Status: 27.10.2023, 13:38 PM
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Asterix volume number 40 is called "The White Iris". © Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
Rarely has an "Asterix" been awaited by fans with such great excitement. This time, author Fabcaro breathes life into the Gauls. He comes closer to the spirit of Asterix's inventors than his predecessor.
Berlin - Exactly 50 years after the grandiose comic book "Streit um Asterix" (Controversy over Asterix), collective emotional chaos is once again gripping the Gallic village. But in "The White Iris" - on sale from this Thursday - it is not anger and envy that endanger public order, as it was then. No, gentleness, mindfulness and political correctness overgrow the friends of Asterix and Obelix like mildew.
As an influencer who delights each person individually, the Roman military doctor Visusversus slimes his way through the village. He wins people's trust, brainwashes them. At some point, the once rowdy villagers are all wimps. Of course, this is an attempt by Rome to break the fighting power of the Gauls.
Visusversus spreads weird fortune cookie wisdom like "Every problem ceases to be one as soon as there is no solution to it."
The sleazy Roman attests to the brittle Gutemine: "You sparkle and shimmer". Verleihnix - the "noble merchant with the seaweed bouquet" - is converted by him to sell regional fish. The next day, the flies have disappeared over the goods. Even the wild boars in the forest want to cuddle. Everyone loves each other.
No one wants to beat up the bard Troubadix anymore. Asterix and Obelix don't want anything good. They don't fall for the movement of the white iris. And soon it becomes clear what Visusversus has planned.
The most important thing about this volume is probably the new author. Fabrice Caro is enormously successful in France under the stage name Fabcaro. His comic "Zaï zaï zaï zaï" sold more than 180,000 copies. For the 50-year-old, the offer to design the scenario for the 40th album came as a complete surprise: "It was surreal."
Fabcaro replaces Jean-Yves Ferri as author, who did not participate this time after five volumes. It was probably only a matter of time. Since 2013, Ferri has been working hard to breathe new life into Europe's most important comic strip together with illustrator Didier Conrad. Conrad perhaps had an easier task: to this day, he draws very accurate copies of the popular heroes in the style they looked like in the 1960s and 1970s, often in the same poses.
Ferri, on the other hand, was planning something new. Many readers wished for scenarios that would have been more similar to the Asterix of the post-war period. "That does bother me," Ferri said openly in a dpa interview in 2021. "The basic idea is to continue this series. You have to detach yourself from it a bit. You can't make an exact copy." The criticism from parts of the fan community never stopped: The adventures had too little wit, the plot had partly stumbled.
"The White Iris" leans more strongly on the early volumes of Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny, which should suit many fans. There are several references to old adventures such as "Asterix and the Cauldron" and "The Laurels of Caesar". Fabcaro turns his gaze back to the Gallic village instead of sending the heroes with the winged helmets to ever new, distant regions. Contemporary phenomena such as e-scooters are smuggled in quite inconspicuously.
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In the exchange of blows between fishmonger Verleihnix and blacksmith Automatix about the goods in the display, the author again finds his way very well into the language: "Fresh? Ha! Ha!" the Gaul flattens with the hammer. "They haven't seen the sea for so long, if they woke up, they'd need swimming lessons first."
The drawings are still by Didier Conrad, who has found his best routine in his sixth volume and sometimes even dares to do small experiments: Rarely has Obelix been seen so contorted in anger. Dpa