'Astérix Le Gaulois'

I was first introduced to European comic book in the late 1950s, probably ’58 or ’59.  I’d have been 11 or 12 and my family had sponsored an Irish au pair named Ita.  (I no longer remember her last name, which, of course, my little brother and I never used.)

Ita only stayed with us for about a year before returning to Ireland, but I remember her because she was the first non-American I ever really met (aside from some of my schoolmates at Washington, D.C.’s Sidwell Friends School).  I was fascinated with everything Ita told us about her homeland and its history.  I even badgered her to teach me some Gaelic—but all I remember now is how to count from one to five.  (I had to look up how to write the numbers in Irish here because Ita only taught me how to say them: haon [ayn], dó [doe], trí [tree], ceathair [ka-hair], cúig [kwig],)

Ita also showed me a British comic book called The Beano which included a character called Roger the Dodger.  (A dodger, as in the name of the Charles Dickens character from  Oliver Twist, the Artful Dodger, is a trickster or prankster.)  Roger is a bad boy who schemes to avoid chores and homework, which always ends in his being punished.

The comic book itself (called an ‘album’) is very different from the usual American comic (with which I was pretty familiar at this time even though I was only allowed to have them during the summer while I was at camp): they’re printed on thick paper like a proper book, not the flimsy newsprint of our comic books, and hard-bound rather than stapled into a slick paper cover.  The albums are in a larger format (about 9⅓ x 12½ inches as opposed to 7½ by 11 inches) and longer (often 48-60 pages vs. 32 pages), too, altogether more like a children’s book—aside from the content—than a traditional American comic.

Another difference was that The Beano had several stories, not all of which featured Rodger the Dodger.  I remember another story that was about a newly-trained teacher who’s sent to a tough school for his tryout.  The rowdy students run amok and the new teacher is sure he’ll fail his evaluation, but when the official arrives, he’s so aware of the school’s rep he dashes in and out, leaving the passing evaluation with the new teacher on the run so the evaluator doesn’t have to spend any time in the building.

Okay, I’m getting diverted; nothing new there!  In any case, when I encountered more European comics a few years later, I wasn’t so surprised that they were different from ours.  I was, however, in line for another surprise.  But let me make a brief diversion and get back to this subject in a moment.

On Saturday, 28 March, the New York Times published the obituary of Albert Uderzo (b. 1927).  Born in northeastern France, Uderzo died at 92 on Wednesday, 24 March; he was the artist half of the creative team who wrote and drew the Astérix comic books of France.  (See where I’m goin’?)  His partner, whom he met in 1951, was the writer of the stories, René Goscinny (1926-77).  After producing several earlier comics for the French and Belgian (more accurately, Walloon) audience, Uderzo and Goscinny created Astérix and his band of hearty, indomitable Gauls in 1959.

I saw my first Astérix in the early or mid-1960s, probably Le Tour de Gaule d’Astérix, published in 1965 (and translated into English, for some reason, as Asterix and the Banquet).  The French title, like most of the texts of the Astérix adventures, is a pun: the “Tour de Gaul” is an evocation of the annual French international bicycle race, the Tour de France.

The comic series was originally titled Astérix le Gaulois (Asterix the Gaul), the title of the first story, published in serial form a few pages at a time in a newspaper for children called Pilote in 1959.  Astérix le Gaulois was published as an album in 1961.  Each story had its own title, of course, and the albums bore the banner “une aventure d’astérix le gaulois” above the episode name, but somewhere along the line, the series title was shorted to simply Astérix and the banner disappeared.  I’ll be calling the series Astérix mostly, but since I knew it under its older, longer name, I may use that sometimes as well.

I probably read most of the books of the mid-’60s, but I only preserved two: 1966’s Astérix chez les Bretons (Asterix in Britain) and 1968’s Astérix aux Jeux olympiques (Asterix at the Olympic Games – 1968 was an Olympic year).  The books proved so popular worldwide that they’ve been translated into over 100 languages, including English (and Esperanto).  I’ve read a couple of the English versions, but as I was living on the continent at the time, going to school in Geneva (a French-speaking town), and I was introduced to my first Astérix album by my French pal Marc Humilien, I read most of them in the original language.

