Asterix
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The Adventures of Asterix (French: Astérix) is a series of French comic books by René Goscinny (stories) and Albert Uderzo (illustrations). Uderzo has continued the series since the death of Goscinny in 1977. The series follows the exploits of a village of ancient Gauls as they resist Roman occupation. Typically, this resistance leads the main characters to travel to various European countries (but also Egypt, America, India and other non-European locations) in every other book, while the remaining are set in and around their village.
The 33 main books or albums (one of which is a compendium of short stories) have been translated into more than 100 languages and dialects. Besides the original French, most albums are available in English, Dutch, German, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Portuguese (and Brazilian Portuguese), Italian, Polish, modern Greek, Turkish, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian and Indonesian. Beyond modern Europe, some albums have also been translated into languages as diverse as Esperanto, Mandarin, Korean, Bengali, Afrikaans, Arabic, Hindi, Hebrew, Latin and Ancient Greek. In France and especially in Germany, several volumes were translated into a variety of regional dialects, such as Alsatian, Swabian and Low German. Also, in Portugal, a special edition of the first volume, Asterix the Gaul, was translated into local language Mirandese.
The Asterix series is one of the most popular French comics in the world, and familiar to people of all ages in most European countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and parts of South America, Africa and Asia particularly, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, South Africa, Kenya, Singapore, India and Indonesia. Asterix is less well known in the United States and Japan. In its early years the Disney Channel aired the British-produced English translations of the Asterix films, but so far it has enjoyed only a modest success in establishing foothold with American audiences.
The key to the success of the series is that it contains comic elements for all ages: young children like the fist-fights and other visual gags, while adults appreciate the cleverness of the allusions and puns that sparkle throughout the texts.
The names of the characters contain puns, and vary with translation into other languages. This article uses the names from the English-language translations by Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge. For the French names see below.
Apart from the 33 main comics, other Asterix books and film books have been made. See List of Asterix volumes.
Several books have been made into films, eight animated, and three with live actors. There have also been a number of games.
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[edit] History of the series
Goscinny and Uderzo had had success with their series Oumpah-pah, which was published in the Tintin magazine. Asterix was originally serialised in the magazine Pilote in the very first issue in 1959. In 1961 the first book was put together entitled Asterix the Gaul. From then on, books were released generally on a yearly basis. When Goscinny died, Uderzo continued the series alone, though on a less frequent basis. Uderzo's stories have not been as critically well received as the ones co-authored with Goscinny.[citation needed]
[edit] Humour
The humour encountered in the Asterix comics is typically French, often centering on puns, caricatures, and tongue-in-cheek stereotypes of contemporary European nations and French regions. Much of the humour in the initial Asterix books was French-specific, which delayed the translation of the books into other languages for fear of losing the jokes and the spirit of the story. Some translations have actually added local humour: in the Italian translation, the Roman legionnaires are made to speak in 20th century Roman slang. The newer albums share a more universal humour, both written and visual.
In spite of (or perhaps because of) this stereotyping and notwithstanding some alleged streaks of French chauvinism, it has been very well received by European and Francophone cultures around the world.
[edit] Stereotypes and allusions
Wherever they visit, Asterix and Obelix encounter people and things borrowed and caricatured from 20th century real life. In the early album Asterix and the Goths for instance, the Goths (early Germans) are represented as militaristic and regimented, reminiscent of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germans. The helmets worn by these Goths even resemble the German Pickelhaube helmets worn up to World War I and one of their leaders bears an uncanny resemblance to Otto von Bismarck. The British are shown as polite and phlegmatic, drinking warm beer or hot water with a drop of milk (before the first tea was brought by Asterix to what would later become England); they boil all their food and serve it with mint sauce, and they drive their chariots on the wrong side of the road. Spain is the cheap country down south where people from the North go on vacation and the locals are proud and hot-blooded. Portuguese people are always depicted as short and plump - Uderzo once said that every Portuguese immigrant he knew was like that. All the tribes represented are treated humorously as prototypes for their modern counterparts, and many aspects of them are satirized. However, the French are not exempt from satire, and almost all of the peoples Asterix meets are portrayed positively, even the Romans. The only tribe depicted completely unflatteringly is the Goths, possibly a result of the Second World War. In later books, such as Asterix the Legionary and Asterix and Obelix All at Sea, the Goths were depicted much more sympathetically; possibly because the Asterix series became very popular in Germany.
