Herge Anna Ralphs -

Today, the “Herge Anna Ralphs” provenance mark is a coveted notation in rare comic art auctions. A small museum in Louvain-la-Neuve displays her inking pens beside Hergé’s own. And every year, a scholarship is awarded in her name to a woman working in European comics—a quiet tribute to the ghost who helped draw a clear line for the boy reporter who never grew up.

For reasons lost to time—perhaps a salary dispute, perhaps a clash of egos—Anna Ralphs left Hergé’s studio in late 1937. Her name was erased from all credits. Hergé never mentioned her publicly. When he fled Brussels during the Nazi occupation, many of her original inkings were left behind or destroyed. herge anna ralphs

Georges Remi, known to the world as Hergé, was a meticulous but overwhelmed artist by the mid-1930s. Tintin in the Congo and Tintin in America had made him a celebrity in Belgium, but his deadlines were crushing. His studio, though small, needed help. History remembers his later assistants—Edgar P. Jacobs, Bob de Moor—but before them, there was a shadow figure: a young woman named Hermine “Anna” Ralphs. Today, the “Herge Anna Ralphs” provenance mark is