HERGÉ (1907-1983) Lot n° 34

■ °° λ Tintin and Snowy - Ottokar's Scepter India ink on paper for plate 86 of the album. 31.6x22.1 cm. Casterman, 1939. When he begins work in July 1938 on this story that is first called The Adventures of Tintin in Syldavia, Hergé certainly does not realize that this eighth adventure of the young reporter will represent the narrative and graphic high point of the first part of his career. What will soon be called Le Sceptre d'Ottokar marks the return of a politically engaged narrative, after the success of the Blue Lotus. The difference is that Tintin will never be confronted here with bandits or traffickers as he is used to, but only with fearsome conspirators led by the mysterious Müsstler, an obvious synthesis of Mussolini and Hitler. Hergé is indeed very inspired by the troubled period that Europe is going through, and above all by the Anschluss of Austria in March 1938, the first invasion of a country since the First World War, in defiance of all the treaties signed. On August 4, 1938, Hergé thus begins the publication of this new adventure in the Petit Vingtième, without imagining that the annexation of the Sudetenland, then the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the annexation of Albania before the attack on Poland will give to its publication a prophetic and dramatically more realistic echo. For his most committed album, Hergé cannot however risk evoking this burning current events head-on. So he chose to use two imaginary countries in the Balkans. Thus, the king of Syldavia, advocating the neutrality of his country, takes the attire of the young king of the Belgians Leopold III for Hergé, who is profoundly royalist. Much less humorous than the previous adventures, the story is full of authentic anecdotes, becoming a true testimony of his time. Hergé thus reveals at the end of the album that the plan of his conspirators was based on alleged aggressions against Bordures residing in Syldavia, exactly as it was