Asterix Marathon #30 - Asterix and Obelix All at Sea

I wonder if Kirk Douglas is fan of the comics...

Admiral Crustacius has managed to lose possession of Julius Caesar's personal galley, after the slaves manning the oars staged a mutiny. Under the leadership of the impressively-dimpled Spartakis the Greek, the mutineers travel to Armorica to seek asylum in The Indomitable Village. Meanwhile, Obelix gives in to his curiosity and drinks a second cauldron of magic potion, which turns him to stone. Getafix's attempts to counteract the effects successfully revive him, but also turn him into a child. Unable to adjust, the young Obelix is captured by the Romans, who seek to use him as a bargaining chip in a bid to hand over Caesar's galley. Asterix and Getafix set out after Crustacius with the mutineers and rescue their friend. In a bid to restore him to normal, they sail on to Atlantis, the people of which inhabit what is believed to be the Canary Islands.

Personally, I love this story. It explores one of the biggest what-ifs of the series. It's established that Obelix fell into the cauldron of magic potion when he was a baby, and as a result is has a permanent effect on him. This also means Getafix refuses to give him any more whenever he doles out the potion, as he fears the side effects. It's when they have a fight with the Romans and notice that Obelix isn't with them that they realise something's amiss.

This surpasses Asterix and the Cauldron as one of the most serious stories in the series. We're treated to panels of Asterix maintaining an all-night vigil at Obelix's side while Getafix tries to brew an antidote, and he starts expressing self-doubt. Even after Obelix is revived, it doesn't let up. He can only manage a single boar in one sitting, and he can't lift menhirs or bash the Romans like he's used to. He's lost the ability to indulge in his greatest pleasures, and his failure to accept this results in his capture.

Meanwhile, the pirates get a bigger role in this story, rather than a throwaway gag. They get sunk by our heroes when they go after Crustacius, but then there's a ship swap after Obelix is rescued. Our heroes take over the admiral's galley, while the pirates take Caesar's galley back to Rome to hold for a ransom, along with Crustacius and his vice-admiral Nautilus. And because our heroes left their barrel of magic potion on the galley, there's a great pay-off to that subplot.

So, it's a good story, but it lacks the humour of the series and is also quite depressing.

Asterix Marathon #29 - Asterix and the Secret Weapon

I get the feeling that Uderzo had some strong views about feminism. Maybe he wanted to try and emulate Goscinny's talent for satire. Maybe he was pressured by the fans to try and develop the female characters. One thing leads to another, and I don't think this one really paid off.

The women of The Indomitable Village have called to replace Cacofonix as the schoolteacher, prompting him to leave. Not long afterwards, his replacement arrives; a female bard from Lutetia named Bravura. Not long after her arrival, she begins holding classes for the women, and her teachings start to develop rifts between them and their husbands. Meanwhile, the Roman agent Manlius Claphamomnibus is sent to Gaul with the eponymous secret weapon; an all-female unit of legionaries, taking advantage of Gaulish gallantry in that they will never fight a woman.

Not very secret, I know. A lot of the humour in this one simply revolves around gender stereotypes. Those kind of jokes you could get away with in the Nineties, when this album was published, but they haven't aged well. As for the story, it borrows a lot of elements from Asterix and Caesar's Gift, with an outsider prompting a leadership challenge in the village.

My main issue with this one is Bravura. She's what you might call a "straw feminist" who believes in gender superiority rather than gender equality, and merely exists to be proven wrong. She influences the village women to essentially take over, and make Impedimenta the chieftain, which results in Vitalstastix leading an exodus into the forests. She also makes some rather questionable advances on Asterix.

Now, to be fair, there are some moments which still make me laugh, cringe-inducing as this particular comic turned out to be. The women of the village set up a shopping mall to defeat the secret weapon, and Claphamomnibus tries to recruit the standing garrisons. Because Obelix feels sidelined, Asterix encourages him to follow the agent, so he can single-handedly clobber the garrison at Aquarium. After they're leaving, Asterix makes a comment about his friend not flattening the camp completely, when someone sneezes and the fortifications collapse.

Sorry, this one wasn't really my cup of tea. I think Rick and Morty explored this kind of story a little better.

