My all-time favourite comic book series!
But it is French!!!!!123
So what? Asterix has been translated into over 20 languages, even into latin, german, bavarian ...
Yeah, at last the gooood comics: The european ones!! are up!
Thank you moderator!
Question to the moderator: what about all the other good comics: Thorgal Ägirsson (vikings), Yoko Tsuno (extraterrestrial), Lucky Luke (very funny),..
Will there be new boards, too?
Please :-)
Asterix, France's comic-book hero, has recently been adopted as an icon of the anti-globalisation brigade - to do with his background as a defiant little man and his village standing up against the might of Rome. Personally, though, I found it a little unnerving about the Asterix comics in that they relied upon magic potion to receive their fighting strength - plus, of course, clever Asterix and wise Getafix (as he was known in the English language version). Were the creators giving out the message that using performing-enhancing substances to beat the living crabapple out of your enemies was the solution to all of life's obstacles?
Then again, the issue of using magic potion for personal gain was addressed in "Asterix at the Olympic Games" - kinda topical considering the Commonwealth Games are currently on in the UK. [Are they?! - everyone] Yes, they are.
I'm rambling now - Asterix is still a fine comic book hero.
Uhm, Sven, I feel that you may take it too serious? Were the creators giving out the message that using performing-enhancing substances to beat the living crabapple out of your enemies was the solution to all of life's obstacles? :-)
After all, magic potions are part of most fantasy stories.
I know. I know. I can't help it - I'm getting too old now. I still love the books - going back to them brings back good memories. The cunning puns and wordplay in the stories - particularly the Engligh language version - is excellent, with some jokes for all those who, like me, did Latin at school.
Anyone seen the movies? Miramax is planning on releasing them in the U.S. We screening Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, the second film in the series in the East Village, and when I recruited for it, I was surprised at how many people were familiar with it, even though I hadn't ever heard of it prior to hearing about the film when downloading Laetitia Casta pics.
You mean the live-action ones with Christian Clavier and Gerard Depardieu? Not yet, but I have seen some of the animated films.
I love the Asterix books! So clever and funny - fast-on-their-feet-funny. You have to go back and read them at least twice to pick up everything that's happening in each frame.
My all-time favourite is Asterix the Legionary...the one where the gallant Gauls join the legendarily fearsome Roman Legion, and proceed to behave as though they're merely cutting through a bit of bothersome red tape.
Especially fun are Obelix's crush Panacea, Ptenisnet the Egyptian who thinks he's on holiday camp - and his nemesis the galley captain, "Old Hairy Hands/Nose/"If that Egyptian speaks another hieroglyph I am personally going to toss him overboard!!"
constanze, there has been a Create New Conversation button in the European Comics folder since I created it. You can use it to create boards for those titles you mentioned and other European comics.
I think the animated films are very well done because they keep the humoristic tone of the comic books. They are also very creative.
One of the animated movies, Asterix against Rome, I think, wasn't based on specific book at all, but on the idea of the 12 tasks of hercules, and had a lot of side remarks about modern society (which washing solution is whiter LOL).
But books like "Trabantenstadt" (I can't remember the english translation, its about the new roman village close by: asterix rents a room and obelix pretends to be crazy; or they plant specially treated oaks...) also have very funny moments.
"Trabantenstadt" was in the English version called "The Mansion of the Gods" - it was hilarious, but then again they all are, some more than others. For instance, while "Asterix and the Normans" was fine, it didn't seem to be as bitingly sharp as the other books.
The original film constanze described was called "The Twelve Labours of Asterix" as far as I know - I only saw a little of it when it was on TV years ago.
Has anyone read the adventures written solely by Albert Uderzo since the death of Rene Goscinny (i.e. roughly from "Asterix and the Great Divide" onwards)? What do you think of them? I personally love "Asterix and the Black Gold" - the scene where our heroes are attacked by various Middle Eastern warring factions is fantastic!
Read here for the diffenrent character names.
Danke schön, Electron. I did think the name Getafix was a bit silly compared to the original French. What sort of fix did they mean, exactly? Hard drugs? [JOKE]
Sven,
Has anyone read the adventures written solely by Albert Uderzo since the death of Rene Goscinny (i.e. roughly from "Asterix and the Great Divide" onwards)?
Yes, I've read all of the new ones, but only with the most recent ones - Asterix and the secret weapon and onward - I thought the quality was not quite as good as before, story-wise. I can't put my finger on anything specific, just a general disappointed feeling with too many gags and not enough of a good story line (but then, maybe I just disliked the storyline itself, I don't know).
Asterix and the black gold was quite a good and funny story. I wonder if Uderzo had sketches of this story before Goscinny's death, and because of this, this story looks and feels like the old ones, Asterix and son is in the middle, and Asterix and the magic carpet and onwards is the new look?
I always thought Getafix meant "Get out of a fix" (as in tight situation) or "Get a fix" (not in shot, but as in solution), because the druid was the miracle worker coming up quickly with solutions.
Likewise, Asterix is the hero not because of the magic drink, but because he is smart. If you look at the many devious way the romans try to divide the villagers, the magic drink doesn't help in most instances, but smartness and an understanding of human nature will solve the problems (together with the stubbornness and the willingness to always fight rather the enemy than amongst themselves of the villagers).
I've always thought that the English name of the fishmonger (Unhigenix) was far more appropriate than the French name (Ordralphabetix).
I don't know what the French name is a pun on: Ordralphabetix = Odor as in smell + ?
The German version is Verleihnix, which comes from the verb for to lend, which is also very funny for a fishmonger.
I believe it means alphabetical order (I've probably butchered the spelling).
And has anyone ever wondered why the village geezer Geriatrix has the sexiest wife? Come to think of it, there's a certain curiosity about her. Pretty much all the Gaul women wear their hair in braids, yet Mrs. Geriatrix wears hers in a bun.
Really, If I were in the story I would kill that old bastard and have sex with his wife all day!!!