelling!) is, I believe, used only once in the English books (please correct me if I'm wrong); in The Calculus Affair page 43, second frame, one of the newspaper headlines reads "unprovoked Taschist aggression".

In that case the original French gives "Pleksziste", as in "inqualifiable agression Pleksziste".

Ed