Some caricatures of the traits of certain French regions are also used: people from Normandy smother their food in cream and cannot give a straight answer; people from Marseille play boules and exaggerate matters, and Corsicans don't like to do any work, are easily angered and have generations-long-standing vendettas that they settle violently, and make cheese that smells so bad that it actually becomes an explosive.
Minor characters often resemble famous people or fictional characters, usually caricatures of existing French people of the same era, particularly from television and the spectacles. In Obelix and Co., for example, the young Roman bureaucrat is a caricature of a young Jacques Chirac, and it includes two Roman legionaries drawn to the likeness of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. In Asterix and the Falling Sky, the super-clones are a caricature of both Superman and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and their leader, Toon, resembles Mickey Mouse. Likewise the planet which Toon hails from, Tadilsweny, is an anagram of Walt Disney, in homage to the late cartoonist. At the back of the issue Uderzo also writes a short testimony to Walt Disney and gives away the anagram by mentioning "..Tadsil..., I mean, Walt Disney...". Such characters usually stand out visually, by not having the bulbous noses otherwise typical of Uderzo's style.
Other side characters allude to people related to the place Asterix is visiting. Notable examples include a very Elizabeth Taylor-like Cleopatra in Asterix and Cleopatra; Britain's most famous bards in the story Asterix in Britain, who are four in number and look remarkably like the Beatles; a pair of Belgian warriors in Asterix in Belgium who resemble and also speak like Dupond and Dupont (Thomson and Thompson) of Tintin-fame; and both Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are depicted in Asterix in Spain. More recently, this spoofing has occasionally extended to major characters as well: in Asterix and the Black Gold, a Roman spy is a young Sean Connery named Dubbelosix drawn in James Bond style, and in Asterix and Obelix All at Sea, the leader of the escaped slaves (named Spartakis, being Greek) is based on Kirk Douglas' portrayal of the title character of Spartacus. In Asterix and the Cauldron, the head of the theatre is Laurensolivius, based on the actor Laurence Olivier. In the same book, there is another theatre actor of the name Alecguinius, based on the actor Alec Guinness.
The stories also feature allusions to major artistic works (such as Pieter Bruegel's Peasant Wedding and Victor Hugo's story of the Battle of Waterloo from Les Châtiments, in Asterix in Belgium; and Théodore Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa), as well as historical personalities (Napoleon, Louis XIV of France), and famous places (the Moulin Rouge, Bethlehem) and the Statue of Liberty (played by Asterix).
However, in many other respects the series reflects life in 1st century BC fairly accurately for the medium. For example, the multi-storied apartments in Rome — the insulae — which have Obelix remarking that one man's roof is another man's floor, and consequently, "These Romans are crazy": his favourite line. This line itself is also an intrinsic joke on Rome and the Romans, as its Italian equivalent is "Sono pazzi questi romani", which, like the banner of the Roman Empire ("Senatus Populusque Romanus"), abbreviates as "SPQR". On the other hand, the presence of chimneys in the Gaulish huts is not accurate, as they used gabled openings in the roof to let smoke escape. Also, it is now believed menhirs were erected long before the Gauls.
The text also makes relatively regular use of original Latin phrases, and allusions to Julius Caesar's De Bello Gallico, a book about the conquest of Gaul, often used as an introductory text to Latin. Some jokes are made about Caesar's use of the third person to write about himself. Such allusions were likely to be well-received by the better-educated sections of the French and Belgian public in the 1960s, when the teaching of Latin was still widespread in high schools.
[edit] Puns in names
A key feature of the Asterix books in all translations are the constant puns used as names: the names of the two protagonists come from asterisk and obelisk, Asterix being the star of the books (Latin aster — derived from the Greek word αστήρ (aster) [star] and Celtic rix [king, cognate to Latin rex, Sanskrit rājā and related to German Reich and English reign]), and Obelix being a menhir delivery-man. This is a double pun, since as well as meaning a stone monolith, the word obelisk can also refer to the typographical dagger (†) that is often used to denote the second footnote on a page after an asterisk (*) has been used to reference the first.
