Who is Asterix?
Asterix and his friends made their first appearance 43 years ago in the French magazine Pilote. Since then, more than 30 books have chronicled their adventures in resisting the powerful Roman army in ancient Gaul circa 50 BC. Each book carries a relief drawing of ancient France with a Roman flagstaff plunged into the heart of the country: “All of Gaul is occupied by the Romans. All? No! A village of unconquerable Gauls forever resists the invader.” Asterix is aided in keeping his village out of Roman hands by a magic potion supplied by the druid Panoramix. His oafish friend, the stonecarver Obelix, is of invaluable help but he doesn’t need the potion because he fell into a vat of it when he was a baby. The series was the creation of Ren Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, who conceived of it asthey sat on a Paris balcony one evening in 1959 and played with the stereotypes of France’s long-vanished Celtic civilization. Many critics find the Asterix books quintessentially French and complain tha
