Inspector General Overanxius recruits the garrison stationed in the fortified camp of Compendium to conquer The Indomitable Village. Naturally, they get thrashed, so Overanxius elects to build a stockade to isolate the village from the rest of Gaul. In response, Asterix makes a bet that he and Obelix can escape and go on a round trip of Gaul, bringing back regional delicacies as proof. If they succeed, Overanxius will take down the stockade and report his failure to Rome.
The trip our heroes take is based on the Tour de France annual cycling event. The shopping bag which Obelix carries is based on the yellow jersey worn by the race leader, and in one town they get cheered on by spectators in a similar manner to that of the Tour. In fact, the original French title of this album was Le Tour de Gaule d'Astérix (Asterix's Tour of Gaul).
While this is a great story, it is more of an acquired taste, as a lot of the humour revolves around French regional stereotypes. For example, the first port of call is Lutetia (Paris), which is permanently gridlocked, and the residents later waylay our heroes en route to Nicae (Nice) when they travel south for the summer holidays, mirroring the French Riviera's infamous holiday traffic. The foodstuffs picked up are also based on actual regional specialities, such as a wine from Durocortorum (Rheims) which is Champagne in all but name. It's for this reason that it wasn't translated into English until 1979, fourteen years after being published in album form. I had to read up on a lot of this to truly appreciate it.
However, there are still plenty of great moments. My favourites are two segments in which the heroes get captured. In the first occasion, they stop over at a cabin in the woods owned by Unpatriotix, who betrays Asterix to the Romans while Obelix is out hunting. Obelix traces him to the nearby garrison town of Divordorum (Metz), and tries to get himself arrested by slapping a legionary. Being Obelix, this goes about as well as you'd expect, so he ends up dragging the unconscious legionary through the street demanding that someone arrests him before a local resident gives him directions to the prison.
This is topped by a second moment in which the heroes accidentally spend the night in a Roman camp and get into a fight, but surrender when they learn the Romans intend to take them to the Prefect in Tolosa (Toulouse), their next port of call. A smith is asked to put them in chains, but they repeatedly break free during the process for some of the funniest reasons until the smith gives up.
As for continuity, this is the first album to refer to previous comics, such as a mention of the previous visit to Lutetia in Asterix and the Golden Sickle. Additionally, it's the first album to introduce Obelix's sensitivity about his weight, and he gets angry if someone calls him fat or even says the word "fat". Finally, this album introduces Dogmatix, a small dog who appears outside a pork butcher in Lutetia, and accompanies the heroes on their tour until Obelix notices him at the very end and decides to adopt him.
All in all, this one's pretty good, despite the somewhat insular humour.
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