 On 24 November 1932, Le Petit Vingtième published a fictional interview between Jamin and Tintin in which the reporter announced that he would be travelling to China via Egypt, India, Ceylon, and Indochina. On 8 December 1932, the story began serialisation in the supplement under the title of The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter, in the Orient. As the story began in Egypt rather than China, Hergé briefly renamed the story to The Cairo Affair. The story was not following any plan or pre-written plot, with Hergé as usual devising the story on a week-by-week basis. When the time came to assemble and publish the story in book form, Hergé decided to divide it into two volumes and to give them each a new title; the first half, which is set in Egypt, Arabia, and India, he titled Cigars of the Pharaoh, while the second half, set in China, became The Blue Lotus. Cigars was the first of the Adventures published by Casterman, with whom Hergé had signed a contract in late 1933, although much to his annoyance, they delayed publication until the autumn of 1934, after the culmination of the summer holidays. In 1936, they successfully requested that he produce several colour plates to be inserted into the reprint of the book.