Asterix Marathon #28 - Asterix and the Magic Carpet

This album was actually my original introduction to the series, through an audio book narrated by Willie Rushton, the editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye and a regular on the radio panel show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue until his death in 1996. For this one, Uderzo tried to introduce more of a fantasy element to the series, drawing influence from 1001 Arabian Nights, along with a French old wives' tale about bad music making it rain (no prizes for guessing who that's applied to).

Anyway, The Indomitable Village has been rebuilt following the events of Asterix and Son, and a banquet is being held in celebration, when Cacofonix causes a rainstorm while testing the acoustics of his new hut. His impromptu weather manipulation attracts the attention of a fakir called Watziznehm, who literally drops in during the banquet. This new visitor has travelled from a kingdom in the Ganges Valley in search of "a village of madmen where a voice makes rain", based on a story told to him by a Roman merchant and former legionary. He explains that they are experiencing a drought during what is supposed to be the rainy season, and there are fears of a famine. A sinister guru named Hoodunnit has decreed that if there is no rain by the end of the season, he will sacrifice Rajah Wotzit's daughter, Princess Orinjade to appease the gods (and pave the way for him to become Rajah). So, it's up to our heroes and Cacofonix to return with Watziznehm so the bard can coax the monsoon rains with his singing voice and foil the grand vizier's scheme.

Nostalgia aside, this one is something of a mixed bag. I do quite like the darker element to the story, with the characters trying to prevent the death of an innocent which paves the way for a power-grab (and brief reference to Iznogoud, another character created by Goscinny). However, a lot of the story feels like padding, with the three-week flying carpet journey to India being broken up with repeated stops mostly to appease Obelix's hunger. I feel for him, but it does make him kind of one-note in this particular story. On the other hand, it does add a source of tension, as Cacofonix resents the fact that they're always permitted to stop to eat, but he's not allowed to sing during the journey (for the obvious reasons).

That said, the padding does take an interesting turn once they arrive in India, when Cacofonix loses his voice. While undergoing treatment, he is kidnapped by Hoodunnit's men and left to die in an elephant's graveyard. To be perfectly honest, most of the padding is kind of necessary; so our heroes can arrive in the nick of time.

While I'm here, I'd like to mention something I discovered while reading into this one a bit more. The two stories we most commonly associate with 1001 Arabian Nights, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and Aladdin, don't actually appear in the Arabic texts. The earliest known appearances are from a French version of the text from the 18th Century. This is purely speculative, but I'm wondering if Uderzo was exploring that.

Anyway, considering the heatwave we've been having, this story became surprisingly relevant in recent weeks. It has neat ideas and a great payoff, but the humour wasn't as great in this one.

Asterix Marathon #27 - Asterix and Son

Blimey, that was a sudden shift in tone. Also, this review will contain spoilers.

Asterix wakes up one morning to find a baby left on his doorstep. As most of the villagers begin to speculate that he's the father, he and Obelix reluctantly take the baby in. As they're not accustomed to childcare, our heroes attempt to investigate the baby's real parents, their only clue being embroidered linen wrappings which suggest he was from a wealthy Roman family. Their investigation soon attracts the attention of Crismus Cactus, the Prefect of Gaul, who is ostensibly conducting a census but is actually searching for a baby on the orders of Caesar's adopted son, Marcus Junius Brutus.

Most of the humour revolves the ineptitude of our heroes to take care of the baby, which descends into slapstick after the gourd Obelix uses to feed him is revealed to have contained some leftover magic potion. Soon, the baby is punching in doors and rattling cows. Alright, the animal cruelty might not sit well with modern audiences, but I still like Obelix's logic that because babies drink milk, he should borrow a cow.

