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While looking for info on Red Sea Sharks, I came across a strip which apparently was the opening scene of that story when it was originally published in Tintin magazine.

In this deleted scene, Jolyon Wagg is on the phone and gets through to Nestor who tells him that Haddock is at the cinema. Wagg then goes on and on about some joke, but Nestor just has the phone lying on the table while he reads Blaise Pascal's Pensées (Thoughts), a defence of the Christian religion.

This sure shows quite an intellectual side to our Nestor, which is not apparent from the books in which he is just a butler getting on with his work.

Know of any other deleted strips which show a side to a character otherwise not shown, or a scene that might explain a hole in the plot?

Nice thought - I've no idea how much of what was removed worked in this way, but it's an interesting notion.


Preparatory pencils for this strip are reproduced in The Art of Hergé, Volume 3, on p. 77 (they are slightly different from the final frames on published page), and described as showing, "the butler's highbrow literary inclinations".

This social joke, with the butler (symbol of the "under-classes", and possibly thought to be ill educated) reading philosophy, while his master (stereotypically "upper-class", and a "better") is off to the pictures, expands on the joke found throughout the book, that the ultimate "upper-class" person in the book is Abdullah, who after all is royalty, but the least well-behaved person in the story.

It's a pity it was lost, as it's nicely done. I think it was left out simply to accommodate room for the title to the story in the book, so perhaps Hergé planned it to be removable in this way.

Here's another: when "Prisoners of the Sun" was first published in Tintin magazine in the 1940s, it included the scene of Haddock pulling the bars out of the cell window. A deleted panel had him announcing that he's escaping since he'd rather break his bones than roast on a fire, to which Tintin says: "Well, fine! Go ahead! I'm staying!"

This is a rather odd attitude for Tintin! Telling his best friend to effectively "go and kill yourself! See if I care!"

Mind you, his body language has him holding Haddock back and covered in beads of sweat, as if thinking "Maybe I should tell him about the eclipse".

I can't help thinking that the letterer took a bit of a liberty here and that Tintin was supposed to be saying: "Wait, listen to me!"

I think it's more a reaction by Tintin to the Captain's pig-headedness than anything else.
It's the sort of thing a parent says to a child, when they have taken it upon themselves to be stubborn. It's by way of a mild rebuke, not a suggestion that he kills himself at all; people say things like that all the time: "You've been warned! If you break you leg, don't come running to me...!", etc.
Itâ's not literal, it's just a rhetorical device to show up the idiocy of the other person's intended action.

As such, it does nothing to further the story, and the omission of it in the book isn't a great loss.

I certainly can't see the letterer (who may indeed have been Hergé, as I think he undertook that task on early books) going "off piste" and making up their own text...!

This scene was published in the magazine in its second year of publication when it would have been well established. I imagine that by then they would have taken on extra staff like letterers.

Tintin may lay down the law to Haddock on occasion - like after the drama of his drunken space walk in "Explorers" - but like I say the body language is at odds with the words (which would be a major slip for an artist like Herge) and an "I dare you" attitude with a touch of sarcasm just does not feel like Tintin.

You certainly can imagine, but I don't think it reflects the situation. Artists very often lettered their own comics - Dave "Watchmen" Gibbons still letters all his own comics, having done them all by hand up until he had a digital font of his hand-writing created.

Such staff as Hergé had access to was really very small in number, maybe a couple of other artists and his colourist, and at the time he worked between his front room in Brussels and his house in the country, not in some pool of allied trades.

It's possible that someone else did letter pages, but not necessary, and it certainly seems highly unlikely, if not just plain impossible, that anyone in his small band would have tried to alter the dialogue without Hergé having signed off on it first.


No it's not; Tintin is aware that the crashing and banging of the Captain's efforts will probably get a reaction from their captors, which it does.
He has gone to a lot of trouble to lull them into a false sense of security by being cooperative, and, as his plan is just about to come to fruition, he's simply frustrated that the Captain would be about to blow their opportunity.


It would be a much bigger slip for him to have staff changing his dialogue willy-nilly...


...so we have to take it at face value that it is indeed Hergé writing, and that the dialogue and image are as he wanted.

It's funny that you get terribly worked up about changes made to the Methuen book which were extensively discussed by the translators and Hergé, and can't accept them as an expression of what Hergé wanted, but have to defend what you see as uncharacteristic in th eoriginal, by saying that it must result from it not being by Hergé.

Hergé was pretty much in control of the whole process, and there's absolutely nothing to suggest that his words were being changed by unknown third parties.

All right, maybe if was Herge's own words but I think that I am entitled to be as critical of the original text as I am of the translated version.

There's another thing: in the first 24 weeks that the story was being published in the magazine, the font was very blocky, Arial-like. From the 25th week (when Tintin and Haddock set off in the train), however, there is the more italic-like font which is used in the current albums, suggesting that Herge either changed his style or someone else took over. Could be one or the other.

I may be wrong, but I seem to recall reading that one letterer actually did sometimes change the text. Being very religious she would sometimes insert references to God. Know anything about that?

On another point
Here's another interesting feature of the same source: in the album "Prisoners of the Sun", Tintin, when tied to the stake, is covered in sweat as if thinking "I just hope and pray that the timing is right!"

These sweaty looks are absent from the magazine version, in which he appears more straight-faced, confidante that everything will go according to plan.

I meant more that you seem to treat the French text as inviolable, and rail at any deviation, no matter how appropriate that change may have been, to the English. If the French text is also subject to violation, and isn't to be seen as the perfect text from the hand of Hergé, indeed if Hergé is "getting it wrong", then the premise that the translators were errant is harder to maintain...! ;-)


It's interesting that Hergé felt the need to ramp up the tension in the book – it's obviously not worrying enough that Tintin's about to burnt alive, he has to really show that he's worried about it...! ;-)

I love it in Red Rackham that, even under-water, in a diving suit, Tintin's diving-helmet is surrounded by beads of sweat to indicate anxiety!

Isn't there another scene from the magazine version of Prisoners of the Sun where Haddock finds gold in the Inca cave and, affected by a moment of "gold fever", tries to stuff some in his jacket pockets?

I can't recall if he's forced to give it up because he can't squeeze through the cave tunnel with it (which would be a Biblical moral metaphor, I guess) or because Tintin makes him give it up, or both.

Or is Tintin briefly affected by gold fever too? I can't remember, but someone will know the scene properly!

Anyway, I'm guessing that Hergé dropped the scene not just for reasons of length, but because it kind of cheapens Haddock's noble motivation of saving Calculus if he's also taking the opportunity to do a bit of gold plundering.

This scene does occur and Haddock is forced to give up the gold because it prevents him from squeezing through the cave tunnel, though he grumbles that "it's a crime to give up all this gold".

Tintin's own attitude over this incident is that they have better things to do than collect gold.

Also note their contrasting attitudes at the end of the book when Tintin tells the Inca king that they cannot accept gifts of gold and jewels, while Haddock adds "Unless you insist of course..."