I had an ulterior motive, of course—though I don’t know that I was fully aware of it at the time.  I read a couple of things in French just to see if I could; one was the translation of Ian Fleming’s 1961 James Bond novel Thunderball—Opération Tonnerre (‘Operation thunder’) in French, published in 1962.  I wasn’t really conscious of it, but I was learning a lot of French slang, idioms, and colloquialisms along the way—always with the help of my schoolmates who either were French-speakers or had lived in French-speaking countries longer than I had.  (Of course, my friend Marc was a huge help with this, and so was the daughter of my dad’s boss who was tri-lingual; I knew many people who spoke two languages with equal fluency, but Josephine is the only person I ever knew who spoke three—German being the third.)

(At this same time, I also remember seeing the French-dubbed version of From Russia with Love, the 1963 Bond film.  In French, it’s called Bons baisers de Russie, which is a common idiom frequently written or printed on vacation post cards that means “Greetings from Russia,” “Best wishes from Russia,” or, as the movie has it, “With love from Russia.”  (The idiom literally means “Good kisses from Russia.”)

(Anyway, in an odd connection with my later life, 007 has an exchange with a contact in Istanbul.  Bond (in the person of Sean Connery, the first—and best—James Bond) and the operative don’t know one another, so—and this is the connection to my army days—they exchange prescribed verbal signals in order to ascertain that each man is the designated agent.  In military intelligence school, I learned that is called exchanging “bona fides” and Bond’s went like this:

Bond: Pardon me, do you have a match?

Contact: I use a lighter.

Bond: Better still.

Contact: Until they go wrong.

(In the dubbed version, this dialogue comes out as:

Bond:  Avez-vous une allumette?

Contact: J’ai un briquet.

Bond: Ah!  C’est encore mieux.

Contact: Oui, tant que ça marche.

(Not only have I never forgotten this little scene, but when I was at intel school in ’71—probably about seven years after I saw the flick—and then in West Berlin as a counterintelligence Special Agent, I often flashed on it when the subject—or necessity—of bona fides came up.  And, yes, it’s a real thing.

(By the way, I didn’t translate the French dialogue above because it’s pretty much exactly the same as the English.  The only slightly idiomatic expression is “tant que ça marche”: marcher usually means ‘walk’ in English, but a common alternate meaning is ‘work’ as in ‘function’ or ‘operate.’  So the French line means simply “as long as it works.”  That’s the kind of thing I was picking up from my reading not literature but pop stuff.)

Astérix was great for this kind of thing.  The texts are chock-full of puns, word-play, and sly references.  Besides the “Tour de Gaul” ref, which is really easy as long as you know that Gaul is the ancient name for modern France, all the characters’ names are puns and humorous allusions.  The albums are still being published; the current publisher’s up to the 38th issue as of last year, 58 years after Uderzo and Goscinny published Astérix le Gaulois.

Each album starts with the prologue (in my translation; the published English version’s slightly different): “We are in [the year] 50 before Jesus Christ.  All Gaul is occupied by the Romans . . .  All?  No!  For one village populated by implacable Gauls still resists the invader.  And life is not easy for the garrisons of Roman legionnaires from the fortified camps of Babaorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Petibonum. . .”  Then the story always goes to a new conflict between the inhabitants of “le village gaulois”—its name is never given—and the Romans.

The names of the Roman camps surrounding the little village are also little jokes, to wit (and that’s a small pun itself): baba au rhum is a small cake soaked in syrup made with rum; aquarium is obvious, I think, even in English; laudanum is a tincture of opium prescribed for pain management (predating morphine); and petit bonhomme is the French equivalent of the condescending sobriquets “little man” or “baby boy.”  (On its own, bonhomme is the French version of British expressions like “old boy” or “old chap.”)

The little band of uncompromising Gauls is led by Astérix, whose name is a play on ‘asterisk’ (astérisque in French).  An asterisk (*) is, of course, a little star, which is what Astérix’s status as a character is.  He’s a hunter and warrior of tiny stature with a huge, blonde mustache—like, maybe, a blonde-haired Yosemite Sam (except smart).

Astérix’s boon companion, Obélix (‘obelisk’ – obélisque) is, in contrast, a huge, obese carver of menhirs.  (But don’t call him fat!  He’ll go off on ya.)  Menhirs are those huge, ancient monoliths like the ones that make up the arches at Stonehenge. An obelisk is a massive monument (the Washington Monument is an obelisk; so are Cleopatra’s Needles in London, Paris, and New York City) and Obélix, who is phenomenally strong, is often shown carrying a menhir on his back, delivering it to a customer.

