Asterix the Gaul celebrates 65 years: a popular icon in France and the world

06 March 2024 Business

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Today, Asterix is without a doubt one of the most famous French comic book, and one of the most popular, in France and the world. It was in 1959 that first appeared the characters of Asterix and his Gaul companions, with first Obelix, his inseparable sidekick and Dogmatix, his little dog, created by writer René Goscinny and artist Albert Uderzo. In 2024, the “indomitable Gauls” will celebrate 65 years throughout several celebrations, whether as reprints, exhibitions and more surprising and unusual events!

The Asterix series stages fictitious inhabitants of a Gaulish village in Armorica (Britanny), who, a few decades before our era, continue an ongoing fight against Roman invaders (and Julius Ceasar in particular!) using a magic potion brewed by their druid Getafix giving superhuman strength to the drinker. In 65 years and over 40 albums of adventures of the Gaulish heroes, Asterix has had “a clear impact on popular culture”, in France and the world since these albums are translated in more than a hundred languages (and even in ancient Greek and Latin!), which represents more than 400 million copies sold. In a crossed interview of the two daughters of the creators, available on the national radio France Inter website, one of them, Anne Goscinny, even declared: “It’s a huge pride for me that my father and Albert Uderzo are the starting point of what has become a genuine popular culture icon of the 20th century that still goes on in the 21st century!”.

Volumes and exhibitions

And this “popular icon” will last throughout the year to celebrate the 65th anniversary. First, to match the current news, a reissue of Asterix at the Olympic Games. To mark the Paris Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, several special edition of the saga will be released in June, with a behind-the-scene article about the creation of the saga. Hachette, the publisher, also announced that additional releases, including a special album “scheduled for the benefit of the Restos du coeur association, will stage the 40 iconic banquets of the 40 volumes”.

On exhibitions side, the exhibition Astérix, le voyage immersif (Asterix, an immersive journey) will be held at the Atelier des Lumières, in Paris, on October. It will be a “sound and images experience to dive deep in the heart of the iconic series”. The Asterix official website specifies that this immersive experience with music and play of light “will take visitors in the footprints of Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix in their wacky journey”. From Gaul to Egypt, from Great Britain to Hispania and Italy, visitors will “dive in the details of original sketches, and rediscover the subtleties of the timeless humour that forged the success of this iconic series”.

Dogmatix in space!

Even more surprising, Idefix (Dogmatix in the English version) is the name of the first French space robot that will explore Phobos, a Martian moon! This rover is developed by the CNES (French centre for space studies) with Germany, and should land on Phobos in 2027 as part of a mission to take Martian samples to Earth.

The official website reminds that after Asterix, the name given to the first French satellite launched in Earth orbit in 1965, it’s Idefix’s turn to go to space. The rover Idefix will indeed go much farther since it will “try to achieve the feat to land in 2027, then drive for 100 days on the Phobos surface, one of the small moons of Mars”. And the website concludes by saying that with the dimensions of Idefix, a small and fragile rover of 25 kg and 51 cm on its four legs, “size does matter” with this challenge!”.

An animated series on Netflix

The publishers of the volumes of Asterix will also work with Netflix to “develop the first animated series based on the famous comic books of the adventures of Asterix created by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo”, as details La ligne claire, a website specialised in comic books.

The creation and making of the series were given to Alain Chabat, a French writer and humourist who had also written and directed the cult movie “Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, in 2002. The series, says the specialised website, will be an adaptation from the volume “Asterix and the Big Fight”, a “cult” volume in which druid Getafix loses his mind after having been hit on the head by a menhir and forgets the recipe of the famous magic potion! The series is currently under production in Toulouse, in the TAT studio, a production company and animation studio specialised in 3D animation for TV and cinema... And it should be released in 2025, an opportunity to extend the celebration of the 65 years of Asterix!

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