Pop culture provides easy markers to formulate people in a phrase. The kind of person you are is determined by whether you are a Trekkie or a Star Wars fan, or prefer Tintin to Asterix.
Fans are quite vocal about their favourites and arguments quickly descend from the abstract to the immediate — quite like the fights in Asterix’s little Gaulish village. Tintin fanboys wax eloquent over billions of blistering barnacles and thundering typhoons, the Thompson twins and absent-minded Cuthbert Calculus’ urgings to move a little to the left. Asterix fans would swear by the marvellous word play, the names (who can forget Dubbelosix, who looks suspiciously like Sean Connery and the Egyptian tourist Ptenisnet?), the crazy Romans and the pirates.
Hergé did not want anyone else to write Tintin adventures after his death, and so we have a finite number of the intrepid reporter’s adventures. However, in the case of Asterix, after writer René Goscinny’s death in 1977, illustrator Albert Uderzo continued to write and draw the series till the 35 adventure, Asterix and the Picts (2013), which is written by Jean-Yves Ferri and illustrated by Didier Conrad. The adventure, which sees our indomitable friends go to Scotland and meet up with Nessie (who Obelix insists on calling an otter) and warring clans, had a note by Uderzo congratulating the Ferri and Conrad. Goscinny’s daughter, Anne, also wrote a note endorsing the two.
One of things we forget as we giggle over all the clever puns is the fact that the comics were originally written in French. We have Derek Hockridge and Anthea Bell to thank for their excellent translation.
Like all good comedy, topicality plays an important part in Asterix comics. In the 17 Asterix adventure, The Mansions of the Gods , there are wicked caricatures of the urban planner (Sqauronthehypotenus), high-end condominiums and advertising.
The latest Asterix adventure, the Missing Scroll , which was released last week, is also up to date in current affairs with a Julian Assange type character, the newsmonger Confoundtheirpolitix. Caesar’s publisher, Libellus Blockbustus, suggests that he suppress the chapter of his campaigns in Gaul detailing his defeats in the hands of the Asterix and friends. Confoundtheirpolitix is having none of it and gives the missing chapter at Asterix’s village.
Blockbustus is hot on his heels to retrieve the scroll and after the usual bust up, the adventure ends with a banquet and wild boar. There is a post-script of how Confoundtheirpolitix’ efforts laid the foundation for comic books. The luckless pirates make their mandatory guest appearance (an early case of pirated information!) and the Roman army have adopted the latest in communication technology — carrier pigeons, with an officer called Antivirus (har! har!)
Most fans and purists feel that the first 24 volumes that Goscinny wrote are the best. The two new ones, while not as sharp as the earlier books, hold their own. There will always be people who wish for things to be exactly how they were. That hankering might not be so much for the same characters or situations as an attempt to recapture the time when one read or experienced that particular slice of pop culture.
The new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens , coming out in December, seems to have managed an elegant balancing act. Some of the cast from the original trilogy are reprising their roles, while J.J. Abrams, the reboot king (see what he did to Star Trek ) is directing.
It would have been nice to see an Asterix reboot going in a radical new direction with the new team rather than a dutiful following of the template. If wishes were horses, menhirs would fly by Toutatis!