All the Gallic names, as you’ll see, follow the same pattern, which is a reference to actual Gaulish chieftains such as Vercingetorix (c. 82 BCE-46 BCE), Orgetorix (?-61 or 60 BCE), and Dumnorix (100 BCE-after 54 BCE); the -ix suffix on the fictional names alludes to the -rix ending of the real Gaulish names, which means ‘king.’ 

Sussing out the jokes in French was one of the main joys I got from reading the comics in the original language.  I got better at it as I progressed, so I guess you could say I was becoming francophonic; perhaps you could have called me Francophonix!

The others in Astérix’s regular band of Gauls include the village chieftain, Abraracourcix (à bras raccourcis, which literally means ‘with shortened arms’ but is from the French idiom tomber sur quelqu’un à bras raccourcis – ‘to attack someone with arms flailing’ or ‘. . . fists flying), who’s always shown standing on his shield being carried by two bearers.  (Abraracourcix always manages to fall off the shield some way or another.)  He’s a rotund guy with red hair worn in pigtails and, as with all the Gaulish men, has a big mustache; he’s quite fond of good food and feasts, but he doesn’t refuse a fight—hence his name. 

(I’m only commenting on the French names because those are the versions with which I’m familiar.  The characters’ names—except Astérix and Obélix—in the English editions, as well as many of the other translations, are different, usually making puns in the translation’s language.  I don’t know any of the other translations, and only know the British editions slightly.  An Americanized version of Astérix was tried out but never found a footing.)

Assurancetourix (assurance tous risques, literally ‘insurance [for] all hazards,’ French for ‘comprehensive insurance’), the village bard, considers himself a great singer and musician and never misses a shot at accompanying any grand occasion in the village—though, in truth, his music is execrable and he’s usually kayoed by the village blacksmith as soon as he starts. 

The village druid (priest-cum-wizard) is Panoramix (from the Greek word ‘panoramic,’ which means ‘with a wide view.‘)  The implication is that Panoramix—tall and thin, with a long, white robe (the other men all wear pants), hair, beard, and mustache—sees everything.  He’s the brewer of a magic potion, the formula for which is secret, passed on only from druid to druid, that temporarily gives superhuman strength to anyone who drinks it.  (Obélix’s prodigious strength, which is permanent, is the result of his having fallen into a cauldron of the potion when he and Astérix snuck into Panoramix’s hut when they were children.)

Idéfix (idée fixe, a ‘fixed idea’ or ‘obsession’), Obélix’s pet, is a tiny dog—in visual contrast to his huge master—white with the tips of its ears and tail black.  Idéfix loves nature and can’t abide seeing trees cut down or uprooted (perhaps because he likes to pee on them!).  Unlike other cartoon dogs, Idéfix does’t speak—except by barking—and his thoughts are not expressed in words.  

(In the English versions, Idéfix is called Dogmatix—from ‘dogmatic,’ meaning ‘clinging to an unchanging set of beliefs.’  The pun in the name, which parallels the French version in meaning, is extended because the name also contains the word “dog.”)

The names of non-Gallic characters, like the names of the Roman camps, are also pun-filled.  Jules César (Julius Caesar), the Roman dictator and conqueror of Gaul, goes by his actual name (albeit en français), but the fictional Romans have names ending in –us (like first-declension masculine Latin nouns; women’s names end in -a) like the Roman legionnaire Milexcus in Le Tour de Gaule d’Asterix.  His name is a homophone for mille excuses (‘a thousand excuses’).  Another Roman from that album, the garrison commander of Burdigala (modern city of Bordeaux), is called Motus, a French expression that’s a mock latinization of mot (‘word’) that means “Shush!” “Quiet!” or “Mum!”

The names of other nationalities and ethnic groups follow similar patterns.  The Bretons, as in Astérix chez les Bretons (literally, “Astérix at the home of the Britons” but published in English as Asterix in Britain), are stand-ins for modern Englishmen.  Their names are modeled on those of the ancient tribes of Brittany (the Roman province of Britannia) and end in –ax, like Antrax, a Breton innkeeper whose name obviously evokes anthrax.  One of my favorites in Chez les Bretons is Ipipourax, whose name is simply a French approximation of “hip, hip, hurray.”  You see, Ipipourax is a rugby player in the home of the Britons. 

