What Asterix and Obelix achieved: making us laugh at ourselves. The French comic strengthened ties between Europeans with his jokes about national stereotypes.
Today's children's series, always so apt, exude less humor than the Asterix series. The Gauls laugh and the Europeans laugh when the only thing left is the fear that the sky will fall on their heads, as Abraracurcix, head of the village and joker from secularized times, fears. The village that Goscinny and Uderzo built to make readers laugh has an anti-elitist, horizontal organization.