Hello ! Today, we are going to talk about Asterix the Gaul: comics.
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Asterix the Gaul Asterix the Gaulish is a series comic
created on October 29, 1959 by René Goscinny (screenplay) and Albert
Uderzo. It is certainly the French comic strip which knew the most success,
with 325 million comics sold worldwide in 50 years.
The story "We are in 50 BC;
Gaul is occupied by the Romans ... All? No ! Because a village populated by irreducible
Gaulois still resists the invader ... "This Gallic village in Armorique resists
the invader thanks to the magic potion prepared by the Druid Panoramix, which provides
momentarily a superhuman force to the people who drink it.
The cartoon is mainly about one of the inhabitants of this village, Asterix, brave
warrior, who uses the magic potion but also his intelligence to foil the plans
de Jules César et défendre son village de l'envahisseur. Le premier album mis à part,
Asterix is accompanied in all his adventures by his friend Obelix, the only Gaul for
which the effects of the magic potion are permanent since it fell in when he was
a child. From the fifth album, the two heroes are accompanied by a small
dog: Idefix. The creation of the character (title to translate
also) In 1959 the small company Edifrance-Edipresse
creates a comic book "for the little French": Pilot. Goscinny and
Uderzo must then create a comic for this newspaper.
Two months before the publication of the newspaper, René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo meet at
Uderzo. René then asks his friend Albert to tell him the great periods of the history
of France. Rene stops on the Gauls. In two hours, the two friends create in
joy the village, its inhabitants ... The character is born in Albert Uderzo,
3 rue Rameau in Bobigny, where a plaque was inaugurated in October 2009. Coincidence
Rameau street is near the rue d'Alésia where there is a large Gallic necropolis.
The year 2009 marks the 50th anniversary of the first appearance of the character. The
first adventure soberly called Asterix the Gaul appears in the number 1 of Pilot
October 29, 1959. Originally, Asterix was to be a great
hunchbacked, shirtless with mustaches but Goscinny asks his friend draftsman
to represent him small and rather thin, because in René's imagination, Asterix was
an antihero. Albert Uderzo will then have the opportunity to draw Obélix, closer to
a big man. A work with diverse interpretations
In the 1960s, some of the press described Asterix the Gaul as a gaullist comic
The small Gallic village bravely resisting
to the Roman invader would thus be a patriotic metaphor of General de Gaulle's France
(he came to the presidency less than a year before the creation of the comic strip)
who refuses the hegemony of the United States. Goscinny and Uderzo have always refused this
kind of interpretation, and say they never wanted to make a comic to
the glory of France. Asterix the Gaul is today more often
described, not as a patriotic work, but on the contrary as a satire. The inhabitants
of the small Gallic village would be caricatures of French, people presented as a brawler,
angry, not very intelligent (with a few exceptions) and who often quarrels.
Thus, the actor Clovis Cornillac, the new Asterix interpreter at the cinema, declared
about this character: "Asterix, it's us, it's not the funniest, he shouts,
he is in bad faith, a little pampered. This kind of proud dwarf, he looks like me.
Head high, but one meter ten. "A cartoon for all ages
The success of this series is explained in particular by the fact that his humor is addressed to all
ages. Children love the caricature of Uderzo,
ridiculous situations, frequent arguments between characters and burlesque violence
stories. Adults love frequent word games,
the parody of the official history of the time and the multiple cultural references.
directly in the pink pages of the Larousse dictionary, the Bretons use a syntax
close to their descendants, the British say for example "boiling water" to
instead of "boiling water". There are many anachronisms that restore
often, in the context of ancient times, contemporary social issues
(traffic jams in the city of Lutetia because of departures on vacation, the madness
pop concerts, excesses of capitalism ...). This allows cultural comments or
policies that are not necessarily within the reach of younger readers.
The humor of comics also works on stereotypes of different
caricatures: the Corsicans are presented as susceptible, lazy and taciturn,
the English (caricatures through their ancestors, the Bretons) are presented as
phlegmatic, poor cooks and drive their tank left rather than right,
etc. A worldwide success
Of the 325 million albums sold, an estimated 95 million are sold in French-speaking countries,
88 million in Germany, 20 million in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, 17 million
in Spain, 5 million in Sweden and Italy, 4 million in Finland, the
Norway, Denmark and Greece, 3 million in Brazil and 2 million in Portugal. We
We notice the absence of the United States or the hero has never pierced despite an attempt
of translation. Asterix has been translated into 107 languages
according to Albert-René editions. Albums are first translated by a person to
the destination language, then retranslated by another in French and read again by Albert
Uderzo and René Goscinny to ensure the correct level of translation.
Several albums have been translated into regional or minority languages. In France,
the album La rentrée gauloise has been translated into 6 regional languages, but it is in
Germany finds the highest number of translations in regional dialects
(65 albums and 29 dialects). Comics also inspired a park
Park Asterix, located in the Oise, north of Paris.
Finally Asterix the Gaul is much more than just a comic book.
His adventures, like those of his Belgian friend Tintin, are part of childhood memories
of a whole generation of French people and allowed to export some of the French culture
worldwide.***