Deleted Page
In the course of illustrating the story, Hergé found that he had gone beyond the 62-page limit required by his publishers. Therefore, he took out a page that follows the one in which Tintin has shown Haddock all the bugs and hidden cameras in their villa, and Sponsz has told Alvarez how it was he who framed Castafiore.
The deleted scene has Sponsz announcing how he will break his enemies and throws his glass to the floor, but it is of the unbreakable variety and bounces back and breaks the moustache of a bust of Kûrvi-Tasch. Alvarez bursts into laughter, before being put in his place and asked to bring in "you-know-who" (most likely Pablo who appears in the following page). Sponsz suspects that Alvarez will claim that he broke the bust deliberately. He thus warns the young officer about his prospects for advancement. Alvarez gets the message and Sponsz tells him to "sack that clumsy cleaning lady who broke Kûrvi-Tasch's moustache." The scene was deleted because it was similar to the scene in Flight 714, where Rastapopoulos claims he will crush Tintin like a spider, but then fails to trample the animal.
This deleted scene was later used in an article in which Hergé demonstrated how a single page in a comic book was developed from rough sketches to a fully drawn and colourised page.
Read more about this topic: Tintin And The Picaros
Famous quotes containing the words deleted and/or page:
“There is never finality in the display terminal’s screen, but an irresponsible whimsicality, as words, sentences, and paragraphs are negated at the touch of a key. The significance of the past, as expressed in the manuscript by a deleted word or an inserted correction, is annulled in idle gusts of electronic massacre.”
—Alexander Cockburn (b. 1941)
“He crafted his writing and loved listening to those tiny explosions when the active brutality of verbs in revolution raced into sweet established nouns to send marching across the page a newly commissioned army of words-on-maneuvers, all decorated in loops, frets, and arrowlike flourishes.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)