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 (character) been written by any Belgian in my situation. They are not very intelligent, I know, and do me no honour: they are 'Belgian' books." Peeters deemed the early Tintin to be "a Sartre-esque character", an "existentialist before the term had been coined", having "no surname, no family, hardly anything of a face, and the mere semblance of a career." Ultimately, he deemed him nothing but a "narrative vehicle" for the story, being an otherwise incoherent character. The image of Tintin—a round-faced young man running with a white fox terrier by his side—is easily one of the most recognisable visual icons