Harrock n roll:
Hello, another johnny-come-lately on this thread... :-)
Better late than never...!
Harrock n roll:
I must say, I don't buy it!
Hmm... As immune to my logic as ever... ;-)
Harrock n roll:
I have no explanation as to what happened to the pipe afterwards though!
It's both simple... and complicated...
That's the difficult bit, isn't it: where does it go...?
To steer this thread back round to vanishing pipes, rather than just funny moments with the Captain's tobacco habit, perhaps the Captain is a proponent of the self-destructing pipe and tobacco (seemingly no Abdullah required!)?
If you look at page eight of
The Castafiore Emerald, frame eight, just after the doctor has gone on his way, the Captain is shown with his pipe and tobacco pouch, busy filling the former from the latter, lost in his thoughts, oblivious to his surroundings.
He's then startled from his reverie by the unexpected arrival of La Castafiore (frame nine), who through girlish glee decides to sneak in behind him, and play a game of "guess who?".
The Captain's pipe, tobacco, pouch and dignity are thrown into disaray!
In the next frame, as the Milanese Nightingale and the Captain exchange pleasantaries, the discarded pipe and pouch can be seen lying on the floor; the pipe is to the left of the chair (as we look at it) and the pouch can be spied behind the foot-stool and cushion upon which Haddock is resting his poorly foot.
Then they vanish, seemingly without the agency of any person in the room: they should be visible in frames thirteen (the pipe) and fourteen (both), but instead the area is clear of debris of any kind, and we can see all the way through the legs of the stool and chair to Tintin's socks and shoes.
Another smoke is lost to
The Twilight Zone...
Of course, one could also add that the Captain has the reverse problem in
The Red Sea Sharks, where in spite of the fact that he has been shown to be soaked with water
twice in quick succession, and isn't otherwise smoking, Haddock has a lit pipe manifest itself apparently out of nothing and insert itself in his mouth (page six, frame five) - just so that Abdullah (who
is necessary this time, apparently) can shoot it from between his teeth (page six, frame seven). We don't see where
that pipe ends up, as the location moves on in the next frame...
There's also a nice pre-emptive piece of preventative pipe action by the Captain on page 12 of
Red Rackham's Treasure...
Frame six shows Haddock boarding the ship, at which moment he is not smoking his pipe.
Frame seven shows him with his pipe in his mouth, a box of matches in his left hand, a lit match in his right.
Frame eight, the match box has efforlessly vanished, and the pipe is now
in his left hand.
This means that when, in frame nine, he burns his right-hand fingers on the now forgotten - but still lit - match, and he reacts, crying out and dancing about, the pipe
cannot disappear, as it is still firmly grasped in his left hand!