The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Amidst a lot of media buzz, Albert Uderzo, creator of the popular French comics hero Astérix, last week announced the publication of The Anniversary Of Asterix And Obelix, the new Asterix comic, which is planned for October 22nd (in numerous countries) on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Astérix’s first appearance in Pilote magazine.  The book will consist of a series of short comics and illustrated stories, rather than a book-long story.

(cover for the French version of the Golden Book, published Albert-René; the UK edition will be published this month by Orion and is available to order here)

It will be the 34th book in the series, and the tenth that Uderzo created on his own (or with other writers) after the death of his co-creator and writer René Goscinny in 1977.  The previous book, Asterix And The Falling Sky, in which Uderzo denounced the growing success of American and Japanese comics in Europe, was met with mixed reactions.

(Anne Goscinny and Albert Uderzo give a press conference recorded by ActuaBD -- dialogue is in French)

Each Astérix book sells 2.5 to 3 million copies, and ever since the series was created, some 325 million books have been sold around the world.  Needless to say, publishing house Albert-René was quite happy announce that Uderzo has also give his permission to continue the series after his death.  This decision puts Asterix in a long line of classic Eurocomics that have been continued after their original creators had passed away, such as Blake And Mortimer,  Suske en Wiske or Lucky Luke (which, incidentally, was also written by Astérix scribe René Goscinny).  The most well-known example of comic series that effectively stopped when its creator died, is Hergé’s Tintin.

Wim Lockefeer lives in Belgium where no-one considers it odd to don a huge, blonde moustache and winged helmet or blue and white stripey trousers to mark the Asterix golden anniversary; you can read more of his thoughts on his own Ephemerist blog.