Created byEdgar Pierre Jacobs after WWII, Professor Philip Mortimer, nuclear physicist, and Captain Francis Blake, dashing head of MI5, are legendary heroes of the 9th art. His first comic, The U Ray (translated by Cinebook) was noticed by Hergé, and Jacobs became his first assistant, helping to illustrate Tintin in the Congo, Tintin in America, The Blue Lotus, King Ottokar's Sceptre, The Seven Crystal Balls, and Prisoners of the Sun, before being given free rein to work on his own series.