Thomson and Thompson ( ) are fictional characters in the Adventures of Tintin comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. They are two intelligence service detectives, identical in both appearance (apart from slighly different moustaches) and demeanor, first introduced in Tintin's fourth adventure Cigars of the Pharaoh (1932–1934), although the 1946 version of Tintin in the Congo (1930–1931) gives them a single-panel cameo appearance.

Well-meaning but clumsy, thoroughly clueless and afflicted with chronic spoonerisms, they mostly act as comic relief and, originally, as secondary antagonists hindering Tintin's progress by suspecting the wrong people, including him. Although their incompetence remains a source of problems, the duo later come to trust Tintin and frequently support him, giving his theories the benefit of the doubt and lawfully arresting some of the villains he unmasks. They typically wear bowler hats and carry walking sticks, except during missions abroad where they insist on wearing whichever stereotypical costume they believe accurate to the country they are visiting, hoping to blend into the local population only for their folkloric attires to make them stand out all the more.

The detective with the flat, drooping walrus moustache is Thompson and introduces himself as "Thompson, with a 'P', as in psychology" (or any such word in which the "P" is silent), while the detective with the flared moustache is Thomson, who often introduces himself as "Thomson, without a 'P', as in Venezuela." Their first names and actual relation to each another are never said outright, although Hergé twice calls them "brothers" in the original French-language text. Often, when one says something, the other adds "To be precise" (In French: , "I would even add"), but then repeats what the first said, but mixed up, for example: "The whole thing looks very fishy to me." "Yes, to be precise, the whole thing looks like me, very fishy." Or: "A Thompson looks death straight in the face!" "To be precise, a Thomson with a straight face looks like death."

The detectives were in part based on Hergé's father and uncle, identical twins who wore matching bowler hats while carrying matching walking sticks.

Character history

In Tintin in America there are characters similar to Thomson and Thompson: two policemen who collide with each other, and an incompetent detective called Mike MacAdam.

In Tintin in the Congo, Thomson and Thompson make only a brief one-panel appearance (although they did not appear in the original version). Their first contribution to the plot of a story comes in Cigars of the Pharaoh (originally published in serialised form in 1932, published as an album in 1934), where they first appear when they come into conflict with Tintin on board a ship where he and Snowy are enjoying a holiday cruise. When this adventure was first published they were referred to as X33 and X33A (X33 et X33 bis in French).

They also make a brief cameo appearance in the Asterix book Asterix in Belgium.

They make an appearance in L'ombra che sfidò Sherlock Holmes, an Italian comic spin-off of Martin Mystère, edited by Sergio Bonelli Editore.

The name of the pop group the Thompson Twins was based on Thomson and Thompson.

The detectives are regular characters in the 1991–1992 television series The Adventures of Tintin, as well as the 2011 motion-capture film adaptation The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. In the film, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost portray Thomson and Thompson.

Names in other languages

In the original French, and are stereotypically prevalent surnames (akin to "Smith") and pronounced identically (). The different letters indicate their different moustache styles: D for ("straight"), T for ("turned up"). Translators of the series in some languages have tried to find names for the pair that are common, and similar or identical in pronunciation. They thus become:

  • and in Afrikaans
  • and ( and ) in Arabic
  • and in Aragonese
  • (Johnson) and (Ronson) in Bengali
  • Pichot and Pitxot in Cadaquesenc (Catalan dialect in Cadaques)
  • and in Cornish
  • and in Czech
  • and in Dutch
  • Thomson and Thompson in English
  • and in Esperanto
  • and in German
  • Schulz and Schulze in German (only in the 1990s TV Series)
  • and in Hindi
  • and in Latin
  • and in Polish
  • and in Romanian
  • and in Spanish (Juventud edition only), Galician and Asturian
  • and in Icelandic
  • and in Serbian
  • and in older Portuguese editions
  • and in Scots
  • and in Scottish Gaelic
  • Johns and Jones or Parry-Williams and Williams-Parry in Welsh ( and Dalen editions, respectively)
  • and in West Flemish (Kortrijk dialect)
  • and in West Flemish (Ostend dialect)

In some languages, the French forms are more directly adapted, using local orthographic ambiguities:

  • In Chinese
  • and or and ( and , or and in Traditional Chinese), or
  • and ( and )
  • and in Greek ( and , pronounced )
  • and in Japanese ( and )
  • and in Latvian
  • and in Persian ( and )
  • and in Korean ( and )
  • and in Russian ( and )

The original Dupond and Dupont are kept in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Hungarian, Turkish, Finnish, Indonesian, Italian, Basque, Catalan, the Casterman edition in Spanish, and the newer Portuguese editions.

See also

  • List of The Adventures of Tintin characters

References

Bibliography

de:Tim und Struppi#Schulze und Schultze