of Totor merely illustrated the story; the text that appeared below the drawings is what propelled the action. Years later, Totor would be very much in Hergé's mind; his 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. Novelist and biographer Harry Thompson simply stated that Totor would "metamorphose" into Tintin. Literary influences have been observed. Benjamin Rabier and Fred Isly published an illustrated story in 1898 titled ("Tintin the Goblin"), in which they featured a small goblin boy named Tintin, who had a rounded face and quiff. Hergé agreed that Rabier's manner of drawing animals had influenced him, although he swore that he was unaware of the existence of Tintin-Lutin until one of his readers later informed him of the similarity. In 1907, Gaston Leroux (author of The Phantom of the Opera) created the character Joseph Rouletabille, a young journalist and amateur detective. wrote a series of adventures in 1910 titled . Hergé, an avid news reader, would have been aware of the activities of a number of popular journalists well known in Belgium, notably Joseph Kessel but especially Albert Londres, one of the creators of investigative journalism. Almost certainly another influence was Palle Huld, a 15-year-old Danish Boy Scout who travelled around the world in 1928 and wrote about his adventures the following year. Robert Sexé, a French motorcycle photojournalist, travelled and wrote about the Soviet Union, the Belgian Congo, and the United States—immediately followed by Tintin's adventures. Years later, when Hergé was asked who inspired Tintin, he answered, "Tintin c'est moi." 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 in speech bubbles and drawings that carried the story. Young reporter Tintin would have the investigative acumen of Londres, the travelling abilities of Huld, and the high moral standing of Totor; the Boy Scout travelling reporter that Hergé would have liked to have been. Early development Tintin appeared after Hergé got his first job as a photographic reporter and cartoonist working at the Catholic newspaper ("The Twentieth Century"), where his director challenged him to create a new serialised comic for its Thursday supplement for young readers, ("The Little Twentieth"). In the edition 30 December 1928 of