Each cultural group in Asterix has a characteristic ending for names (though there are occasionally notable exceptions). Nearly all the Gaulish characters' names end in -ix (probably a reference to the real-life Gaulish chieftain such as Vercingetorix although only the names of Gaulish kings — and not even all of them — ended in -ix, and when they did, it was always -rix). Other English language examples include the chief (Vitalstatistix), the druid (Getafix), and an old man (Geriatrix) with a young wife, who is, incidentally, never actually named. Roman characters' names end with -us as in Noxious Vapus, Crismus Bonus, Sendervictorius and Appianglorius. Normans use -af (Bathyscaf, Toocleverbyhaf, Timandahaf), Vikings use "-ssen" (Herendthelessen, Haroldwilssen), Egyptians use -is (Edifis, Artifis), Britons use -ax (Hiphiphurrax, Dipsomaniax, Valueaddedtax), Goths use -ic (Rhetoric, Choleric, Electric, Metric) and Spaniards use Spanish-sounding names such as Huevos Y Bacon (Eggs and Bacon). Female names also have consistent endings, but these are different from male names and generally end in -a: for instance the wife of the Roman Osseus Humerus is Fibula, the wife of village fishmonger Unhygenix is Bacteria, and the wife of Chief Vitalstatistix is Impedimenta.
Many names stand as solitary puns on their characters, like Getafix (who provides medicine and potions for the village) or Geriatrix—particularly with recurring characters, while others are simply absurdist such as 'Spurius Brontosaurus', and some in groups play on each other, as in the example of a Roman guard talking through a closed door to another guard: "Open up, Sendervictorius! It's me, Appianglorius!" This is a pun on lines from the UK's national anthem "God Save the Queen": "Send her victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over us, God save the Queen".
Other names are puns derived from historical or literary quotations. An example is the British chief Mykingdomforanos whose name is a reference to the line "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" from Shakespeare's play Richard III.
[edit] Representing languages
The speech of characters is written using lettering according to the language spoken (although no difference appears between the language of the Romans and the Gauls themselves). The Gauls cannot automatically understand certain languages even though the reader will understand.
- Iberian: Sentences start with upside-down exclamation marks ('¡') or question marks ('¿'), as in real Spanish
- Goth: blackletter (language barrier with Gauls)
- Viking: Ø and Å characters are used for O and A (language barrier with Gauls)
- Native American: Pictograms (language barrier with Gauls)
- Egyptian: hieroglyphics with footnotes (language barrier with Gauls)
- Greek: as if carved, with no curves and a minimum of strokes.
The names of characters in Asterix, aside from being puns, usually have suffixes representing their nationalities.
- In the original it is more consistent (-is)
- Gauls: -ix (m); -a (f)
- In Roman times Gaul, while centred on modern France (which includes Corsica), also included modern Switzerland, most of Belgium, and parts of western Germany and northern Italy — a fact the authors acknowledge by using the same suffix for the Belgians, Swiss and Corsicans.
- In the original (and most translations) -ine is most often used for female names
- Goths: -ic
- Greeks: -s (m); -a (f)
- Iberians: -on
- Indians: -it, -at (m); -ade (f)
- Normans: -af
- Persians: -es
- Romans: -us (m); -a (f)
- Vikings: -ssen (m); -ard, -ude (f)
- Cultural references indicate these (in Asterix and the Great Crossing) are Danes rather than the Norsemen of Asterix and the Normans
[edit] Running gags
A number of running gags recur in various albums. One of these is that the bard Cacofonix is inspired to sing whenever Asterix and Obelix leave or come back from a grand journey, but is usually prevented from performing by Fulliautomatix (the blacksmith). When an adventure concludes, the village holds a banquet, but the bard is nearly always seen tied up and gagged so as not to disrupt the festivities (most notable exceptions in Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield, where it is Chief Vitalstatistix who is missing from the banquet, Asterix and the Normans, where his help proved vital in stopping the Normans, Asterix and the Magic Carpet, where he, Asterix and Obelix were in another country at the time, and Asterix and the Falling Sky, where his hut had been destroyed and Unhygienix and Fulliautomatix were tied up instead as 'punishment').