While the overall premise sounds like your typical 1980s family comedy about action heroes having to take care of a baby, the story takes a really dark turn once Brutus enters the picture. He's appeared in previous albums, but only for a Shakespearean reference and foreshadowing jokes. But here, he's serving as a particularly nasty antagonist who is obsessed with finding the baby. After two failed attempts to send spies to The Indomitable Village to kidnap the baby (thanks to their target being under the influence of the magic potion), he launches an all-out attack, using ballistas to fire flaming bolts into the village to burn it to the ground. And while the men are fighting the Romans, Brutus sneaks off to the beach where Impedimenta is sheltering the women and children, and is able to take the baby away to a waiting pirate ship. The fact that the women weren't given any magic potion is bad enough, and Impedimenta is genuinely devastated at her failure to protect the baby when Asterix and Obelix realise what's happening.

Alright, I'm going to spoil it now. Asterix and Obelix rescue the baby and capture Brutus. Upon their return, they are met by Caesar, along with Cleopatra, who reveals that the baby is their son, Caesarion. While Caesar was campaigning in Germania, Brutus attempted to dispose of the child so he could become Caesar's sole heir. Cleopatra had Caesarion spirited away to The Indomitable Village, where she knew he would be safe.

So, Brutus is banished, Caesar offers to help rebuild the village, while Cleopatra hosts the traditional end-of-story banquet on her barge. But if you know your history, you'd know this happy ending won't last: Brutus would eventually kill Caesar, Caesarion would grow up to rule Egypt alongside his mother as Ptolemy XV, his mother would commit suicide, and then he would be killed on the orders of his distant cousin Octavian, who would go on to annex Egypt and become the first Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar. The last pharaoh would not live past seventeen.

This comic may not be as great as some of the other ones, but I do like the suspenseful tone it later adopts.

Asterix Marathon #26 - Asterix and the Black Gold

One thing which can be said about the Solo Period is that Uderzo's stories are a lot more experimental than Goscinny's. For example, his next piece ended up combining a biblical epic with a spy thriller.

Caesar is still reeling over his failure to conquer The Indomitable Village, and calls upon the aid of his spymaster Devius Surreptitius. The chief of MIVI has determined that the secrets of the druids are verbally passed down, and sends in a Gallo-Roman druid named Dubbelosix to obtain the recipe of the magic potion. Meanwhile, Getafix is eagerly awaiting the arrival of Phoenician merchant Ekonomikrisis (from Asterix the Gladiator) in the hopes of obtaining some rock oil, known in Latin as Petra Oleam (That's not a clever pun, it's the actual etymology). When the merchant doesn't have any, the druid has a stroke, and is cured by Dubbelosix. He then reveals that he needs the rock oil to make the magic potion, so Asterix and Obelix travel to Mesopotamia with Ekonomikrisis to find some. Dubbelosix also goes with them, planning to sabotage the mission.

The whole journey is essentially a series of incidents. The Romans blockade all the Mediterranean ports, so our heroes are taken to Judea, which is a Roman protectorate rather than a province. Because the garrison in Jerusalem is on alert, they spend the night in a stable in Bethlehem while waiting for some local traders to sneak them into the city. Once inside, they learn that the Romans have burned the local supplies of rock oil, so they have to trek through the Syrian Desert towards Babylon. In the process, they encounter numerous Mesopotamian peoples who mistake them for other Mesopotamian peoples they are fighting against, a satire on the contemporary conflicts in the Middle East. One of the main reasons for this setting was so Uderzo could pay tribute to Goscinny, who was Jewish. In fact, Goscinny himself makes an appearance in the form of Saul Ben Ephishul, who guides our heroes to the edge of the Syrian Desert.

Of course, he's not the only person who bears a certain resemblance. It's obvious that Dubbelosix is modelled after Sean Connery, and is an obvious reference to James Bond. He has a folding chariot with numerous hidden weapons, and relays information with a carrier fly who is attracted to him. Obvious reference or not, I think it's interesting that they made such a character as an antagonist.

My favourite joke involves Asterix and Obelix encountering the Sumerians in the desert who shoot arrows at them and then apologise for mistaking them for Akkadians, with Obelix saying his usual catchphrase. This is then repeated with the Akkadians, the Hittites, and the Assyrians. Asterix is thoroughly fed up at this point, asking the Assyrians who they were mistaken for, with the leader sheepishly answering that they're after the Medes. They then encounter the Medes, who are lost and ask them for the way out, with Asterix yelling "Nothing easier! Just follow the arrows!". I also love the scene before that, in which they pass the Dead Sea and Obelix decides he wants to go for a dip. There's also the underlying irony about people questioning the use of rock oil because of the nasty smell.

