The stories center around a young reporter from Belgium named Tintin, who travels the world and has many exciting adventures with his dog, a white wire fox terrier named Snowy (Milou, in French) and later (starting with "The Crab with the Golden Claws" in 1941) his friend, Captain Haddock, a bearded drunk with a temper. Other popular characters include Professor Cuthbert Calculus (Professeur Tryphon Tournesol) an absent-minded and mostly deaf (but he insists he's hard of hearing) scientist and inventor, and Thomson and Thompson (Dupond et Dupont), two silly detectives.