While it sometimes seems that the 'Asterix' series ran forever, this thirteenth book turns out to start the second half of the original run that was written by René Goscinny and drawn by Albert Uderzo. There were twenty-four of those, from 'Asterix the Gaul' in 1961 to 'Asterix in Belgium' in 1979, but the latter was released after Goscinny's death two years earlier. Fear not, intrepid Gaulish fans, Uderzo continued on solo, taking over the writing duties as well as the art, and a combination of completed earlier works and new stories, mostly by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad, have kept it going into the present day.

With that all said, it shouldn't surprise that this book feature such a clean and smooth story. It may be highly episodic, but it's clean and smooth because its creators were in full flow and had ironed out whatever kinks might have been there early on. They even felt comfortable enough to vary their formula a little for fun, giving the pirates, who have been perennial victims of one of the longest running jokes in the series, a more positive experience. Their lives are upheaved over and over, but for once they do alright out of a book and I feel glad for them, the poor saps.

This time out, the story revolves around a cauldron of sestertii that arrives in the village on the second page and promptly serves as a powerful MacGuffin throughout the rest of the book. It's carried in by the men of Whosemoralsarelastix, the chief of a nearby clifftop village, taking up his traditional place on the back of his traditional shield. That's how important it is. It turns out that Julius Caesar is having serious financial problems funding all his campaigns so he's raising his taxes on the conquered Gauls. Whosemoralsarelastix, being notoriously tight, doesn't want to play ball with the Romans, so brings his village's savings to Vitalstatistix because what safer place could there be than in the one that Rome hasn't managed to conquer?

I have to note here that the traditionally punny name for Whosemoralsarelastix took me a long time to figure out. I read it as "Whose Morals are Last", which said something but didn't seem particularly clever and didn't play into the traditional -ix suffix of the Gauls without being just tacked on clumsily at the end. Eventually I realised that it's really 'Whose Morals are Elastic", played more cleverly into the -ix suffix.

Anyway, the plan, rather astoundingly, doesn't work. Of course, Vitalstatistix puts his very best warrior on the case to guard the cauldron, which means Asterix. Of course, Asterix puts it into his own hut and stands guard at the door all night to ensure that nobody breaks in. And, of course, all those sestertii are gone in the morning anyway. And, because the Gauls are an honourable lot, that means that there's a debt to pay and Asterix is promptly banished from the village, to return only if he makes up for what he's done by refilling the empty cauldron with sestertii.

And so their quest begins, merely with even more riding on the outcome than usual. Given the setup, it's hard to see how this wouldn't end up being episodic, so of course that's what it is. It means that Asterix and Obelix—because how could the former perform "a banishing act" with the latter not being there to help?—don't get to spend much time at each encounter, but they all play out well enough and they add up nicely.

Their first stop is the nearby Roman camp of Compendium, in case the Romans stole the money, but that just leads to a misunderstanding whereby the soldiers think it's pay day, suddenly see that they're being asked to pay rather than receive and promptly fight among themselves, our Gaulish heroes wandering off in despair. "These Romans really are crazy!" mutters Obelix. The next stop is a new inn on the beach, which they soon discover is being run by the pirates, having given up their life at sea. That goes precisely how you might expect but to the same result and a nice new riff on an old running joke. "Life ashore isn't all plain sailing...", they decide. "Come on lads, let's get back to sea!"

In a neat meta touch, Obelix suggests that they write up their adventures for publication, only for Asterix to deflate him. Nah, that wouldn't make them any money, right? They try their hand at business, but are clearly not cut out for that life. They sell fourteen boars for five sestertii in the market at Condatum, then buy one to eat from the neighbouring vendor for the very same price. The Palace of the Gladiators might work, but the magic potion proves too much for that business model to survive. By the end, Asterix has beaten up the entire audience.

And so we go, with every attempt to make money quickly backfiring. They're hired by an actor, Laurenceolivius—Alecguinus is a plant in the audience—but that doesn't work out. They try to bet on the horses at the Hippodrome but that doesn't work out. When they spy Barclus Bank, they even try out bank robbery but that doesn't work out either. Nothing works out and so they wander home, having failed in their quest, only to stumble onto what's really going on and find a good way to clear up the mystery and save the day.

So there's a mystery here, but it's not a particularly deep one and it doesn't take much to solve it long before our indomitable Gauls do. Some readers are likely to solve it before Asterix even accepts his banishment. However, every episode in this episodic story plays out well, with plenty of puns, jokes and ironic turnarounds to keep any fan of the series happy, even if there aren't a lot of new character names. I haven't mentioned Antibiotix, that neighbouring boar dealer, and Confidenstrix, the "expert" at the track, but nobody at the Palace of the Gladiators appears to have a name, rather disappointingly.

Instead, what Goscinny does is parody a host of genres in each of these episodes and, while he doesn't have a heck of a lot of room to do that, he does a pretty fine job. I wonder if Laurence Olivier ever read 'Asterix and the Cauldron' and, if so, what he thought of it. My favourite part arrives when they encounter Caesar's special tax collecting emissary, who only communicates through multiple choice checkboxes on a form, finishing up with a final demand notice: "Do not offer us any physical violence. All claims to be addressed to Caesar, Julius, City of Rome." After he's robbed, he still wants a signed receipt!

Therefore, this is an almost effortless seeming 'Asterix' story, strong in its way, happy to mix up its formulae but a little short on puns. Let's see how 'Asterix in Spain' does next month, being a second 1969 release from Goscinny and Uderzo. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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