Yes, this is still an Asterix story, even though his name doesn't feature in the title, and that's neat because it reflects the story, which elevates Obelix in a non-sustainable way as a by-product of the cunning plan of Caius Proposterus, as adopted by Julius Caesar. Ironically, it's Obelix who presages that cunning plan through a very different cunning plan, this one set up by his fellow indomitable villagers. In fact, they've been whispering to each other out of his hearing for long enough that he notices, especially the "teeheehee" that squeaks out whenever he's nearby. Even Unhygienix fails to start a brawl after a typical Fulliautomatix jibe about his fish.

We soon find out what it is, of course. Asterix wanders over to the Roman garrison at Totorum and knocks on its gates. When it's answered by Ignoramus, a new centurion who's just taken over from Scrofulus, Asterix makes a stupid face and runs back to the village. When Scrofulus and the Roman legionaries who arrived with him follow, the surprise is revealed. It's Obelix's birthday and they're giving him the entire garrison all to himself. Needless to say, it's the perfect present and he has a ridiculous amount of fun bashing the lot of them.

The problem is that the news gets back to Caesar in Rome and, if there's anything worse than one Gaulish village keeping his army at bay, it's one Gaul. Enter Caius Preposterus who suggests that they employ gold to corrupt the Gauls. After all, it worked on all Caesar's other advisors. Just look at them. Larcenus, an athletic young tribune, has turned into an obese slob. They're all decadent. Caesar likes the idea and so off goes Gaius to the provinces with a copious supply of gold. He finds Obelix in the forest and praises his menhir and everything builds from that.

Now he's a menhir buyer and he'll happily give Obelix two hundred sestertii for his menhir, which, in a ballsy touch, he has delivered to Totorum. Once he has one menhir, he dangles some bait: "I'll buy all the menhirs you can deliver". He gives him four hundred sestertii for the second, eight for the third and two thousand each for four and five, delivered toegther. Now, Obelix has Analgesix working for him and, because he's too busy to hunt boar, he has Monosyllabix and Polysyllabix on that duty. Except then he needs them to carve menhirs too, because demand is increasing, and so Pacifix, Atlantix, Baltix and Adriatix handle the hunt. And...

And this really does count as a one-joke book, but it's a good joke because it runs deep. Sure, it's a plot to corrupt the one standout against global Roman imperialism, but it's practically a textbook on the problems of capitalism. Caius Preposterus, a name that gains increasing resonance as this plan takes on a life of its own, is creating artificial demand for a product nobody hitherto wanted, in order to manipulate a market. That's every salesman out there and every influencer too, if we want to trawl this into the twenty-first century kicking and screaming.

Well, it's not strictly a one-joke book. The majority of it is built on one joke that fortunately keeps getting funnier and funnier the more ramifications it acquires, but Goscinny does shoehorn a few others in there for good measure. By the time the Obelix Quarry is employing half the village, the other half hunting boar, he tasks a couple of Ignoramus's legionaries to unload his latest delivery. We don't get their names but they're immediately recognisable as Laurel and Hardy and the work goes precisely as well as you might expect from that.

Less successful is a running joke that involves a whole slew of characters talking in mock Indian for no apparent reason. And I don't mean Urdu or Bengali, I mean stereotypical Native American. It's all to set up a single gag on a single page, so that Ignoramus can fairly ask Caius Preposterus what they're going to do with an actual big heap of menhirs. Needless to say, I rolled my eyes pretty far on that one. Punchline supplied, that joke fortunately goes away for good. Well, almost. There's a good final jab at that on the last page. Frankly, I enjoyed a one-shot better, when Dogmatix shuts down Obelix thinking he's becoming the most influential man in the village by simply biting him in the ass.

It would take an economist to deconstruct the nightmare of escalation that this plan becomes in time, all the way to the insular nationalistic isolationism we're experiencing in America today, as Meretricius sets up shop in Rome, billboards plead "Buy Roman" and the Appian Way is blockaded with banners to ban the Gaulish menhir. It's easy to see most of it and I simply have no idea quite how far the whole thing stands up to scholarly analysis, but it's all funny and, while Albert Uderzo provides the same glorious standard of artwork that we're used to, it marks the last time his long-term partner René Goscinny got to see a new 'Asterix' book in print.

I have one more to go that counts as a Goscinny & Uderzo album, 1979's 'Asterix in Belgium', which was published three years after this and two after Goscinny's death. I don't believe I've ever read any of Uderzo's solo 'Asterix' stories, starting with 'Asterix and the Great Divide', but I remember this one, the only 'Asterix' album I own in hardcover. I'm looking forward to seeing how well he can make the shift from artist only to writer and artist. It would seem tough to follow something that unfolds as simply but effectively as this one. The vast majority is one joke, neatly extrapolated to album length.

It's even properly bookended. The couple of pages unfold at Totorum, as Ignoramus and his men march into camp as uniformly as we expect from Roman legions, only to discover that Scrofulus is content to lounge around, largely out of uniform, because they rarely leave camp on account of a certain Gaulish village. He recommends that Ignoramus follow suit, which of course he doesn't, at least at first. By the end, when the Gauls invade Totorum afresh, the relief has adopted the exact same approach as the old guard. No doubt they'll stay that way until they're relieved.

I liked this one. It's simple and straightforward and it gives Obelix a moment in the limelight. The framework still features Asterix and Getafix as the only villagers who don't succumb to the chaos, as per usual, but it's more subtly done than in, say, 'Asterix and the Soothsayer'. I'd call out more punny names but I think I've mentioned them all anyway, except maybe Woolix the pedlar, maybe a joke on the store Woolworths, usually called "Woolies" in England. At this point, all you're likely wondering is how Goscinny managed to sneak the pirates in. Well, they only get one panel, but it seems that they looted some menhirs and the weight sank their ship all on its own.

See you next month for René Goscinny's final outing as writer of the series, as Asterix makes his way to Belgium. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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