Tintin (character) with word balloons, in which he depicted a boy and a little white dog. Abbe Wallez thought that these characters could be developed further, and asked Hergé to use characters like these for an adventure that could be serialised in . Hergé agreed, creating "The Adventures of Tintin" as a result. Images of Tintin and Snowy first appeared in the youth supplement on 4 January 1929, in an advert for the upcoming series. However, Hergé would later insist that Tintin would only be "born" on 10 January 1929, when "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" began to be serialised
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