A stand with Asterix albums, at Paris the 24 October 2013 . – Louise MERESSE
This is the back-to-school gift announcement. The 39 th album of Asterix is expected on 20 next October, announced to Sunday Newspaper the screenwriter Jean-Yves Ferri, who became one of the “fathers” of the irreducible Gaul with the cartoonist Didier Conrad.
“This is an album” voyage “, since the last adventure was in the village. Asterix and Obelix will leave for an unprecedented destination (…) this country does not really exist today as such, ”he said. In addition, for the screenwriter, “each album is a small step towards bringing something new. And Obelix continues his slow psychological evolution ”.
Evolution of the perception of clichés Asked if he could still play on the pictures of the visited country, as he used to do this BD , Jean-Yves Ferri admitted that the task had become more complicated. ” In the years 1960, Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny could laugh at foreigners, caricature the English with their big teeth, the Greeks with their Greek profile. The atmosphere was good-natured. Today, you almost need a dictionary on your desk to know what you’re allowed to joke about or not. ”
“Playing with clichés is part of Asterix’s codes. But I don’t mind moving away from it a bit. I am lucky that my personal humor does not lead me to too frontal caricatures. In La Fille de Vercingétorix
, I toned down the way teenagers talk, for example, ”continued the screenwriter.
The success of The daughter of Vercingétorix
The 38 e album, La fille de Vercingétorix , by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad, was the best-selling book in 2019 in France, by far. Since 2013, the imagined heroes sixty-one years ago by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo – died respectively in November 1977 and last March, alternate between an adventure in the village and a trip. “It was tempting to talk about the coronavirus affecting the whole world, but I left that aside. The epidemic is a sad subject, full of anxiety. It is better to laugh at something else and hope that when the album comes out we have finally turned the page, ”Jean-Yves Ferri underlined. “Despite everything, you might find an allusion to a potion that looks like a vaccine or a few small winks.” Asked if he had been able to discuss this album with Uderzo before his disappearance, he indicated that “he could learn about the new theme ”. “He approved of the story, he encouraged us. Contrary to what one might think, Albert was not on our back to control everything ”.