There is also Obelix tapping his forehead and muttering "These [people] are crazy" every time he learns something new about the land he is visiting and their people. His most common targets are the Romans, which is ironic because they consider the Gauls as being the crazy ones.
Another running gag among legionaries is, to express their discontent to a military life way less interesting that what was promised is (in French) “Engagez-vous, rengagez-vous, qu’ils disaient!” (tentative translation: “enlist and enlist again, as they said!”).
Obelix is also seen numerous times attempting to drink from the cauldron of magic potion, but is always stopped by Getafix before he can drink any (the disastrous effects of Obelix ingesting any potion are seen in Asterix and Obelix All at Sea, though no negative effects occur when Obelix is given a few drops in Asterix and Cleopatra).
Another running gag is a group of pirates that tend to get caught in the middle of conflict and have their ship sunk. The ship is sunk for a variety of reasons, such as a stray thrown menhir, though usually through Asterix and Obelix boarding them. In one episode, they attack a ship carrying a Roman agent, who points at a random crew member and states he gave him a bagful of gold if he would not attack the agent. In the ensuing battle over the nonexistent bag of gold, the pirates sink their own ship. In another, tired of being sunk, they give up pirating completely and open a ship-themed restaurant. Asterix and Obelix arrive in search of something and despite their initial attempts at being good hosts, they are soon persuaded to return to the oceans.
In Asterix the Legionary, after their ship was sunk, the pirates were left in a raft resembling the painting The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault. In this particular image the captain even makes the pun: "We've been framed, by Jericho!". Sometimes the pirates scuttle the ship themselves rather than be attacked by the Gauls again, the captain reasoning once that it "Saves us a few knocks, and comes to the same thing in the end".
These pirates — most notably the red-bearded captain, the constantly Latin-quoting peg-legged second-in-command, and the African lookout — are caricatures of the characters of "Barbe Rouge, Le Démon des Caraïbes", a pirate series that was published at the same time in Pilote, the weekly comics magazine in which Asterix appeared, and which Goscinny also edited.
[edit] Revisionist explanations
In the albums, some historical facts are retold, and attributed to Asterix and Obelix.
- In Asterix and Cleopatra, when visiting Egypt, Obelix scales the sphinx. As he is about to mount the sphinx's nose it breaks off and falls to the ground. Immediately all the nearby souvenir-shops chisel off the noses of their souvenir-sphinxes in order to maintain the resemblance to the real monument.
- In the same book, at the end, Asterix asks Cleopatra to call upon his countrymen if she needs anything built, such as a canal between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea — describing the Suez Canal (which was built by a French company).
- In Asterix in Spain, Asterix finds himself in a circus in front of an aurochs. He evades the bull nicely, and gets an applause from the audience. A guest of the Roman general drops her red cape in the arena. When Asterix wants to hand it back, the bull reacts and is finished after some dancing moves of Asterix, who is trying to save the cape from getting dirty, giving us the first bullfight.
- In the same book, Unhygenix the fishmonger agrees to take payment for his boat rental in menhirs, as he wants to develop land on Salisbury Plain — which explains the mystery of Stonehenge. (In the French original, the land in question is at Carnac in Brittany.)
- In Asterix and the Banquet (Le Tour de Gaule) Obelix travels around Gaul with a yellow knapsack on his back, as if wearing the yellow jersey in the modern Tour de France, complete with a white square patch on the backside, where we can imagine the cyclist's number.
- In Asterix in Switzerland, Asterix manages to carry an unconscious Obelix through the Alps, by tying ropes around himself, Obelix, and their guides, creating a famous technique in mountain-climbing. Asterix and Obelix also hide in the secure bank locker of Zurix (Zurich): an allusion to modern Swiss banks.
- In the same adventure above, the precision of Swiss watches and clocks is alluded to by the fact that the innkeeper who helps the duo never forgets to remind his customers to turn their hourglasses.