I think this is one of the strongest of the Uderzo stories so far, but I'm not too sure about the anti-climactic ending.

I'll be back tomorrow where I'll look at Asterix and Son and Asterix and the Magic Carpet. Somewhat appropriate, considering this recent heatwave we've been having.

Asterix Marathon #25 - Asterix and the Great Divide

After the death of Rene Goscinny, Albert Uderzo tried to keep Asterix going by doing the stories as well as the illustrations. The first album of the "Solo Period" was Asterix and the Great Divide, a Romeo and Juliet allusion published in 1980.

Another Gaulish village is suffering from a leadership dispute, and a giant ditch has been dug through the centre, a then-contemporary reference to the Berlin Wall. The left side of the village is ruled by the liberal chieftain Cleverdix, while the right is ruled by the more conservative Majestix. Amongst this, there is a star-crossed romance between Cleverdix's son Histrionix and Majestix's daughter Melodrama. However, Majestix's fishy adviser Codfix proposes to form an alliance with the Romans to help Majestix conquer the village in exchange for Melodrama's hand in marriage. Melodrama informs Histrionix, who is sent to The Indomitable Village by his father to seek out Vitalstatistix. Cleverdix's old comrade agrees to send Asterix, Obelix, and Getafix to the village to protect it from the Romans and help to resolve the dispute.

Uderzo later admitted that he wasn't sure about what direction to take the series in, and had borrowed a lot of elements for this one. Histrionix and Melodrama bear an uncanny resemblance to Panacea and Tragicomix from Asterix the Legionary, while Codfix's design makes him as subtle as Grima Wormtongue in The Two Towers.

That said, Codfix's schemes offer some interesting depth to the chieftains. To broker a deal, he takes advantage of labour shortages at the nearby fortified camp by offering Cleverdix's supporters as slaves. But when the Romans arrive at the village, Majestix refuses to let his rivals be enslaved, so he and his warriors are imprisoned. This would give Cleverdix control of the whole village, but he refuses to assert this.

Our heroes go to the camp to rescue the prisoners, offering themselves as slaves. When Obelix knocks out the sentry at the gate for calling him fat, Getafix uses an elixir which heals all wounds and makes the patient forget what happened to them. But he leaves it by the gates, which allows Codfix to make use of it after the prisoners are freed, healing the injured Romans and convincing them that the Gauls made an unprovoked attack. Again, I do give credit to Codfix's scheming, but I just don't see Getafix being that absent-minded.

All in all, I did enjoy this one, but I think it gets bogged down by certain things.

Asterix Marathon #24 - Asterix in Belgium

Well, we're coming to the end of the "Post-Protest Period" of Asterix, with the last story to be written by Rene Goscinny.

Asterix and Obelix notice that the Romans stationed at the fortified camps are unusually happy, and learn that after they have been fighting in Belgica, being posted to Armorica is akin to a rest cure. This was based on actual quote from Caesar, who said that the Belgae were the bravest of all the Gallic peoples he encountered during his campaigns. Anyway, this revelation hurts Vitalstatistix's pride, so he travels to Belgica with our heroes in tow. Encountering the jovial chieftains Beefix and Brawnix, he proposes a competition in which they attack the Roman fortified camps in the region to gain Caesar's attention.

Like Asterix and the Banquet and Asterix in Corsica, a lot of the humour revolves stereotypes which the French readers would be more familiar with than the international readers. One of the most notable references is a brief cameo by Thompson and Thomson from Hergé's Tintin comics. I've actually read that Hergé was not a fan of Asterix, which had surpassed Tintin as the foremost Franco-Belgian comic during the 1960s. There's also a minor character modelled after the cyclist Eddy Merckx, and Beefix's wife Bonanza was drawn to resemble actress and singer Annie Cordy.

To be honest, I think the Belgae seem a little overpowered. Unlike our Armorican friends, they don't have any magic potion, but are powered by really strong beer, a reference to the high alcohol content of some Belgian lagers. But that still kind of works for me, so it's not a glaring issue.