Bet you didn’t know that the ancient Brits, who, incidentally, all wear tweed pants and tam-o’shanters, played rugger back in 50 BCE.  That’s another part of the humor of Astérix: making fun of national stereotypes.  No one ever said that Astérix is politically correct!  It may have toned this down since we’ve all gotten enlightened—but I doubt it.  (After all, the French still don’t pay attention to cholesterol in their diet and they still smoke like stacks—including those odoriferous butts called, of all things, Gauloises, which means ‘Gallic women’; no reference to the Astérix comics.)

The very title of Chez les Bretons in French is a joke of sorts.  At least it’s a deliberate confusion.  Bretons are the natives of the province of Brittany, a peninsula in the west of France, as distinguished from Britons, who are the inhabitants of the Isle of Great Britain (that is, England, Scotland, and Wales).  In the French title of the album, Uderzo and Goscinny are deliberately conflating the French province, called Bretagne in modern French and Britannia in Latin, with (Great) Britain, or Grande-Bretagne, also called Britannia by the Romans.  This, of course, is all lost with the title of the English edition of the album, Asterix in Britain, though probably only a Frenchman would ever see the joke anyway.

Astérix, by the way, calls the Britons his “cousins germains,” which is the French idiom for ‘first cousins,’ something I learned from reading this album.  And I wasn’t the only one to think that cousin germain was some reference to a ‘”German cousin” at first.  When Astérix introduces Jolitorax (joli thorax, or ‘pretty thorax’; ‘thorax’ is the anatomical term for the upper chest) as his “cousin germain,” Obélix pounces on him à bras recourcis (remember that one?), thinking Jolitorax is a German (who in the series are called Goths) until Astérix stops the attack.  The little Gaul yells at his friend that Jolitorax isn’t a German but a Briton who “doesn’t speak at all like we do.”

One of the best jokes in Chez les Bretons is predicated on the British devotion to tea time.  In the midst of a ferocious pitched battle with the Roman legions, the Brits abruptly stop fighting.  Astérix is flabbergasted—modern Brits would say ‘gobsmacked’—and not a little furious.  With his and Obélix’s help, they were beating the Romans—why would they all just stop and walk back to their village?

Well, it’s all very simple: the Britons always stop work or play at precisely five in the afternoon to drink . . . hot water.  Nothing would prevent them from stopping for chaude eau.  Which is another joke, making fun of the strange English syntax of putting adjectives in front of the nouns.  As every upstanding Gaul (Frenchman) knows, adjectives come after the noun; Astérix’s cousins should be saying “l’eau chaude” as well as “potion magique” (‘magic potion’) and “armées romaines” (‘Roman armies’) instead of “magique potion” and “romaines armées,” which mark the speech of the Brits.

Of course, actual tea hadn’t been invented yet, so Astérix’s British cousins just drank hot water—sometimes with a splash of milk . . . until Astérix brews up a little (bogus) potion with some herbs he’d brought with him, to give the Britons a little boost of courage.  It’s isn’t Panoramix’s potion magique, the ingredients of which are unknown to the little Gaul, but a kind of placebo.  The Brits and the two visiting Gauls defeat the Romans and the Breton chieftain declares the fake potion the new national drink.  It turns out that the mysterious herbs from which Astérix made the brew . . . was tea!

The joke isn’t only that Astérix invented tea, or that he (a Frenchman, of all people!) introduced it to the Brits, but that it would have been historically impossible for a Gaul to have got hold of tea in 50 BCE.  The first tea introduced to Europeans was in China more than 1400 years later, and tea wasn’t imported to Europe until the 17th century (and to Britain until the 19th).  But intentional anachronisms are another element of fun in the Astérix books.  The tweed clothing of the Bretons is one example of this. 

In  La Serpe d’or (1962; Asterix and the Golden Sickle), the second Astérix album, Astérix and Obélix travel to Lutèce (Latin: Lutetia; modern Paris) to get Panoramix a new sickle to cut the mistletoe for the magic potion.  They pass through Suindinum where a 24-hour chariot race is going on.  Naturally . . . because Suindinum is the site of today’s Le Mans!

