Tintin Forums

While re-reading this album recently, I noticed that point number 6 in the Trivia - Inconsistencies section of the Albums Guide should be corrected.

Actually, the fruit-seller is not pulled back into the background. He is pushed further into the foreground. The confusion comes from the archways: the archway shown in the mentioned panel is not the same one as before, but the next archway. This can be confirmed by looking at the man in the black dress who appears in the last panel of page 39 and again in the second frame of page 41—he remains in the same place throughout.

As seen in frame 10 of page 39, there are several sections divided by similar archways. Hergé mistakenly forgot to change the colors and types of the doors behind them in these pages, which makes it easy to assume the fruit-seller has been pulled backward.

It is also important to note that page 40 was drawn later and inserted between pages 39 and 41, which adds to the visual inconsistency.

Any thoughts?

Hello King Waruna. I'm not sure this could be answered definitively. Both could be correct, since the archways and doorways along the road all look so similar.

So, in the panel just before the captain crashes into the orange seller there's a blue door in the background with a makeshift wooden porch over it, and again after they've collided there's a similar blue door with a makeshift porch. As you mention, perhaps the confusion arose when the colour was added?

Certainly your view is valid though. My own take on it is that Hergé wasn't paying enough attention!