Asterix is now 50 and all Gaul is celebrating! All Gaul? Yes, and the rest of the world.

Asterix came to be just as the Marseillaise: with a flash of genius. Captain Roguet de Lisle composed his war song of the Revolution in a short night in 1792. Later it became the French national anthem.

The very talented Albert Uderzo, now 82 years old, wrote in his newly published autobiography how the Asterix Comics came to be. The other author, Rene Goscinny asked him one time: “Name all periods of French history”. Well, there was the Stone Age…and then there was Gaul. The rest as they say, is history. A village, in a far corner of Gaul, a perpetual thorn in Caesar’s side. There is a village chief, a druid, the annoying ministerl….and the little hero with the famous winged helmet.

Over 320 million Asterix comics have been sold in over 100 languages. Asterix goes beyond a mere parody of Gaul, or even the French for that matter. You can read and re-read the famous voyages of Asterix and Obelix: to the Swiss, the British, the Normans, and so on and so forth. Asterix has entertained generations all over the world and maybe taught us to not take ourselves so serious.