Ramon Bada Following – Figurines Tintin La Collection Officielle – 73 – Ramon Bada En Filature

Author: Hergé & Editions Moulinsart
Price: £45.00
Publisher: Editions Moulinsart
Publication date: 2014
Format: Original pictorial boards with passport and figurine
Condition: In near fine condition
Illustrations: Illustrated throughout

Description:

Original pictorial boards. Includes passport loosely inserted. Text in French. Includes the accompanying figurine. One from the collection of 111 books and figurines. Very slight wear. In very near fine, clean condition overall.

Ramon Bada: A Short Biography

Ramon Bada is a secondary antagonist appearing in Hergé’s The Adventures of Tintin, most notably in **The Broken Ear (L’Oreille cassée, 1937)*. Alongside his accomplice Alonso Pérez, he serves as a ruthless mercenary driven by greed, deceit, and a willingness to resort to violence to achieve his ends.

Hergé portrays Ramon Bada as part of the grim, morally corrupt underworld that Tintin frequently confronts — a vivid contrast to the reporter’s incorruptible moral compass. Through Bada, Hergé explores the darker aspects of human ambition and the colonial backdrop of South America that shapes much of the story’s action.

Character Overview

• Full Name: Ramon Bada
• Nationality: Presumably Spanish or Latin American
• First Appearance: The Broken Ear (L’Oreille cassée, 1937)
• Occupation: Adventurer, criminal, mercenary
• Allies: Alonso Pérez
• Opponents: Tintin
• Notable Traits: Ambitious, deceitful, opportunistic, manipulative

Ramon Bada is not a figure of comic relief, unlike many of Hergé’s villains. Instead, he is depicted as a calculating and ruthless man, embodying a cold-blooded realism that lends The Broken Ear its tone of intrigue and moral ambiguity.

Appearance and Personality

Ramon Bada is typically illustrated as dark-haired, sharp-featured, and immaculately dressed — a mark of his vanity and self-importance. His slicked-back hair, suit, and refined manner conceal a manipulative and merciless personality.

He is the quintessential opportunist: intelligent enough to plot elaborate schemes, but too arrogant to see them unravel. His self-assurance borders on delusion, and his relationship with his partner Alonso Pérez reveals as much rivalry as camaraderie.

Hergé imbues him with traits common to pulp-era villains — suave but treacherous, worldly yet amoral — and frames him as a personification of colonial greed and corruption.

Role in The Broken Ear

In The Broken Ear, Ramon Bada and Alonso Pérez serve as the main human antagonists. Their story begins with the theft of a tribal fetish from the Museum of Ethnography — a small Arumbaya statuette with a broken ear. This fetish is linked to a hidden diamond, the object of desire for multiple characters in the narrative.

Ramon and Alonso are introduced as thieves and murderers, prepared to kill in cold blood to seize the treasure. They pursue Tintin across continents, from Europe to the fictional South American republic of San Theodoros, and later to the neighbouring country of Nuevo Rico, both of which are embroiled in a farcical yet brutal war.

Ramon’s journey is marked by greed and desperation. He constantly plots, deceives, and betrays to gain possession of the fetish, which he believes will make him rich beyond imagination. Yet, as in so many Tintin stories, Hergé’s moral universe ensures that crime ultimately leads to ruin — a principle that governs Ramon’s fate.

Ramon and Alonso: A Study in Duplicity

Ramon Bada’s partnership with Alonso Pérez is one of convenience rather than loyalty. The two criminals share ambition but constantly undermine each other. Hergé subtly uses their exchanges to illustrate the psychology of distrust among the corrupt.

Their dialogue alternates between forced camaraderie and barely disguised suspicion. In many ways, they act as mirror images — greedy, ambitious, and morally bankrupt. Their downfall comes when their alliance inevitably collapses under the weight of their own treachery.

Hergé often uses pairs of villains (such as Allan and Rastapopoulos, or Bada and Pérez) to explore the unstable nature of criminal partnerships — alliances built on self-interest rather than trust.

Thematic Significance

1. Greed and Moral Corruption

Ramon Bada personifies the destructive power of greed. His pursuit of the fetish symbolises the obsession with material wealth that blinds him to moral or human consequences. In a broader sense, he reflects the European and Western exploitation of indigenous cultures — looting artefacts, desecrating sacred symbols, and commodifying heritage.

