 Hergé retained the anti @-@ German sentiment that he had first considered for King Ottokar 's Sceptre through the inclusion of a German villain , Dr. Müller , who would go on to become a recurring character in the series . He based the character largely on Georg Bell , a Scottish forger who had been a vocal supporter of the Nazi regime , and who he had learned about from an article in anti @-@ conformist Belgian magazine La Crapouillot ( The Mortar Shell ) . Rather than Germans , Müller 's henchmen were given the Russian names Ivan and Wronzoff , although the latter would be renamed <unk> by Michael Turner and Leslie Lonsdale @-@ Cooper for the English translation . Forging banknotes was a topical crime at the time , while the idea of villains using superstition to hide their lair was a common trope , one that Hergé had used previously in Tintin in the Land of the Soviets . The idea of Ranko brought together two popular fictional creatures of the 1930s ; the giant ape King Kong , who had been introduced in the film King Kong ( 1933 ) , and the Loch Ness Monster , a cryptid who was to have lived in Loch Ness . Gaston Leroux 's character of <unk> the gorilla , who had appeared in a 1911 book and a 1913 film , might also have been an influence on Ranko . The plot and themes of the story were also influenced by Alfred Hitchcock 's 1935 film The 39 Steps , itself an adaptation of John Buchan 's 1915 adventure novel . 