I think my favourite joke is a fourth wall breaking moment at the beginning when Vitalstatistix calls a village council meeting to discuss the Belgian matter. Obelix suggests that if there's nothing to really argue, they can tie up Cacofonix and start cooking the boars for the banquet held traditionally at the end of the story.

That said, there is one truly poignant moment I discovered while reading further into some of the content. A scene where it rains to reflect the Belgian weather was actually used by Uderzo to signify the point in the production where Goscinny died, and makes the skies overcast for the rest of the story. This later concludes with a rabbit looking mournfully at Goscinny's signature on the final panel.

But the show must go on. In a bid to keep the series alive, Uderzo began to write the comics as well as illustrate them. I'll begin to look at the "Solo Period" tomorrow.

Asterix Marathon #23 - Obelix & Co.

Out of all of Goscinny's more satirical stories, this has to be my favourite one.

It's Obelix's birthday, and Asterix lures the new garrison at Totorum to The Indomitable Village for him to clobber on his own. When word of this gets back to Caesar, he sends in Caius Preposterus, a graduate from the Latin School of Economics who had suggested "the profit motive", or a conquest through capitalism. Preposterus travels to Gaul and offers to buy the menhirs which Obelix carves and supplies. He later offers more money if Obelix can give him more menhirs, so Obelix begins paying the other villagers to carve menhirs and hunt boars, becoming one of the wealthiest and influential villagers in the process. When this starts to fuel resentment, Asterix makes a suggestion which results in Fulliautomatix, Unhygienix, and Geriatrix setting up their own menhir carving businesses. And they're employing villagers as carvers and hunters, so eventually the only people who aren't making money are Asterix, Getafix, and Vitalstatistix (whose shield-bearers have gotten new jobs). Meanwhile, Caesar now has a surplus of menhirs, so Prepostorus suggests they sell them to Roman patricians by marketing them as status symbols. But things get complicated when a Roman patrician starts undercutting costs by selling slave-carved menhirs.

One of the big running jokes in this album involves Preposterus explaining his plans to people in business terms, and then having to explain in whatever lies below "Lay Person's Terms". Which make frequent use of "heap". This is going along with the overarching theme of an economic system being applied to what are essentially big rocks. Even Getafix (who has been providing magic potion to all the villagers carving menhirs) mentions that he doesn't know what the menhirs are actually for. There's a particular scene when Prepostorus is explaining to Caesar his plan to sell the menhirs they've acquired. It's actually such an accurate depiction of business and marketing that it's being used in school textbooks on the subject.

With all that, I think my favourite joke has to be at the beginning when the villagers are trying to prepare Obelix's birthday surprise. Obelix begins to suspect something when he overhears Fulliautomatix talking about it to Unhygienix, who deflects attention by making a remark about the fish yet doesn't provoke a fight.

It's a pity that Asterix is not really involved in this particular story, but that's only a minor issue. After all, the album is called Obelix & Co. It's one of the best albums, and I might say it's required reading for anybody interested in studying business and economics.

This album was also the last story to be published during Goscinny's lifetime. The series writer died the following year, and his final story, Asterix in Belgium, was published posthumously in 1979.

Asterix Marathon #22 - Asterix and the Great Crossing

At this point in the series, this was the furthest distance our heroes travelled on an adventure abroad.

Another fish fight breaks out in The Indomitable Village after Vitalstatistix complains about his shield-bearers getting food poisoning, while Unhygienix protests that his latest delivery hasn't arrived from Lutetia due to an ox-cart drivers' strike (despite the fact they live by sea). However, Getafix needs fresh fish in order to make the magic potion, so in order to preserve the security of the village, Asterix and Obelix volunteer to go fishing. Unfortunately, neither of them are competent fishermen, and they're both caught in a storm and are soon out in the open sea. Time goes by, and they're eventually washed ashore. They initially think they're home, but realise they're somewhere completely different when they encounter gobbling birds, bears, and "Colonial Romans". After earning their respect our heroes choose to stay with these new people until Obelix is arranged to marry the "Centurion's" daughter. They attempt to escape, and soon encounter a group of Norsemen led by Herendethelessen, who believe them to be natives of a "New World".

