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Astérix (or Astérix le Gaulois) is a series of French « bandes dessinées ». It has been created by two men. René Goscinny (1926 — 1977) is a French writer, humorist and a comic books scriptwriter. He created very famous characters such as Astérix, Iznogoud or Le Petit Nicolas. Albert Uderzo (born in 1927) is a French cartoonist. After the death of his friend and work partner Goscinny, he also took over the job of writing the series. |
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The series Astérix first appeared in France in 1959 in the magazine Pilote.
In 1961, the first « bande dessinée » was published : Astérix le Gaulois and was a huge success.
Today, 34 comic books in the series have been released.
And the series has been adaptated for the cinema : three movies have already been produced and the fourth one is on stage. The serie Astérix takes place in a very small village of Armorica, a province of Gaul, around the year 50 B.C. Astérix is a Gaul man, very small, with blond hair and a big moustache. He’s very clever and shrewd. That’s why he’s always asked to help the people of his village going through adventures and problems. Most of the time, the villagers have to fight against Julius Caesar and the Romans. For Julius Caesar has successfully conquered nearly all Gaul except for Astérix’ small Armorican village. And he wants to conquer it ! But the villagers have a secret weapon that helps them a lot : their druid, Panoramix, can brew a magic potion that give them superhuman strength and allow them to resist over and over again. Astérix has two friends who share his adventures, Obélix, a very big and strong guy and Idéfix, a small white dog. |
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Did you notice that almost every Gaul names in this « bande dessinée » end with –ix ? It’s in reference to Vercingetorix, the famous Gaul chief who once defeated Julius Caesar. Almost all names of the series are puns and some are really funny. |
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Serrer la main : to shake hands. Potion (fém.) : potion. Force (fém.) : strength. |