- In Asterix in Belgium, the chieftain of Asterix's Belgian hosts gains inspiration for frites (French fries) and mussels, Belgium's two most famous culinary ambassadors, from a vat of boiling oil prepared as a Roman weapon, and a damp wooden plank belonging to the pirates after their ship was sunk by a rock Obelix tried to throw at a Roman camp on the coast (note that potatoes were unknown in Europe at the time).
- In Asterix and the Goths, Getafix makes sure that the Goths are pushed into political turmoil so that they may never again regroup as a powerful nation and attack others. This is a reference to the strategy pursued by Richelieu in the 17th century to prevent the various German principalties from uniting and posing a threat to the power of France. Particularly accurate is the use of equal support towards all contenders, reflecting the notion of balance of power that was at the core of Richelieu's strategy.
- In Asterix and the Laurel Wreath, Asterix and Obelix accidentally invent the potion to get rid of alcoholic hangovers. This is still an active area of research with geneticists trying to identify the gene responsible for hangovers.
- In Asterix and the Normans, Justforkix, nephew of Vitalstatistix, arrives in an Italian chariot built for speed (a "sports cart"), an allusion to the famous Italian speedsters such as Ferrari and Lamborghini.
- In Obelix and Co., the effect of globalisation on rural (Asterix's Village) and urban (Rome's) economies is portrayed. At the end of the story, the Roman Empire is on the verge of bankruptcy due to buying menhirs which nobody wants.
- In Asterix at the Olympic Games, the use of Magic Potion is banned in the games but the Roman contingent still uses it. They are caught and disqualified owing to the fact that Getafix added a purple dye to the potion which coloured the tongues of the Romans. This reflects the burning issue of the use of performance enhancing drugs and their detection in modern sports.
- In Asterix and the Black Gold, Asterix, Obelix and Dubbelosix rest for some time in a stable in Bethlehem. Also the first oil slick in history occurs when the oil collected by Asterix and Obelix squirts out in a struggle. A bird drenched in oil cries out "Oi! Don't say you are starting already!"
- In Asterix and the Secret Weapon, the village women 'stand up' for their rights spurred on by Bravura, a female bard from Lutetia who wears breeches (Trousers in the modern world). Also Caesar commissions a secret legion of women soldiers to exploit the famous Gaulish gallantry and thereby conquer the village.
- In Asterix and Caesar's Gift, Cacofonix composes the protest anthem "We Shall Overcome", which became the US civil rights movement song.
- A recurring joke is references to the assassination of Julius Caesar by Brutus. In Asterix the Gladiator, Julius Caesar orders Brutus to join in the crowd's applause for him using the famous Shakespearean phrase "Et tu Brute". In Asterix and the Soothsayer a fortune-teller vouches Brutus's fidelity to Caesar. In Asterix and the Roman Agent, Caesar tells Brutus to stop handling his knife or he'll injure himself, and Brutus mutters threateningly under his breath, "One of these days..."; in the French version he referred to Brutus as "my son", something which some historians have suggested may have been the case.
- In Asterix in Britain, Asterix's cousin speaks about building an underwater tunnel from Dover to France and says that it's a dream project which he hopes to achieve some day. This is a reference to the modern channel tunnel (which wasn't built yet at the time the album was written).
- In the same book, Getafix gives Asterix some herbs to take to Britain. At the time Britons drink hot water, sometimes with a drop of milk. Asterix loses the barrel of magic potion and simply adds Getafix's herbs to their hot water instead as a morale booster. When they return to Gaul, Getafix informs Asterix that the herbs are called tea.
- In Asterix and the Great Crossing, Asterix signals to a Viking ship, on a small island off the coast of North America, atop a pile of stones, with a folded map under his arm. This represents the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French to the Americans.
- In Asterix and the Cauldron, Obelix predicts the popularity of Asterix and Obelix stories. Albeit, Obelix assigns himself a more prominent place in the title of the series.
[edit] English translations
All Asterix stories by Goscinny and Uderzo which have been officially translated into British English were translated by Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge. Their first volume was published in 1969. However there have been some additional translations, one in English prior to the Bell/Hockridge version and two in attempts to enter the U.S. market.
[edit] Ranger magazine
Ranger was a British magazine for boys published in 1965 and 1966. It included a version of Asterix transferred to Britain. The strip was called "Britons Never Never Never Shall Be Slaves" with Asterix renamed Beric and Obelix being the son of Boadicea. Their foes remained Romans. Ranger was merged into Look and Learn magazine and the series continued there for a time.
