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The books have been translated into many languages (even Latin and ancient Greek) and are available in most countries. It's probably the most popular French comic in the world.
One key element in the success of the series is that it contains comic elements for several publics: young children like the fist-fights and other visual gags, while adults would see allusions to classical education, contemporary figures and puns.
Asterix lives around 50 BC in a fictional village in northwest Armorica (a region of ancient Gaul). This village is celebrated amongst the Gauls as the only part of that country not yet conquered by Julius Caesar and his Roman legions. The inhabitants of the village gain superhuman strength by drinking a magic potion prepared by the druidDruidry or Druidism was the religion of the ancient druids, the priestly class in ancient Celtic and Gaulish societies through much of Western Europe north of the Alps and in the British Isles. Druidic practices were part of the culture of all the tribal Getafix (originally Panoramix—names of all characters, except usually Asterix and ObelixObelix (originally Obelix is a fictional character, a sidekick with superhuman strength in the Asterix comic books. His job when not bashing Romans is as a menhir delivery man. He has a little dog named Idefix ( Dogmatix in English editions). Unlike all o, vary from one translation to another). The village is surrounded by the ocean on one side, and four Roman garrisons on the other, intended to keep a watchful eye and ensure that the Gauls do not get up to mischief.
A recurring plot in many of the Asterix books concerns the attempts by the RomanRome ( Italian and Latin Roma is the capital city of Italy, and of its Lazio region. It is located on the lower Tiber river, near the Mediterranean Sea, at 41°50'N, 12°15'E. The Vatican City State, a sovereign enclave within Rome, is the seat of the Romans to prevent the druid from making the potion, or trying to get the secret recipe for their own use. Such attempts are inevitably foiled by the heroes of the Asterix books, the agile, clever and pint-sized Asterix and his clumsy, oversized but good-hearted best friend, Obelix.
The humour encountered in the Asterix comics often centres on anachronistic caricatureAlan Greenspan by Jan Op De Beeck A caricature is a humorous illustration that exaggerates or distorts the basic essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. Although caricatures can be made of inanimate objects such as cs and tongue-in-cheek stereotypeOriginally a stereotype was an impression taken from a form of movable lead type and used for printing instead of the original type. This was generalized into a metaphor for repeating a set of ideas identically with no changes (as would have been possibles of contemporary EuropeFor the band of the same name, see Europe (band . Europe is a continent forming the westermost part of the Eurasian supercontinent. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sean nations and French regions. Much of the humour in the initial Asterix books was French-specific, which had delayed the translation of the book into non-French languages in fear of losing the joke and the spirit of the story. The newer albums share a more universal humour, both written and visual.
In the early album Asterix and the Goths, for instance, the Goths 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, drinking warm beer or hot water (before the first tea has been brought to what would become England by Asterix) and boiling all their food. Spain is the cheap country down south where people from the North vacation (and demand to eat the same food as they are used to at home). Some caricatures of the traits of certain French regions are also used (the people from Normandy cannot give a straight answer; the people from Marseille play boules and exaggerate matters, Corsicans don't like to do any work, are easily angered and have long-standing vendettas that they settle violently).
In spite of this stereotyping and the streaks of French chauvinism, it has been very well received by cultures around the world—the USA, where it never caught on, being a notable exception.
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), historical personalities ( Napoleon, Louis XIV of France), famous places (Le Moulin Rouge)…. [1]
However, in many other respects the series reflects life in the 1st century BC as accurately as can be expected from the medium. For example, the multistoried apartments in Rome — the insulae — has Obelix remarking that one man's roof is another man's floor and consequently "These Romans are crazy": his favourite line. The text makes relatively regular use of original Latin proverbs and Latin phrases (often uttered by the African pirate who always drops his r's, e.g. "O tempo'a! O mo'es!" for "O tempora! O mores!"; this "imitation" of the "African accent" incidentally could be seen as a piece of racial stereotyping and there also might be a satirical intent: school curricula in the African French colonies were notorious for being clones of those in France while completely ignoring local realities: e.g. African students would learn in history class about "nos ancetres les Gaulois", i.e. "our Gallic ancestors"), and allusions to Julius Caesar's De Bello Gallico, a book about the conquest of Gaul, later 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.
A key feature of the text of the Asterix books are the constant puns used as names of characters; The names of the two protagonists come from asterisk and obelisk, Asterix being the star of the books (Latin aster [star] and Celtic rix [king]), and Obelix being a menhir delivery-man. Nearly all the Gaulish characters' names end in -ix, probably a reference to the real-life Gaulish chieftain such as Vercingetorix. (All male Gaulish characters, including Obelix's small dog, have names ending in -ix. Now, in reality, only the names of Gaulish kings—and not even all of the kings—ended in -ix. In fact, those that did always ended in -rix, which meant "king" and is incidentally a cognate to Latin rex, German Reich, English rich, Sanskrit raajaH, etc. English language examples include the chief (Vitalstatistix), the druid (Getafix), the fishmonger (Unhygienix), an old man (Geriatrix) with a young wife. Incidental characters often feature names like Hiphiphurrax and Mykingdomforanos. These puns reflect the French original, in which, for example, the chief is called Abraracourcix, derived from the phrase "à bras raccourcis" meaning with arms raised and ready, ready to punch. The Egyptian in Astérix Légionnaire is named Courdeténis in French and Ptenisnet in English.
Another series of puns, at least in the original French: the names of the four camps (castra) which surround Asterix's village, e.g. one of them is called "Babaorum", a pun on "baba au rhum", a popular kind of desert.
Interestingly, some of the original puns are rather so-so, and the English translations actually improve on them. For instance, Panoramix is only funny because it is the word panoramique with the suffix -ix. This was improved in Getafix, which is more appropriate, as "get a fix" conveys the fact he makes potent potions. The same goes for Ordralfabétix (meaning "alphabetical order"), which was greatly improved as Unhygienix, given that this character is a fishmonger infamous for his rotting product. Assurancetourix, the ear-offending bard of the village, becomes the apt Cacofonix. An even more masterful translation is that of Idéfix. An idée fixe is a "fixed idea", i.e. an obsession, a dogma. The translation, Dogmatix, manages to keep the -ix, conserve the "fixed idea" meaning, and also include the syllable dog—perfect, given that the character is a dog.
As a kind of visual pun, minor characters often resemble famous people or fictional characters. Notable examples include Britain's most famous bards in the story Asterix in Britain, who are four in number and look like the Beatles; a pair of Belgian warriors in Asterix in Belgium who resemble Thomson and Thompson of Tintin-fame. Both Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are depicted in Asterix in Spain.
Some of the side characters are caricatures of existing French people of the same era, particularly from television and the spectacles; in Obelix and Co., the young Roman bureaucrat is a caricature of a young Jacques Chirac. More recently, this has occasionally extended to major characters as well: in Asterix and the Black Gold, a Roman spy is a young Sean Connery 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' Spartacus.