In Le Tour de Gaul, Astérix and Obélix travel around Gaul visiting various regions of the country.  Traveling south from Lutèce, they find the road clogged with Lutéciens heading to the south of Gaul and the beach.  This is an allusion to the annual French holiday when nearly everyone in Paris leaves the city for the southern seaside.

There are also frequent mentions of or allusions to personalities of the years when the stories were written: The Beatles appear in Astérix chez les Bretons and the Rolling Menhirs (get it?—I love this one) and Elvis Preslix are mentioned in other stories.  Actor Charles Laughton is the model for Gracchus Pleindastus (pleine d’astuces –‘full of tricks’), a character resembling one the actor played in a 1939 movie; Kirk Douglas shows up as Spartakis the Greek (modeled on guess who!) as a galley slave. 

Many other then-current and historical figures are caricatured or cameoed in Astérix.  People from history include Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Fascist Italian dictator; in  Le Combat des chefs, 1966; ‘The Battle of the chiefs’; Asterix and the Big Fight), Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948; Indian nationalist; in Astérix chez Rahàzade, 1987; ‘Astérix at Rahàzade’s place’ [chez Rahàzade would sound like Shérazade – more traditionally, Shéhérazade]; Asterix and the Magic Carpet), Napoleon (1769-1821; French statesman, military leader, and emperor;  Astérix en Corse, 1973; Asterix in Corsica [Napoleon was born in Corsica]), Sigmund Freud (1856-1939; Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst; in  Combat des chefs), Otto von Bismarck (1815-98; German statesman who masterminded the unification of the country and served as its first chancellor; in Astérix et les Goths).

Contemporary figures caricatured in the Astérix stories came from a variety of cultural fields: politics – Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (b. 1926; French president, 1974-81; in Astérix et le Chaudron, 1969; Asterix and the Cauldron), Silvio Berlusconi (b. 1936; Italian media tycoons and politician who served as prime minister, 2008-2011; in  Astérix et la Transitalique, 2017; ‘Astérix and the trans-Italic’; Asterix and the Chariot Race); arts (aside from the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Elvis, whom I mentioned earlier) – Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (1890-1965 and 1892-1957, respectively; comic actors; in Obélix et Compagnie. 1976; Obelix and Co.), Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007; world-famous Italian opera singer; in La Transitalique), Laurence Olivier and Alec Guinness (1907-89 and 1914-2000, respectively; internationally renowned English stage and film actors; in La Chaudron).

Uderzo and Goscinny frequently paid homage to the work of colleagues by featuring characters from other comic series in the Astérix stories: Tintin (titular protagonist of The Adventures of Tintin, the popular Belgian comic series; in Astérix légionnaire, 1967; Asterix the Legionary), Thomson and Thompson (identical twin detectives from Tintin; in  Astérix chez les Belges, 1979; ‘Astétix at the home of the Belgae’; Asterix in Belgium), Kiwoàlàh (qui voilà? – ‘who’s there?’) in Chez Rahàzade is the cousin of Iznogoud, another cartoon character in a series of the same name, created by Goscinny. Tounet, an alien in Le ciel lui tombe sur la tête (2005; ‘The sky falls on his head’; Asterix and the Falling Sky), resembles a purple Mickey Mouse and his home planet is Tadsilweny, an anagram of Walt Disney—both Uderzo’s artistic inspiration and the team’s rival in cartoonery. 

       

One odd, and very timely, unplanned occurrence is associated with La Transitalique.  Published three years ago, it attracted additional media attention this year following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic because of the Roman charioteer who’s the favorite to win the race.  His name is Testus Terone (do I need to interpret that one?), but he races under the name Coronavirus.  Testus Terone is drawn to resemble French racing champion Alain Prost (b. 1955), and as Coronavirus, he wears a cloth mask that hides his face.  Hmmm . . . .

Oh, and in a scene in Chez les Bretons, Jolitorax tells Obélix about his tweed trousers, and the big Gaul asks if they’re expensive.  Jolitorax replies, “My tailor is rich,” which any Frenchman who ever took English lessons will recognize immediately as a rote phrase they had to learn!  My friend Marc Humilien’s father used to speak that phrase—with a thick French accent (which I can still hear)—and laugh almost whenever we were together after we first all met.  He knew how silly it sounded and how useless it was for a serious language student. 