[edit] American newspaper syndication
From November 1977 until early 1979 five albums were serialized in syndicated form in a number of North American newspapers. Since these were printed as part of the standard daily comics, and were broken into separately licenced but concurrent daily and Sunday strips, the art needed considerable reworking. This required editing a lot of the dialog. In addition, a number of names, jokes, and pieces of art were further changed to be more politically correct or idiomatic for the newspapers' family-oriented audience. The results were very different from the original translations. The stories printed appeared in essentially random order as well, and the experiment came to an end quickly.
The stories which appeared were
- "Asterix the Gladiator" from November 27, 1977 to February 26, 1978
- "Asterix and Cleopatra" from February 26 to May 28, 1978
- "Asterix and the Great Crossing" from May 28 to August 27, 1978
- "Asterix and the Big Fight" from August 27 to November 26, 1978
- "Asterix in Spain" from November 26, 1978 to February 25, 1979 (however, most papers had dropped it well before the final date)
The Sunday color comic between stories contained the end of one story and the start of the next, each as a half page.
[edit] American albums
Robert Steven Caron translated five volumes into American English. These are Asterix and the Great Crossing in 1984, Asterix the Legionary and Asterix at the Olympic Games in 1992, and Asterix in Britain and Asterix and Cleopatra in 1995.
For copyright purposes most characters' names were changed. With Asterix never achieving great popularity in the United States, this series of retranslations was halted after these albums, leading to some confusion among the few American fans of the series (the other volumes were issued with the British translation in the same market).
[edit] Translating names
In Asterix stories, many of the original names are humorous due to their absurdity. For example, the bard is Assurancetourix (assurance tous risques or "comprehensive insurance"), the translation of which is pointless since the bard has no connection to insurance of any kind — it's the silliness that makes it humorous. To maintain the spirit and flow of the story the translators change the joke in the name to a comment on the character. Thus in the English language edition the bard's name is Cacofonix which is an allusion to the term cacophony (a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds), since the central trait of the bard character is that the Gauls all hate listening to his music.
This happens in the original as well, as with Geriatrix (French: Agecanonix — canonical age — a French expression meaning very old or ancient), but it is not common, while absurd names in English, such as Dubius Status, are reserved for minor or one-story characters. Fictional place names however tend to be equally silly in all translations, for example the four camps (castra) which surround Asterix's village: Compendium, Aquarium, Laudanum and Totorum (Tot o' rum, colloquial English for shot of rum) — in French this camp is called "Babaorum", a pun on baba au rhum or rum baba, a popular French pastry.
It is notable that in some cases the puns are actually improved or made even more appropriate by translation. A prime example is Obelix's dog: In the original French version he is named Idéfix (idée fixe - meaning 'obsessive'). In translation to English he became Dogmatix (dogmatic - meaning 'assertive, opinionated'). The result is an approximate synonym in its comment on the dog's character, but now with the double pun of the word 'Dog' as part of his name.
[edit] Lost in translation
Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge have been widely praised for their rendition of the English language edition for maintaining the spirit and humour of the original even when actual translation is impossible — as it often is when translating puns between languages which are not closely related.
A good example occurs in Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield — when Obelix redistributes the water in the spa pools by diving in, the other guests complain and the druid in charge arrives asking Vitalstatistix, "Where are your Gauls?" In the original French he responds Mes Gaulois sont dans la pleine ("My Gauls are in the full one") which is a play on a famous (in French) quote Les Gaulois sont dans la plaine ("The Gauls are on the plain") which of course sounds almost exactly the same, though not in English. Instead the translated reply is "Pooling your resources" (the water), a clever double entendre on a common phrase even though the original pun is lost. Avoir la pleine also is a common French phrase for "to have one's fill", maybe a reference to the druid's potion.