Hergé, consciously or not, uses Bada to critique this exploitation. The stolen fetish — sacred to the Arumbayas — becomes a metaphor for colonial plunder, and Bada’s eventual failure serves as poetic justice.

2. The Colonial Setting and Political Satire

The Broken Ear is one of Hergé’s most politically aware works, featuring coups, revolutions, and cynical arms dealers manipulating South American politics. Bada moves easily within this corrupt environment, a man without allegiance or conscience — perfectly adapted to a world where morality is expendable.

His actions illustrate the chaotic interplay between greed, imperialism, and the commodification of culture.

3. The Moral Universe of Tintin

Hergé’s moral code is clear: evil, however clever or worldly, cannot triumph. Ramon Bada’s pursuit of the fetish leads him through deceit, violence, and betrayal — only to end in futility. His demise reinforces Tintin’s role as a champion of justice, truth, and integrity.

Artistic Portrayal

Hergé’s clear-line drawing style captures Bada’s duplicity with precision. His sharp, angular face and well-groomed appearance suggest sophistication, but his eyes and expressions betray calculation and malice.

Hergé’s visual storytelling contrasts Bada’s refined exterior with violent intentions — a recurrent technique he used to convey moral hypocrisy. His movements and postures are drawn with theatrical flourish, echoing his overconfidence and vanity.

Unlike overtly comic villains such as Dr. Müller or Colonel Sponsz, Ramon Bada is treated with realism; his menace lies in his plausibility.

Psychological Analysis

Ramon Bada’s psychology is defined by greed, fear, and vanity. His intelligence is undermined by paranoia — the constant fear that others, including Alonso, will outwit or betray him. This self-destructive suspicion accelerates his downfall.

He is the archetype of the self-made criminal, motivated by a delusional belief in his own superiority. Hergé uses this trait to expose the moral blindness that comes from unchecked ambition.

Ramon’s lack of empathy, contrasted with Tintin’s compassion, serves to highlight the series’ enduring moral dichotomy: selflessness versus selfishness.

Fate and Legacy

Ramon Bada meets an appropriately ironic end. Having pursued the Arumbaya fetish across continents, his greed leads him to destruction — a fate that reflects Hergé’s moral order, in which justice is not always served by law but by poetic inevitability.

Although Bada appears in only one album, his impact is significant. He belongs to a gallery of morally compromised characters who define The Broken Ear’s tone — an atmosphere of cynicism and intrigue unusual for Tintin’s early adventures.

His partnership with Alonso remains one of the most compelling depictions of corruption and mutual betrayal in Hergé’s work.

Conclusion

Ramon Bada stands as one of Hergé’s more psychologically developed early villains. His story, rooted in greed and deceit, provides the moral tension that drives The Broken Ear.

Through him, Hergé explores the consequences of avarice and the ethical cost of exploitation. His world is one of shadows — where ambition replaces conscience, and every alliance conceals betrayal.

In Tintin’s moral universe, Ramon Bada represents the fate awaiting those who sacrifice integrity for wealth: a cautionary figure, emblematic of corruption’s self-destruction.

Summary

• Name: Ramon Bada
• Occupation: Criminal and adventurer
• First Appearance: The Broken Ear (L’Oreille cassée, 1937)
• Traits: Deceitful, vain, intelligent, untrustworthy
• Role: Main antagonist alongside Alonso Pérez
• Theme Representation: Greed, corruption, colonial exploitation, betrayal
• Fate: Self-destruction through treachery and greed

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Cataloguer: Daniel Hornsey

Daniel Hornsey has specialised in fine and rare books, ephemera, and collectors’ editions for over thirty years. As a long-standing member of the antiquarian book trade, he has advised private collectors, curated catalogues, and sourced works for leading dealers, libraries and institutions across the world.

Hornseys’ exhibit regularly at book and map fairs in London and throughout the UK and are members of the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association, the PBFA.

His fascination with Hergé’s work — especially ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ — began in childhood. Daniel recalls reading Tintin in original European editions and quickly recognising that these were not merely children’s books, but finely illustrated narratives crafted with artistic depth and wit.

As noted by the Musée Hergé in Louvain-la-Neuve, Hergé’s ‘ligne claire’ style has influenced generations of European comic artists and his original drawings and paintings command very high prices with his painting of ‘The Blue Lotus’ jar fetching £2.8m at auction in 2021.

By presenting these works through Hornseys’, he hopes to contribute to the continued appreciation of one of the 20th century’s most influential illustrators, helping new generations discover the artistry and legacy of Hergé.