Some readers might know that I'm a quizmaster. I test many of them out on unwitting attendees of the monthly Conversations in ConSuite socials and host quiz events at conventions like TusCon and CoKoCon, all focusing on science fiction, fantasy, horror and broader pop culture. I'm English so have to factor in that I'm setting trivia for an American audience, but I initially expected to see that more in folks here not being aware of some British films, books or TV shows. What I found is that they often know those pretty well, but they don't know continental European mainstays like Tintin or Asterix, that were widely available in the UK, so I should dive into some of those here at the Nameless Zine.

I was especially surprised to find that nobody knew about Asterix the Gaul. He's not just the star of the bestselling comic book series in France or indeed the whole of Europe, he's the star of the second bestselling comic book series in book format, after the Japanese manga 'One Piece', with 385 million copies sold. That's notably more than 'Peanuts' (300 million), 'Naruto' (250 million) or 'Tintin' (250 million). There are currently forty books in print, plus eighteen films, an animated TV show, forty video games, fifteen board games and even a theme park outside Paris that sees 2.3 million visitors every year. The first French satellite, launched in 1965, was named Astérix.

He was created in 1959 for a French comic magazine called 'Pilote' in a story that became this first book, 'Asterix the Gaul', published in 1961 and voted the 23rd greatest book of the 20th century in a 1999 poll by the premier French newspaper, 'Le Monde'. It's very much a beginning but all of the elements I remember from the series are here, even if some are in nascent form. It's impeccably silly, courtesy of the writing by René Goscinny, and drawn in a simple but highly effective slapstick manner by Albert Uderzo. This pair would go on to create the first twenty-four books, up to 1979's 'Asterix in Belgium'. After Goscinny's death, Uderzo continued the series solo, adding eight more. He retired in 2011 and further books were created by other hands.

For anyone without a grounding in the series, it takes place in Roman-occupied Gaul, which is now modern-day France. The starting point is that every part of Gaul is occupied by the Romans except one, a small village in Armorica, now known as Brittany, because its druid created a magic potion that renders its inhabitants so powerful that they're nigh on invulnerable while under its effects. I don't remember the series addressing the concept of mass producing this potion to enable Gaul to rise up and throw off the oppressive yoke of the Roman Empire, because it's fundamentally all about that one token pocket of resistance that the all-powerful can't ever suppress. As is said so often in the series, all they have to fear is the sky falling on their heads.

Asterix is a warrior with a memorable winged helmet, but he's also tiny, making the visuals even funnier when he's beating up swathes of Roman soldiers who are all twice his height. He was the lead throughout the series and that starts right here in book one, as you can see from the cover art. However, his sidekick, Obelix, the gentleman in the distance in striped trousers that reach up to his armpits, isn't quite the sidekick he'd become as the series progresses. While most villagers take the potion to become invulnerable for a period of time, Obelix fell into a cauldron of potion as a baby and so has this strength permanently, an echo of the Achilles legend.

Most characters have puns for names, starting with Asterix and Obelix, relatively mundane takes on "asterisk" and "obelisk", merely with the ending changed to the -ix suffix common at the time and most famous today in Gallic chieftains like Vercingetorix, who really did mount a major revolt against the Roman Empire, back in the first century BC. These names get progressively sillier and usually tie to characters' occupations in some way. Therefore that druid is Getafix, the chief of the village is Vitalstatistix and the bard, who is actually listened to here, is Cacofonix. That wouldn't last. A running joke in the series is him being tied and gagged to prevent him from singing. One of my favourites introduced here is the village blacksmith, Fulliautomatix.

Similarly, the Roman characters have names that end in -us, as tended to be the case in Latin, and live in places ending in -um. The antagonist in this first book is a Roman centurion, Crismus Bonus, who commands the garrison at Compendium (next to Laudanum, Totorum and Aquarium), and has delusions of overthrowing Julius Caesar to become emperor himself. He has a spy, Caligula Minus, one of the weaker puns in the series, infiltrate this indomitable Gaulish village disguised as one of them, decked out with a suitably exuberant moustache, to discover the secret of their incredible strength. Hilarity, as they say, ensues.

Much of the fun here is in seeing the series begin. It's not quite fully formed but it's close. Asterix beats up four Roman legionaries on the very first page and there are jokes in German and Latin. He brings back boar to eat on the second page, while Obelix carries off another menhir to deliver. That's his job, by the way: menhir delivery man. Menhirs are standing stones, the sort you see in stone circles, and, long before ancient aliens became a thing, I always adored the suggestion that the mystery behind how ancient and supposedly primitive people transported massive stones so far was because one delivery man with red pigtails carried them on his back.

Uderzo's art is as impeccable here as it always was, but Goscinny's writing feels more blatant and even sillier than I remember. He probably grew into it as he went, but Uderzo was already spot-on right at the start. Of course, Goscinny also had to introduce the series here, so some of what feels like clumsiness early on is just him having to cram in background before he can get on with a story and that's excusable. When the story does get going, it's a lot of fun, too; and it's easy to forget it's the first one.

Of course the Gauls rumble Caligula Minus relatively quickly, because Gaulish square dancing has moustache pulling as a component part, but by that point he's already sipped Getafix's potion to become invulnerable. So he takes that news to Crismus Bonus, who decides that he must have the recipe for himself and so the plot falls into place, with the inevitable tricks pulled and traps set by the valiant Gauls on and for the cartoonish Romans. You should read the book to find out more, a recommendation that's doubled for Americans unfamiliar with the series. I'd think that the sales figures internationally underline how universal this truly is, even if not all readers know Latin. It has to be said that names like Crismus Bonus and Ginandtonicus aren't hard to figure out. ~~ Hal C F Astell

For more titles by René Goscinny click here
For more titles by Albert Uderzo click here