54 years of weird guys

It is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans… Entirely? No! The inhabitants of one small Gaul village are bravely resisting their occupiers. They make the lives of the legion’s soldiers that surround them impossible…

Asterix and Obelix is one of the most famous comics in history. The historic little cartoon men first appeared on 29 October 1959, and were created by Frenchmen Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny. Uderzo drew up the illustrations and Goscinny was the funny guy who thought of the entertaining texts. They were a perfect match working together.

Twelve fingers
Albert Uderzo was born in 1927 in Fismes, France, and was the child of Italian immigrants. He was born with twelve fingers, but this never interfered with his drawing though. Already in nursery school his talent stood out and throughout the years he often copied the Walt Disney characters to practice. His other passion was airplanes and the young Uderzo passed the exam to get into engineering school: he wanted to become an airplane mechanic. The Second World War messed up his plans though. He had to quit school and get a job. After the war ended he started working as artist for animated films and magazines and Uderzo also created his own cartoon characters. They were usually burly men with big noses.

René Goscinny was a year older than Uderzo and an immigrant himself: when he was two he moved with his parents to Argentina. He had a carefree childhood, while his relatives lived in a warzone. Most of them did not survive and Goscinny lived with the loss of his family for the rest of his life. No one would have noticed though, because of his jokes. He was always the class clown. He went to study at the academy of arts but the death of his father changed everything. The seventeen-year-old boy had to support his family and he started working as an assistant accountant. He did not like the dreary work though and when, in 1945, his uncle invited him to come to New York he eagerly accepted the offer. He muddled on for a couple of years at an export firm and fulfilled his military service for the French army. When he returned to New York his professional career took a drastic turn though. He met Morris, the creator of Lucky Luke and he was asked to write the texts for the comic. Goscinny turned out to be a genius writing hilarious lines. In 1951 the freshly inaugurated copywriter went to Europe and there he met a certain Albert Uderzo…

Successful collaboration
The two men got along well and the two new friends started to work on various comics together. Their historic comic Oumpah-pah the Indian was published for the first time in the Tintin magazine in 1958.

The comical style and the design of this comic was a lot like the ones from the later Asterix books. The men decided to publish their own cartoon magazine called Pilote, and on 29 October 1959 the first edition was published. The men created a new cartoon for this magazine about the adventures of Asterix and Obelix, the Gauls.

The magazine was an instant success and a complete comic album about the small Gaul village was not far away. In 1961 the first book called Asterix the Gaul appeared on the market and together the two friends would create 23 more albums. All of this within a period of only 16 years: in 1977 Goscinny died completely unexpectedly from heart failure. Uderzo went on to write ten more books by himself and out of respect for his friend he always put Goscinny’s name on the cover. All of the 34 comic albums were translated to a 107 different languages and dialects and eleven movies were made. An Asterix and Obelix theme park was also opened and all kinds of products were made, chess games being one of them.

Meanwhile, Uderzo grew older and in 2011 he retired from writing Asterix and Obelix. To the relief of the fans of the two Gauls, Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad took over Uderzo’s job: the first fruit of this cooperation being the album Asterix and the Picts, published in 2013. If you want to see your heroes in 3D, you can of course come and have a look at them in the Chessmen Museum.

By Marjolein Overmeer