French Asterix comics.
The Asterix comics are quintessentially French.
Its co-creator, Albert Uderzo, who teamed with Rene Goscinny to create Gaul Asterix (the character with the moustache), died this year in Paris on Tuesday 24 March 2020, aged 92 from heart failure.
Albert Uderzo was born on 25 April 1927 in Fismes, in eastern France. He was born with 12 fingers, but had an operation to remove two of them. He grew up in Paris with his Italian parents.
Albert Uderzo and Rene Goscinny created the Asterix comic series in 1959—60 years ago. It was published by the Dargaud printing house. In 1966, France’s first space satellite was named Asterix in honour of the comic legend. The series is translated into more than 100 languages and there is even a theme park dedicated to Asterix.
Asterix tells of the adventures of an ancient Gaul named Asterix resisting the Romans in 50 BC using a magic potion that gives him superhuman strength. Asterix is described as a weakling who defeats the strong. His friends include Obelix and Dogmatrix. In 2017, he was defeating the Coronavirus.
Uderzo’s partner Rene Goscinny died in 1977, and Uderzo then created the printing company, Les Editions Albert Rene in 1979, splitting from the Dargaud publishers. Uderzo continued the series alone until 2011.
The Asterix series is now written by Jean-Yves Ferri, and drawn by Didier Conrad. Les Editions Albert Rene (owned by Hachette) is the company that now owns the rights to the series.
Goscinny’s daughter, Anne Goscinny, told Le Parisiennewspaper on 25 March 2020 after Uderzo’s death, that the two men were like brothers, but were as different as ‘fire and water.’
Last year, in 2019, the comic series introduced its first female heroine, Adrenaline (with a long plait of hair tied with a bow and wearing ancient Gaul boots). She is the teenage daughter of Vercingetorix, the chieftain who led the Gauls to rebel against Julius Caesar.
So Asterix the comic series lives on.
