Tintin in the Congo and the stowaway is eaten by crocodiles. After reading a letter from the stowaway's pocket, Tintin finds that someone called "A.C." has ordered his elimination. Tintin captures a criminal who tried to rendezvous with the stowaway and learns that "A.C." is the American gangster Al Capone, who is trying to gain control of African diamond production. Tintin and the colonial police arrest the rest of the diamond smuggling gang and Tintin and Snowy return to Belgium. Georges Remi—best known under the pen name Hergé—was employed as editor and illustrator of (""The Little Twentieth""), a children's supplement to (""The Twentieth Century""),
Tintin (character) drawings of Totor merely illustrated the story; the text that appeared below the drawings is what propelled the action. Totor had been very much in Hergé's mind; its new comics character would be, Hergé himself later said, "the little brother of Totor ... keeping the spirit of a Boy Scout." Assouline would describe Totor as "a sort of trial run" for Tintin, while Harry Thompson noted that in several years he would "metamorphose" into Tintin. Hergé had seen the new style of American comics and was ready to try it. Tintin's new comic would be a strip cartoon with dialogue