Tintin’s most enduring sidekick turned up in the ninth of the young reporter’s adventures, and became more and more prominent thereafter – eventually becoming practically the main character. The full-bearded alcoholic, rageaholic, commitment-phobic British sea captain lucked into a fortune (Red Rackham’s Treasure) and wound up drinking himself insensible in Marlinspike Hall, occasionally giving vent to amazingly picturesque salty language (often through a megaphone) when assailed by bashi-bazouks, troglodytes, prize purple jellyfish, Incan mummies and Signorina Bianca Castafiore, ‘the Milanese nightingale’. Pursuit of whisky is his defining motive – he even got drunk on a trip to the moon! One of the most human and perversely admirable characters in fiction.

FIRST APPEARED IN THE CRAB WITH THE GOLDEN CLAWS (1941)
CREATED BY HERGÉ (GEORGES REMI)