After Captain Haddock in 2020-2021, it is now Tryphon Calculus’s turn to celebrate its 80th anniversary this year! It was in fact in the daily Le Soir of March 5, 1943 that the scientist made his first appearance. Like the other main characters in the series, Calculus had to overcome a ordeal before finally being accepted into the «family». Tintin and Haddock had refused his proposal to put his shark submarine at their disposal. The inventor imposed himself by trickery. Even if te Red Rackham's Treasure was not at the bottom of the sea, the submersible was finally useful to the protagonists to locate the wreck of The Unicorn.

I will not teach the readers of Tintin by writing that Hergé was inspired by the Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard to imagine his man in the green coat. That the teacher’s first name is borrowed from Tryphon Bekaert, a Brussels carpenter whose draftsman had noticed the workshop. Perhaps the tintinophiles are less numerous to know where Calculus's deafness comes from: Hergé remembered a colleague of the daily Le Vingtième Siècle, Paul Eydt, suffering from this infirmity.

While Haddock is the most popular character in Tintin’s Adventures, his friend is not forgotten. In Belgium, the professor gave his name to the Tryphon Tournesol Faculty of Tintinology. This secret society, created in 1991 by RTBF journalist Paul Danblon, brings together members of various Masonic lodges.

Since the 2006 La Quinzaine de la BD festival in Brussels, on Charles Buls street, near the Grand-Place, has the secondary name «rue Tryphon Tournesol». France is no exception: in Bordeaux, at the initiative of the association Les Pélicans noirs, an esplanade of Professor Calculus was inaugurated in October 2010. In the presence of His Serene Highness Muskar XII, King of Syldavia, excuse the little !

A dictionary for her birthday

Dear Tryphon also inspired writers. In 1994, humorist Albert Algoud published Le Tournesol illustré (Casterman), in which he reviews the past of the scientist as well as his psychology and inventions. This deliciously illustrated book has already been translated into several languages. An English edition has been added this year, on the occasion of the birthday of the nice octogenarian.

Tintinologist Jacques Hiron is the author of a biography, Tournesol cet inconnu, which Mosquito editions were preparing to publish in 2010. But the rights holders did not hear it from this ear, and the release of the book was canceled.

For the sake of completeness, let’s also recall the existence of these two titles : Tryphon Calculus and Isidore Isou by Emmanuel Rabu (Seuil, 2007), and Sidonie Calculus by Alexis Legayet (L'Harmattan, 2014).

To mark the four twentieth anniversary of Calculus, a small dictionary is published this June 21 at 1000 Sabords editions. The summer solstice for Calculus, the Music Festival for this hard-of-hearing poe t! Concocted by Pierre Bénard, Tryphon de A à Z is quite complementary to Algoud’s pioneering work, to which he pays tribute.

From A as «amnesia» to Z as «zouave», including the Count of Champignac (in Spirou), the clown Georges Loriot (who played Calculus at the cinema) and the terrifying Rascar Capac, Bénard explores all facets of the brilliant scientist and his universe.

A light book to read this summer, at the Hotel des Sommets or in the park of Moulinsart.