Tintin cover satirizing Hitler to go under the hammer

Drawing could go for more than $395,000 when it comes up for auction in Paris

PARIS — The cover of a Tintin story that satirized Hitler’s German expansionism could go for more than a 350,000 euros ($395,000) when it comes up for auction in Paris Saturday.

In “King Ottakar’s Sceptre,” the boy detective’s Belgian creator Herge was taking a dig at the Nazi leader after his annexation of Austria in 1938.

Tintin and his faithful hound Snowy find themselves trying to foil a plot by spies to overthrow the king of the fictional Balkan land of Syldavia.

The story was first published in the children’s supplement of the conservative Brussels newspaper Le Petit Vingtieme. The cover shows Tintin tripping as he gets out of the plane in Prague and having to grab his new friend Professor Alembick’s beard to right himself.

The drawing is part of a major sale of classic cartoon images at Artcurial auction house in the French capital, which was postponed in March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

French comic book artists Albert Uderzo, left, and René Goscinny present models of the characters of Asterix during a reception at the Maxim’s restaurant in Paris before the release of the cartoon, November 16, 1967. (AFP)

Also going under the hammer is painting of Asterix and Obelix by their creator Albert Uderzo for a 1966 coloring book, which is expected to sell for up to 25,000 euros.

But the biggest bids are expected to go a 1954 ink drawing called “Le pirogue” (The Dugout Canoe) of the Marsupilami, the fictional South American animal invented by the legendary Belgian artist Andre Franquin.

It has an estimate of between 350,000 and 450,000 euros.

Franquin was one of the most influential postwar comic book artists, and Marsupilami often appeared alongside the characters Spirou & Fantasio, which he drew from 1949 to 1969.

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