Sometimes nothing of the original joke is salvageable. In Asterix in Britain, there is a scene in Londinium where a produce vendor argues with a buyer — in the next panel Obelix says (in French), "Why is that man wearing a melon?" This relies on the fact that the French word for melon is also the name for the iconic British bowler hat; with no way to convey this in the English translation, in the British edition Obelix says, "I say, Asterix, I think this bridge is falling down" referring to the children's rhyme "London bridge is falling down", leaving the original joke incomplete. In the panel shown, the reply of the British man on the right was "Rather, old fruit!", in some publications of the book; a good pun and typical of the way the British address each other in Asterix in Britain. In the same book, much of the humor came from Goscinny's high-fidelity rendition of the English language using French words. This, of course, is totally lost by retranslation in English.
Some translators even go further and add humor of their own when it is appropriate. An example of this is in Asterix and the Goths, where a group of Goths who kidnapped Getafix run puzzled through a forest populated by Romans looking for Asterix and Obelix, who they think are responsible for the kidnapping. In the original, the Goth chief says "Faut pas chercher a comprendre", meaning "We shouldn't try to understand", a common French phrase with no particular pun attached. In the British version, the chief instead comments "Ours is not to reason why", a reference to The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, which states in its third stanza "Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do and die".
[edit] Comparison of names of major characters
| Original name (French) |
Meaning | Description | British Name | American name (Newspaper) |
American name (Album) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Astérix | asterisk (because he is the star), also the medical term asterixis refers to a periodic loss of muscle tone, the opposite of what Astérix displays when he drinks the magic potion | Gaulish warrior | Asterix | Asterix | Asterix |
| Obélix | obelisk (An obelisk is similar to a menhir; and the obelisk symbol † often follows the asterisk.) | Menhir delivery man |
Obelix | Obelix | Obelix |
| Idéfix | idée fixe (theme or obsession) | Obelix’s dog | Dogmatix | Dogmatix | Dogmatix |
| Panoramix | wide view | Druid | Getafix | Readymix | Magigimmix |
| Abraracourcix | à bras raccourcis: (hit, lambast) violently | Village Chief | Vitalstatistix | Vitalstatistix | Macroeconomix |
| Bonemine | healthy look | Chief's Wife | Impedimenta | n/a | Belladonna |
| Agecanonix | canonical age | Village elder | Geriatrix | Geriatrix | Arthritix |
| Assurancetourix | comprehensive insurance | Bard | Cacofonix | Cacofonix | Malacoustix |
| Cétautomatix | it's automatic | Blacksmith | Fulliautomatix | ||
| Ordralfabétix | alphabetical order | Fishmonger | Unhygienix | Fishtix | Epidemix |
| Iélosubmarine | Yellow Submarine | Wife of Fishmonger | Bacteria |
[edit] Influences
- The first French satellite, which was launched in 1965, was named Asterix-1 in honour of Asterix.
- During the campaign for Paris to host the 1992 Summer Olympics Asterix appeared in many posters over the Eiffel Tower.
- The Israeli Psy-trance DJ and producer Astrix is named after the character.
- Parc Astérix is a popular amusement park near Paris
- The French company Belin introduced a series of "Asterix" potato chips shaped in the forms of Roman shields, gourds, wild boar, and bones.
- Asterix and Obelix appeared on the cover of Time Magazine for a special edition about France.
- In an episode of the British comedy show Mr. Bean, Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) reads an Asterix book with his teddy bear, Teddy.
- The animated series, Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, also concerns an oppressed group in possession of a magic potion capable of conferring superhuman strength and agility.
- The 2006 FIFA World Cup final between France and Italy was depicted as a fight between Roman legions and Gaulish villagers in newspapers
- Version 4.0 of the operating system OpenBSD features a parody of an Asterix story.[1]
[edit] See also
- Detailed list of the Asterix Volumes
- Recurring characters in Asterix
- List of Asterix films
- List of Asterix games
- Roman Gaul, after Julius Caesar's conquest of 58–51 BC that consisted of five provinces.
[edit] External links
- The Official Asterix web site
- The Asterix around the World – The many languages
- Asterix NZ– General Reference site for English speaking Fans
- The Asterix Annotations – album-by-album explanations of all the historical references and obscure in-jokes
- Each Asterix book is examined in detail at Alea Jacta Est (Asterix for grown-ups)
- Les allusions culturelles dans Astérix - Cultural allusions (French)
