October is a big month for celebrations, and one big one is the 50th Anniversary of Asterix by Albert Uderzo and Rene Goscinny. Asterix: The Golden Book will be a hardcover book released on October 22, 2009, and considering the popularity of the character, I expect this to be the biggest selling book in the world for October/November.
For those in the United States who have no clue as to who or what an Asterix is, I suggest you “Head To The Wiki!”
The series follows the exploits of a village of ancient Gauls as they resist Roman occupation. They do so by means of a magic potion, brewed by their druid, which gives the recipient superhuman strength. The protagonist, the titular character, Asterix, along with his friend Obelix have various adventures. In many cases, this leads them to travel to various countries around the world, though other books are set in and around their village.
Last Thanksgiving, we ran our Retro Review of Asterix and Cleopatra, one of my personal favorites, and if I can get my hands on a copy (it isn’t available in the U.S. – or at least not at Amazon - for some reason), we’ll cover it this year. If we can’t, I’m open for suggestions on the next Asterix book that needs to be reviewed.
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Aqui en Venezuela, llegaban con regularidad, las aventuras de estos dos Galos, y yo en lo particular he leido como 40 libros de sus aventuras, teniendo en mi coleccion , algunos titulos muy buenos y recordados como Astérix y los juegos olÃmpicos, Astérix y Cleopatra,La hoz de oro,Astérix legionario,Astérix y los godos y desde niño, creci , leyendo las aventuras de los habitantes de la aldea gala, con personajes tan queridos e intrañables como Panoramix (Getafix)el Druida, Idefix, la singular mascota de Obelix, el veteranisimo Edadepiedrix,El jefe Abracurcix, conocido en ingles como Vitalstatistix . o el bardo Assurancetourix(Cacofonix) quien, de niño no quizo beber la pocion magica y darle de golpes a los Malos y comer jabali al final de cada aventura….
!!!!!Que vengan 50 años mas de Asterix y Obelix!!!!!!!
After following major spoilers for more than a year and having become a huge fan of you guys and an avid listener of the podcast, let me just say that entering the site and seeing a picture of the portuguese edition of Asterix’s new book almost brought tears to my eyes :) As you probably have guessed i’m from portugal and i know that the image chosen was probably by chance but nonetheless its just great seeing that. Thanks guys, you made my day. Oh, and keep up the excelent work and sorry for my english…
Actually, I picked that image specifically because I knew you would come in this morning looking for information about Asterix – that’s just how far we go for our readers ;)
no offense to our portugese friends,but this would have made more sense if the picture was in french.
Asterix the Gaul is the original one, you should go with it.
Asterix the Gladiator is another really great album.
The Twelve Tasks of Asterix is awesome, but only the movie, the book is not that good.
they’re all great until Goscinny dies, after that it goes from readable to bad.
Unfortunately, this is the only official cover I could find, as the rest (including the French) are apparently under wraps until the big day.
You would be surprised at the popularity of Asterix in Brazil. I read most of them in Portuguese, and due to the similar Latin roots to French, I feel that Asterix works much better in Portuguese than in English. Ah, those glory days of middle school when I would check out Asterix and Tin Tin from the school libray.