(The English phrase that was the counterpart for American or British students of French might be La plume de ma tante est sur la table de mon oncle—‘My aunt’s pen is on my uncle’s table.’  There was even a musical revue called La Plume de Ma Tante which played on Broadway from 1958 to 1960; I saw it in Washington in 1962 on its national tour.)

As I said, Astérix  can’t be accused of being PC, and one example is the recurring jibe at the Brits in Chez les Bretons for putting adjectives before nouns (They’re nuts, those Britons!—my own little parody of a common line in the books: “Ils sont fous, ces Romains!” meaning ‘They’re crazy, those Romans,’ often spoken by Obélix). 

Uderzo and Goscinny loved to make fun of national stereotypes, and they got the two heroes to travel all over the known world of Caesar’s time (and then some), meeting people from practically every nationality and ethnicity, including Native Americans (yup, the creators found a way to get the Gauls there) in La Grande Traversée (1975; Asterix and the Great Crossing) and extraterrestrials in  Le ciel lui tombe sur la tête.  It was all meant good-naturedly . . . but how it’s received is in the eye of the beholder.

I mentioned the Goths (Germans) earlier.  In the Astérix stories; principally Astérix et les Goths (1963; Asterix and the Goths), they’re depicted as disciplined and militaristic; they march in goosestep and wear the Pickelhaube, the spiked helmet common during the German Empire before World War II.  In the books, their speech bubbles are lettered in Frakturschrift (commonly called German Gothic writing).

The Britons (English), in addition to  what I’ve already observed, are consistently unemotional and drink warm beer, eat tasteless boiled food with mint sauce, and live in rows of identical houses.  (These were all common stereotypical images of Brits in the days before the Common Market—the European Economic Community or EEC—and the European Union.)

In  L'Odyssée d’Astérix (1981; ‘Astérix’s Odyssey’; Asterix and the Black Gold), the pair of Gauls travel to the Middle East where they meet, among other, Judeans (Jews).  The Jews are all depicted as Yemenite Jews, with dark skin and black eyes and beards.  With the two heroes travels a Roman spy from M.I.VI (MI-6, the modern British intelligence agency),  The spy is Zérozérosix; if you can’t figure that one out, his English name is Dubbelosix . . . and he’s a caricature of Sean Connery!  

Oh, and the team is in the Middle East to buy “rock oil” (l’huile de roche) for Panoramix because it’s one of the ingredients of the magic  potion.  If you’re not up on your medieval Latin, “rock oil” is the English translation of the word ‘petroleum’—which is grown in that region. 

There’s one other cute thing in L’Odyssée I want to note,  A character named Saül Péhyé, a Jew who escorts Astérix and Obélix from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, is a caricature of René Goscinny, who had died four years earlier.  (This is the second album for which Uderzo did both the writing and the drawing.)  Goscinny was Jewish (his parents were immigrants to France from Poland) and his character’s name is derived from the phrase ça eut payé (‘it would have paid’; the name’s a reference to a sketch of Fernand Raynaud, 1926-73, a famous French stand-up comic, actor, and singer).  Goscinny and Uderzo put themselves into several episodes of Astérix, sort of like Hitchcock and his movies—though, of course, you’d have to know what the writer and sketcher looked like to catch the cameo.

Uderzo and Goscinny started the Astérix series in 1959 as a serialized story in the children’s newspaper Pilote at the rate of two pages a week.  The installments were assembled into a book in 1961, and this process continued until 1973. At that point, the creators began releasing one album a year.  (The series skipped two years in 1977—the year of Goscinny’s death from a heart attack at 51—and 1978, but Uderzo took over the series on his own and returned to publishing one book each year.

After 1981, however, Uderzo broke with this practice and the albums have appeared with longer, more irregular gaps—sometimes as few as two years, sometimes as much as four.  Since 2013, the books have appeared every two years, the last one being number 38 in 2019, La Fille de Vercingétorix (‘The Daughter of Vercingétorix’ [Vercingetorix was the tribal chieftain who united the Gauls in a revolt against Caesar’s forces in 52 BCE]; Asterix and the Chieftain's Daughter).

