Rastapopoulos

Roberto Rastapopoulos is a fictional character who is a featured villain in several entries in The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. He first appears in Cigars of the Pharaoh (1932) and is a criminal mastermind with multiple identities, whose activities frequently bring him in conflict with his archenemy Tintin.

==Character history== ===Early development=== A visual prototype for Rastapopoulos appears in Tintin in America, where he is among the assembled dignitaries at a Chicago banquet held in Tintin's honour. Here he is seated next to the actress Mary Pikefort, an allusion to the real-life actress Mary Pickford. Michael Farr asserted that this was indeed a depiction of Rastapopoulos, and that it would be expected for a film director to be seated next to a Hollywood actress. The name "Rastapopoulos" had been invented by one of Hergé's friends; Hergé thought it was hilarious and decided to use it. He devised Rastapopoulos as an Italian-American with a Greek surname, as a Greek American, or simply as a Greek born on the island of Leros. Despite allegations of antisemitism, Hergé was adamant that the character was not Jewish. With his lampooned Greek surname, large nose and morally dubious involvement in shipping, Hergé arguably modelled Rastapopoulous off Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.