Asterix and Obelix are two characters so popular that the second one, the likeable "fat guy", has also lent his name to a scientifically proven syndrome in France: people who claim to weigh a few kilograms less than their real weight suffer from it. This is to make people understand the impact that the two "gaulois" (Gauls) have had on the popular imagination. Yesterday, at the age of 92, their co-creator passed away: Albert Uderzo, legendary cartoonist of Italian origin (real name is Alberto Aleandro Uderzo), had continued the successful series despite the premature death of his colleague and partner René Goscinny, in 1977, in the days when the eighteenth anniversary of the comic strip published for the first time on October 29, 1959 was being celebrated.
The Obelix syndrome derives from one of the most famous jokes of Asterix's companion: “Gros, moi? Non… juste un peu enveloppé, c'est tout'' (Me fat? No. I'm just a little grown up). But there are also those of Asterix, who unlike the other is the protagonist who gives its name to the series (in the original French Asterix o Asterix le Gaulois) and has as its main characteristic, rather than clumsiness, cunning. The leitmotif of the comic created and produced by Uderzo and Goscinny is in fact that of a hypothetical "revenge" of the Gauls in the presence of the Roman invaders: in the series the roles are reversed and it is the Empire that succumbs and is repeatedly ridiculed precisely by the gimmicks of the hilarious warrior couple.
It is no coincidence that the comic, translated into over a hundred countries and which has sold over 200 million copies in the various editions, was published a few months after the election of Charles de Gaulle as President of the Republic, in a phase of strong patriotism in France, with the country wanting to leave behind the humiliation of the Nazi invasion. The tenacious opposition of the Gallic village to the Roman invader could in fact easily recall the resistance of a part of the French to the German occupation.
From the comic strip, the Asterix brand then expanded over time to other products: the series that Uderzo oversaw for over half a century (until 2011, but he also supervised the following seasons) has had cinematic transpositions with a long series of cartoon feature films and four live action films, and has inspired extensive merchandising. In 1989 was also inaugurated in Plailly, near Paris, an amusement park dedicated to the characters, the Parc Astérix, which is among the most visited just after the more famous Euro Disney.
Returning to Uderzo, the family immediately specified that it was a cardiac arrest and his death has no connection with the coronavirus. Since childhood, the designer of Italian origin has shown enormous talent: at seven years old he is already a reader of comics and he begins drawing his own stories even though he soon discovers he is colorblind. A visual impairment that will prevent him from painting, but not from drawing. At the age of 13 he was hired by the Société Parisienne d'Édition as letter writer, photo retoucher and proofreader.
After creating his first comic “Flamberge Gentilhomme Gascon”, invents the one-legged soldier "Clopinard" but the turning point is the meeting with Goscinny, a young French author who has just arrived from the USA. A great friendship was born between the two, and after the creation of various characters, in 1959 they founded a children's newspaper, Pilote, in which the Asterix series debuted, giving them the greatest fortunes.
