Los cigarros del faraón
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""), a staunchly Roman Catholic, conservative Belgian newspaper based in Hergé's native Brussels which was run by the "Abbé" Norbert Wallez. In 1929, Hergé began "The Adventures of Tintin" comic strip for , about the exploits of fictional young Belgian reporter Tintin. Wallez ordered Hergé to set his first adventure in the Soviet Union to act as anti-socialist propaganda for children ("Tintin in the Land of the Soviets"), to set his second adventure in the Belgian Congo to encourage colonial sentiment ("Tintin in the Congo"), and to set his third adventure in the United States to use the story as a denunciation of American capitalism ("Tintin in America"). On 24 November 1932, "Le Petit Vingtième" published a fictional interview with Tintin in which the reporter announced that he would travel to China via Egypt, India, Sri Lanka, and Indochina. This plotline resulted in "Tintin in the Orient", the first part of which was an "Adventure" set in Egypt, Arabia, and India that Hergé later titled "Cigars of the Pharaoh". "Cigars" ceased publication in "Le Petit Vingtième" in February 1934, and Hergé next provided the standalone story "Popol out West" for the newspaper. "The Blue Lotus" was the second half of the "Tintin in the Orient" story that Hergé had begun with "Cigars of the Pharaoh".