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Les Éditions Albert René / Goscinny - Uderzo / Egmont Ehapa Media
Maybe he should have been let die, a long time ago.
Stabbed to death by the corrupt chief Moralelastix ("Klirr! Klirr! Klirr!"
There were enough opportunities.
But »the show has to go on«, as Anne Goscinny already wrote in 2009 in the foreword to »Asterix & Obelix celebrate their birthday«.
And the word of the daughter of one of the two creators is law.
With »Asterix und der Greif«, the 39th album is now available about the indomitable Gaul, his indomitable friends and his battered enemies.
Didier Conrad drew, and Jean-Yves Ferri wrote the text and thought up the adventure.
It is the fifth attempt by a team that has suffered heavily from the legacy of René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo.
In it, Asterix, Obelix, Miraculix and Idefix rush to the aid of the distant Sarmatians in the Central Asian steppe, who are harassed by a greedy troop of Roman legionaries.
The Romans are looking for their totem animal, the griffin.
Did he succeed?
Depends on how you want to measure "Asterix and the Griffin".
In commercial terms, the series is a sure-fire success, supporting the entire industry in lean years. That would probably also apply to a volume like "Asterix and the Income Tax Prepayment". A lot of money is made with a character who is now a whole cosmos of licensed products. For the little ones, the prequel "Idefix and the Unyielding" will appear soon, and an international audience can look forward to an animated Netflix season.
From an artistic point of view, it should be noted that Conrad's lines imitate Uderzo, but never achieve his depth of detail.
But his brisk lines have different qualities, a somewhat erratic choreography of fight scenes, for example, is also forgivable.
Anne Goscinny spoke of "the great footprints" of the authors, in which the new ones would "have to find their own way" - that is how big these tracks are.
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Jean-Yves Ferri, Didier Conrad
Asterix and the griffin
Translated by: Klaus Jöken
Publisher: Egmont Comic Collection
Number of pages: 48
Translated by: Klaus Jöken
Publisher: Egmont Comic Collection
Number of pages: 48
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An »Asterix« in 2021 will have a particularly difficult time culturally.
It's just not an exclusive band for comic nerds from the boomer generation, who can still use the best punchlines from 1973 in their sleep - and actually prefer to leaf through old "Tintin" magazines.
An "Asterix" should inspire the eleven-year-old just as much as the same eleven-year-old, decades later, when, on the forty-fifth reading, she suddenly understands a hidden allusion.
Just think of Numerobis, the Egyptian, trudging through the snow at the beginning of "Asterix and Cleopatra", shaking hands with Miraculix and saying: "I am, my dear friend, very happy to see you!" Druid explains to the Gauls, who are rather puzzled both in geography and in classical meter: "This is an Alexandrian!"
The question would be simply whether there is something to laugh about - or at least something to smile about.
Or whether the predominant moments are when you flip the pages in shame.
If an eleven-year-old can be expected to read over an educated bourgeois allusion, her father should also be able to cope with an under-complex joke.
Whether a gag was successful is in the eye of the beholder.
The rather simple reviewer, however, is already pleased on the first page when two legionaries peer over the palisades of the last outpost of their civilization into the fog of the enigmatic no-man's-land: "A Buconibante is running over there!" - "Isn't that more of an Aduatuk? «.
Also funny is the equanimity of tourist guides with which the Scythian scouts of the Romans rant about the threatening wilderness, in which the legion is gradually going insane: »This untouched hinterland offers countless opportunities for hiking off the beaten path!« - »Ideal for a rural, relaxed Short vacation as a couple or with friends! «.
In preparation, Ferri read Greek reporters such as Aristeas of Prokonnesos, as well as the classical reports by Herodotus.
It can be noted from Conrad's tableaus that he studied the flora and architecture of the unknown areas.
Research has got enough hands and feet to make a comic.
Social issues are elegantly indicated, but not illustrated.
The Legion succumbs to conspiracy theories, feels “manipulated” and at some point dances, scattering flowers and in airy dresses, to ask for the help of a Roman goddess in the face of the foreign demons - until the centurion's choleric fit: “Stop it!
We're not savages! «.
The reversal of traditional gender roles with the Sarmatians is a bit clumsy, where women as Amazons are in charge, while men tend to the home and hearth.
Anyone who falls in love with the "Asterix" cosmos, like the Romans this time with the strong ladies or the strong ladies in Obelix, blushes and stutters.
War is a woman's business and »Gallic diplomacy« - an exceptional political allusion - is not wanted.
So you read with pleasure and leaf through the pages without regret.
There are still dampers.
In a dramatic scene with a washed away bridge, even after repeated studies, it is not clear what exactly happened there - except that this time legionaries (rain! Farewell!
Completely for no reason the pirates have to appear in a single picture "meanwhile, very, very far away" - simply to have them shown.
Perhaps the next spin-off will be announced here.
Other details, on the other hand, are delightful precisely in their lack of words - for example the Roman soldier who stays with the Amazons out of love.
Or the ridiculously crooked and crooked camp that the remaining Roman troops are putting together.
In the end, all but a few Romans survived this adventure.
Also »Asterix«, also his nimbus.
The show is welcome to go on if it does it at this level.
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