Concept

Cigars of the Pharaoh

Summary
Cigars of the Pharaoh (Les Cigares du pharaon) is the fourth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the series of comic albums by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from December 1932 to February 1934. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who are travelling in Egypt when they discover a pharaoh's tomb filled with dead Egyptologists and boxes of cigars. Pursuing the mystery of these cigars, they travel across Arabia and India, and reveal the secrets of an international drug smuggling enterprise. Following on from Tintin in America, Cigars was a commercial success, and was published in book form by Casterman shortly after its conclusion. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with The Blue Lotus, the plot of which followed on from Cigars. The series itself became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comic tradition. In 1955, it was re-drawn and coloured by Hergé and his assistants at Studios Hergé to match his distinctive ligne-claire style. Critical analysis of the story has focused on its innovation, and the Adventure introduces the recurring characters of detectives Thomson and Thompson and villain Rastapopoulos. The comic was loosely adapted by Hergé and Jacques Van Melkebeke for the 1941 play Tintin in India: The Mystery of the Blue Diamond; a more faithful adaptation was later made for the 1991 Ellipse/Nelvana animated series The Adventures of Tintin. Holidaying on a Mediterranean cruise ship, Tintin and his dog Snowy meet wealthy film producer Rastapopoulos and eccentric Egyptologist Sophocles Sarcophagus. When two policemen (Thomson and Thompson) accuse Tintin of opium smuggling, he escapes the ship and joins Sarcophagus on his search for the undiscovered tomb of the Pharaoh Kih-Oskh, near Cairo. Tintin discovers that the tomb is full of mummified bodies (previous Egyptologists who tried to find the tomb), and boxes of cigars labelled with the mysterious symbol of Kih-Oskh.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.