In the album The Calculus Affair, originally published in 1956, Hergé sends his characters Tintin and Captain Haddock to search for Professor Calculus around Lake Geneva.
They travel by plane from Brussels to Geneva, search for Calculus, then follow his trail towards Nyon and Rolle (Vaud), then cross the lake by helicopter. From the sky, we see the Chemin de la Renouillère at the port of Sciez-sur-Léman. The helicopter follows the vehicle registered in the Savoyard free zone, flying over Bonnatrait and the Perrignier road, on which we can see a kilometer marker indicating the D25 road, 5.2 km from the town of Cervens.
Meeting at the Maison Alvéole in 2004 to tackle the translation of the album into the regional language of the places where the adventure takes place—Arpitan—the Arpitan Cultural Alliance adopted the idea—a first!—of using the reference spelling proposed by linguist Dominique Stich for all the different dialects of the linguistic area. This allowed the characters to speak in Savoyard/Geneva (Tintin), Vaudois (Professor Calculus), or even Lyonnaise (Captain Haddock) variants, while using a supradialectal spelling, etymologically inspired, and no longer phonetically, as Arpitan dialects are traditionally written (« we write it as we pronounce it! »).
The adapted album was published in 2007 and is titled L’afére Pecârd, paying homage to the Vaudois physician, aeronaut, and oceanaut Auguste Piccard, who inspired Hergé to create Professor Calculus.
Several book launches have taken place, including at the Cervens municipal library, the Nyon fire station, and the Lausanne Tintin Festival.
The album is still available from Casterman, available for order in bookstores or online at this link: buy the album.
