The Calculus Affair - Notable Features

Notable Features

• The Calculus Affair introduces the character of Jolyon Wagg, who reappears in several later adventures.

• This is also the first story to feature Cutts the Butcher. All calls to him end up at Marlinspike Hall where Nestor and Haddock are plagued with endless orders for lamb chops and sausages. The irony is that when he tries to make a call, from whichever location, it is Haddock who gets put through to Cutts first. The driver of Cutts' van also plays an important part in the story: giving Calculus a lift to the village and unknowingly thwarting a kidnapping attempt.

• Colonel Sponsz also makes his first appearance. He would again be mentioned in The Castafiore Emerald and would return to take his comeuppance on Tintin, Haddock, Calculus and Castafiore in Tintin and the Picaros.

• In the crowd of day trippers camped outside the gates of Marlinspike, a caricature of Hergé himself can be spotted.

• The graphics include accurate renditions of Geneva, the Hotel Cornavin, the railway station and Geneva Cointrin International Airport. Many Tintin fans in later years, when at the Hotel Cornavin, would ask to stay in "Professor Calculus's room" (Room 122, fourth floor), which did not actually exist. To clarify the matter, Hergé sent the Hotel a cut-out of Tintin, explaining that it was not possible to stay in the Professor's room.

• The uniforms of the Bordurian police appear to be based on those of Hungarian police of the time, which they closely resemble. (The Hungarian Uprising took place eight months after the serialisation of the strip ended.)

• A famous sight gag from this album involves Haddock trying to get rid of a piece of sticking plaster that keeps returning to him. This gag was repeated in Flight 714, but it is limited to only three panels.

• Another famous scene involves a car chase with an expert Italian automobile driver in a Lancia Aurelia GT. When a gendarme eventually stops him and asks for his name, he recites it in full: Arturo Benedetto Giovanni Giuseppe Pietro Arcangelo Alfredo Cartoffoli da Milano. Rather confused by this, the gendarme weakly releases him.