Uderzo retired from the series in 2011—when sales of the albums had reached a total of 350 million copies worldwide—and turned Astérix  over to Jean-Yves Ferri (script) and Didier Conrad (art).  Both men, born in 1959, continue to write and draw the Astérix stories.  Accordong to Peter Hoskin on The Daily Beast, “the best-selling French author of all time probably isn’t one person, but two.  And these two people were never in the business of writing novels, but of making comics.  They are René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo.”

Hoskin continued with some statistics from Amazon sales.  Album number 36,  Le Papyrus de César (‘Caesar’s papyrus’; Asterix and the Missing Scroll) was published in 2015, the year Hoskin wrote his article.  In France, Le Papyrus was “the most popular book on Amazon.fr” and in Britain, “it was the 356th most popular” on Amazon.co.uk.

In the U.S., however, the book was “languishing . . . in 4,917th place on Amazon.com,” and Hoskin quipped: “and that’s probably only because of French expatriates.”  Hoskin blames the lack of interest in the States for the little Gaul in part on our Comics Code (more formally, the Comics Code Authority), instituted in 1954 “to regulate all them awful pic-churr books that were corrupting the children of America.”

It’s a sort Hollywood Production Code (the Hays Code—see my post on 7 July 2013) for comic books, even if, as Hoskin adds, nothing in it “harmed Asterix’s chances directly, but there were indirect consequences.”  It shaped Americans’ notion of what a comic book is—which wasn’t Astérix.

My friend (and generous Rick On Theater contributor), Kirk Woodward asked me, “Is there some quality of  Astérix that is specifically European in the sense that it would have no resonance here?”  (When I asked Kirk if he’d ever heard of Astérix, he replied, “Astérix is a name to me but not much else.”)  My response to his question went something like this:

Depending on one’s sensitivity, there are many things about Astérix and other European comics that might put Americans off.

As I explained earlier, the books themselves are physically different.  They just don’t look like traditional American comic books. 

Because they’re hardback, larger in page-size, and longer, I suspect that makes them more expensive, too, especially since they’re also imported.

Astérix is also not aimed at kids—though they, especially teens, read them.  The jokes and satire, as you’ve seen, I hope, can be very sophisticated or rely on actual knowledge of both “current” (with respect to the publication date) and historical (both Roman-era and later periods) events and personalities. 

All kinds of pop-culture references appear in the stories, some of it from a decade or so earlier than the publication—so if a reader’s, say, 16 when the book comes out, she or he’d have to know a movie or TV show from when the reader was 6 or 11 to get the joke.   

Most of these references are European; there aren’t any references to America and American culture that I ever saw (but I stopped reading Astérix pretty much after my folks came back to the States in ‘67; the more recent stories—including the one of Astérix and Obélix coming to America and meeting American Indians—might have more allusions to the U.S. and North America).

The translations try a little to suit the humor and other references to the culture where the translation language is spoken (character names, aside from the two main heroes, are changed to make puns in the translated language, for instance), but the translators can’t rewrite the stories completely—and the English versions are British, after all.  The books, for all their international appeal, are written from a French point of view.  The creators aren’t timid about making some fun of the French, but in the end, the Gauls always win.  

Probably one of the biggest reasons that Astérix has never become popular in the U.S., though, is that it’s never gotten any PR push.  The series depends on word-of-mouth and, so, remains relatively obscure here.  After all, you can’t enjoy something if you don’t know it’s there!

Aside from the books (which still bear the names of R. Goscinny and A. Uderzo above the banner and the episode title), there have been nine animated films between 1967 and 2014 based on the adventures of the two Gauls, and four live-action movies from 1999 and 2012. 

In 1989, Parc Astérix opened about 30 miles north of Paris in the town of Plailly.  After Disneyland Paris (opened 1992), Parc Astérix is France’s second-largest amusement park, attracting two million visitors a year.  (Disneyland gets 14 million.)  The park offers a great variety of rollercoasters, including one on which riders sit in bobsleds.  The park’s rides and attractions are based on themes from historic cultures such as the Gauls, the Romans, Ancient Greeks, and Ancient Egyptians, but always in the visual style of the comics.  

(Note: because of the coronavirus pandemic, the park is temporarily closed.  Its official website is https://www.parcasterix.fr/.  The Astérix website—in English—is https://www.asterix.com/en/; there is a page for Parc Asrérix here as well.)