Tintin Forums

Where in the Tintin books can you see a man spearing a serpent?

In King Ottokar's Sceptre (around p.34), in the royal jewels' room (first setting), a serpent-like dragon can be seen on the fresco, speared by St. George (one more avatar of Georges, after Varghese and Jorgen)...
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George

Interestingly, other dragons can be seen in the Blue Lotus (in the opium den) & in Tibet (behind the Grand Abbot), namely in two settings connected with Tchang, with Dante's quotes ('Abandon all hope') and with 'abandoned characters' that might stand for a bygone writing system, in Tintin's unique world.
see https://www.tintinologist.org/forums/index.php?action=search&loc=1&foru m=8&topic=1691&page=

That's the one. Well spotted.

I thought he looked like St George too, what with him being a haloed saint in a Roman soldier's costume, though I wasn't absolutely sure it was him since the creature - being legless and wingless - definitely seems more serpent-like than dragon-like. So it seemed safer to keep the question absolutely unambiguous and ask people to simply look for "a man".

But looking at the link you've provided, I agree that his distinctive posture on the horse with the long spear thrusting down does look identical to those early pictures of Saint George, and some of the dragons in those old pictures are similarly wingless. So St George he undoubtably is.

To be honest, I'd temporarily forgotten your interest in Georges-related names in the Tintin books, and it genuinely wasn't my intention to give more grist to the mill of your theories! (Sorry everyone!)
However, whilst I remain unconvinced by your claims that Varghese and Jorgen are necessarily intended to represent Georges, in this case I would agree that the choice of a saint sharing Georges' own name looks deliberate rather than coincidental.
But whether it has a deep personal meaning relating to the grand rebus you seek to find in the books, I'm sceptical - especially since I understand that EP Jacobs was responsible for many of the decorative backgrounds in this book.
Might this not be just a little joke, similar to the 'cameo' portrayals of Jacobs, Hergé and Germaine in the throne-room scenes, or the cheeky portrayal of Jacobs as a mummified explorer in (and on the cover of) The Cigars of the Pharaoh? Is there a St Edgar portrayed in another fresco of Klow catle, I wonder?!

Anyway, well done for spotting him.