mct16:
I'm not suggesting that the crook in the 1937 or 1943 editions is based on Jacobs or was the inspiration for Olrik.
Ah, I see - I take your point.
mct16:
"If I gave this character a cigarette holder and bow-tie then he would look like Olrik. That might please Edgar."
Well, I'd have to say that that seems an unnecessary extra step: Olrik
was Jacobs, as depicted by Jacobs; giving the character a bow-tie and cigarette holder makes him look like
Jacobs, not Olrik, if a cameo was what was intended.
It's a thought, I suppose - whether by Hergé or Bob DeMoor, who might actually have made the choice, and was not above inserting his own cameo into
Black Island; Hergé and Jacobs had been on better terms since the mid-fifties, following their falling out in the forties (hence the Jacobs cameo in
Cigars, which he helped revise).
mct16:
in 1948, Tintin is shown exploring the underground network under Müller's villa. He compares it to the secret base in Swordfish which was being published in the same magazine at about the same time.
I'm not sure I see where this thought is going, to be honest. That was the time period in which the relationship had turned frosty, so I would think that the
Swordfish mention was merely to give in-magazine cross promotion, as a wink to the readers (in the same vein as covers showing the various strip characters celebrating Christmas, etc.), rather than any real indication of a nod to Jacobs,
per se.