The Calculus Affair (1956)
The Calculus Affair Review
The Calculus Affair is the 18th volume of The Adventures of Tintin comics series by Belgian cartoonist Herge. It was published in 1956 and it is one of the weakest installments in the series.
The story follows the attempts of Tintin, his dog Snowy and his friend Captain Haddock to rescue their friend Professor Calculus, who has developed a machine capable of destroying objects with sound waves, from kidnapping attempts by the competing European countries of Borduria and Syldavia. I did not quite care for this comic that ended up being weaker than even the earlier entries in the series, including ‘Tintin in America’.
My main issue with it is the utter lack of adventure elements. This is more of a spy thriller story with strong mystery elements, but I was personally never engaged with the premise enough, so its effect was muted on me. That is not to say that the volume does not have its strengths. The illustrations are as polished as ever with the largest panels being particularly mesmerizing in the level of details that they provide. The dialogue is also quite good and so was the characterization.
Calculus is very well utilized throughout this story and he is a crucial plot device here as well. Haddock is a reliably fun goofball, but Tintin and Snowy themselves were forgettable for the most part. Castafiore got a couple of moments to shine herself, but others were mostly unimportant to the overall story.
There is that one great scene at the beginning that kicked off this mystery well. I also loved the scene at the restaurant where Haddock’s drinking problem is well mined for laughs. The scene ended with a massive explosion, which also made it quite memorable. But the problem here was that the rest of the story lost its steam pretty quickly with the second half being particularly slow and uninteresting.
