Cigar Chomper

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Because nothing says "manly" like a phallic symbol clenched between your teeth. Clockwise from top-left: Vice Admiral Smoker, "Hannibal" Smith, Sergeant Johnson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger

A character who is never seen without his cigar. Almost Always Male. Tends to denote that the character is a tough, aggressive, take-no-nonsense type. Because good cigars are an expensive habit, they also carry a connotation of wealth, power and high status. Characters such as Da Chief, Sergeant Rock and your local Corrupt Corporate Executive often chomp on cigars, as will anyone in a Smoky Gentlemen's Club who hasn't got a pipe.

Related to Smoking Is Cool and Good Smoking, Evil Smoking.

Examples of Cigar Chomper include:

Anime and Manga

  • The title character of Space Adventure Cobra.
  • "Sir" Integra Hellsing is a female example.
  • One Piece: In general, while a lot of characters smoke, someone who smokes cigarettes is ally of the Straw Hats, while cigars indicate an enemy.
    • Smoker/Chaser is usually seen with multiple cigars...unless it's the 4kids dub. Justified, of course, as his Devil Fruit power lets him manipulate and control cigar smoke in a variety of useful ways.
    • Sir Crocodile, Shilew of the Rain and "Golden Lion" Shiki also smoke cigars. Also, all three are evil.
    • Capone Bege from the Whole Cake Island Arc, works with his mobster-style suit and attitude.
  • Bunta from Initial D almost always has one.
  • Balalaika in Black Lagoon is an another female example.

Comic Books

Film

Literature

  • In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, this was Judge Taylor's "one interesting habit", as he was a pretty boring man otherwise.
  • LEP Commander Julius Root of Artemis Fowl.
  • Inspector Cramer in the Nero Wolfe novels, who almost never actually lights his cigar, just gnaws on it.
  • Commander Vimes in Discworld.
  • Invoked by Citizen Rear Admiral Lester Tourville in Honor Among Enemies. He smokes cigars as part of a general strategy of looking like a hard-charging cowboy and less like the sort of responsible officer who tends to get promoted to a high enough position in the Peoples' Navy to either be seen as a potential threat to the Committee Of Public Safety or to warrant their preferred punishment for Citizen Admirals who have failed in important missions.
  • Invoked in The Warrior's Apprentice. Baz apparently once served under a tough, cigar-smoking engineering officer. Miles successfully gets him to intimidate the Oseran engineers by giving him a cigar as a prop.
  • The goblin leader in Blue Moon Rising is a classic Cigar Chomper.
  • Sgt. Veelie, Inspector Queen's offsider in the Ellery Queen novels. Especially apparent in the 1970s TV series where Veelie (played by Tom Reese) is almost never seen without a cigar in his mouth.
  • Uncle Cyrus from "Anthill" has had numerous cigars.

Live Action TV

Newspaper Comics

  • Flip from Little Nemo.
  • Albert Alligator from Pogo.
  • Broom Hilda was one of these initially, but this was eventually phased out due to concerns about promoting smoking to young readers.


Oral Tradition

  • In Brazilian folklore, the Caipora is a Trickster God who appears as a small man riding a hog, who smokes a cigar.

Video Games

  • Duke Nukem.
  • One of the official artists for Team Fortress 2 has done a series of unofficial genderbends of the main characters. Her design of Lady Heavy frequently has a cigar, a rare female example of this trope.
  • In StarCraft, the Firebats can always be seen smoking a cigar inside their armor.
    • Tychus from SC2 has a few notable moments with cigars, although it's not constant. The still image of him used in all the promotional materials features one.
  • The Sly Cooper games give us Muggshot from the first game and El Jeffe from the fourth, who both are seen with a stogie locked in their jaws in their debut appearances.
  • Pyro from Sacrifice has a cigar as part of his character portrait and is thus never seen without it. He's more of a Corrupt Corporate Executive, however.
  • Mass Effect II: one sight gag in Omega is an elcor merchant who constantly smokes a cigar, somehow.
  • Left 4 Dead: Bill is an interesting case, being a cigarette chomper. He doesn't really smoke it, despite its constantly being lit, just kind of of keeps it there all day. It even stays lit after he dies. The only time it's unlit in-game is after he's been Killed Off for Real.
  • Halo: Sgt. Major Avery S. Johnson. The tough-as-nails smartass Johnson is hardly ever seen without his cigar.
  • Peacock from Skullgirls. Notable in that Peacock is a 13 year old girl.
  • Jinx from Jak and Daxter.

Web Comics

Web Original

  • Roman Torchwick from RWBY.

Western Animation

Real Life

  • Anything featuring Winston Churchill.
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger in Real Life. Note that Arnold is so devoted to his cigars that when he was Governor of California, it being illegal to smoke inside office buildings, he had a tent with his desk placed on the grounds outside the Governor's Mansion so he could smoke while conducting business.
  • British TV executive Lew Grade. A producer working for him once allegedly complained that his salary was less than Grade's cigar budget. Grade replied that the producer didn't give him as much satisfaction as his cigars.
  • Fidel Castro, who certainly liked to be seen as a tough military leader.
  • Che Guevara is quoted as saying, "A smoke in times of rest is a great companion to the solitary soldier." Unfortunately for him, he also had terrible asthma, which became a liability during his disasterous Bolivian campaign.
  • Clive Barker's cigars got bigger as he got more rich and famous.
  • Groucho Marx. Not physically tough, but woe betide anyone who dared spar with him verbally.