The Adventures of Tintin following the adventures of a strong protagonist. Tintin's iconic representation enhances this aspect, with Scott McCloud noting that it "allows readers to mask themselves in a character and safely enter a sensually stimulating world." Snowy ("Milou" in Hergé's original version), a white Wire Fox Terrier dog, is Tintin's loyal, four-legged companion. The bond between Snowy and Tintin is very deep, as they have saved each other from perilous situations many times. Snowy frequently "speaks" to the reader through his thoughts (often displaying a dry sense of humour), which are not heard by the human characters in the story. Snowy has
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets wanted to write and draw his own cartoon strip. Hergé already had experience creating comic strips. From July 1926 he had written a strip about a boy scout patrol leader titled "Les Aventures de Totor C.P. des Hannetons" (""The Adventures of Totor, Scout Leader of the Cockchafers"") for the Scouting newspaper (""The Belgian Boy Scout""). The character of Totor was a strong influence on Tintin; Hergé described the latter as being like Totor's younger brother. Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier stated that graphically, Totor and Tintin were "virtually identical" except for the scout uniform, also noting many similarities between their respective