A lot of the humour in this one revolves around references to America, and later to Denmark. It's not explicitly stated by anybody that our heroes are in America, but it's the First Century BC, so why would they? The primary implication is that they ended up on Manhattan Island, which is reinforced when they hide on a smaller island nearby and Asterix signals the longboat by standing on a pile of rocks with a torch, posing in a similar manner to the Statue of Liberty. I also like the return of the language barrier jokes, similar to those in Asterix the Legionary, but this time without an interpreter. In which Dogmatix learns to bark in Danish after befriending Herendethelessen's Great Dane, Huntingseassen.

The story does take a dark turn during the crossing, as our heroes find themselves lost without a wind or supplies. Obelix eventually goes mad from hunger, and jumps overboard when he hallucinates seeing boars. Asterix tries to retrieve him, but they lose their boat. Fortunately, Obelix sights a floating branch, so they're close to land, but they were incredibly lucky to survive that one.

My favourite joke has to be at the beginning, with how Unhygienix is loathe to get his fish from the sea, choosing to import them from wholesalers in Lutetia.  In fact, I did some crude number-crunching on Google Maps:

• I've already established that Lutetia is Paris, and I'm using the town of Erquy in Brittany as a stand-in for The Indomitable Village. Depending on the route the ox carts take, the distance travelled is 450 to 500 miles. I'll go with 450 miles.
• And ox carts are slow. Let's say they travel at a speed of two miles per hour. If they travel for eight hours every day, that means they cover sixteen miles every day.
• Time is determined by dividing the distance by the speed, so that's 450/16, which equals 29 (rounded up to the nearest whole number).
• This means that it would take almost a whole month for Unhygienix to replenish his stock. Blimey, no wonder the place stinks.

Anyway, I'd better go before he overhears that. I'll be back tomorrow to finish the "Post-Protest Period" by looking at Obelix & Co. and Asterix in Belgium.

Asterix Marathon #21 - Asterix and Caesar's Gift

1974 was an election year in France, so Goscinny decided to turn his eyes towards political campaigning for his next album.

Perpetually-inebriated legionary Tremensdelirius is coming to the end of his twenty years of service, and is due to receive his obligatory land grant (which was actual practice in the Roman Army). However, because he had made some unsavoury remarks about Julius Caesar, he is given The Indomitable Village. He promptly trades the grant to an innkeeper named Orthopaedix in exchange for another drink. Orthopaedix travels to The Indomitable Village, but his claim is laughed off. Nonetheless, Vitalstatistix symapthises with the newcomer (owing to them both having domineering wives and financially successful in-laws in Lutetia), and allows him to open an inn. Unfortunately, his wife Angina persuades him to claim the village, and the elections cause significant divisions amongst the villagers. Meanwhile, Tremensdelirius has decided that he didn't get enough wine for the village and wants it back - seeking out his old friend Claudius Egganlettus, a fellow veteran who got bored of retirement and re-enlisted, now serving as an optio at the fortified camp of Laudanum.

The story is similar to Asterix and the Roman Agent, showing divisions within the village, but it doesn't re-tread the same ground. One of my favourite moments involves Vitalstatistix asking Cacofonix to conduct an opinion poll. The bard learns that most of the villagers don't really care (and gets a black eye from Fulliautomatix who thought he was going to sing), but when the incumbant chieftain insults his singing, he chooses to side with Orthopaedix and even acts as a very partisan mediator during a public debate. Angina canvasses the village by supporting the local businesses (buying fish from Unhygienix and then burying them in the back garden). Even Geriatrix tries to step in as third-party candidate (with an anti-immigration platform).

Yeah, there's plenty skewering of election campaigns, but there's also a strong sense of tension. The divisions get so heated that Getafix refuses to give anybody magic potion, and it isn't long before the Romans begin to suspect this. There's also a bad-ass moment from Asterix when he intervenes as Tremensdelirius confronts Orthopaedix and demands his village back. It's one of the few times we see our hero use the sword he carries around.

And because it was 1974, there's no mention of "Making Armorica Great Again". Speaking of which, I'll see you later today to look at Asterix and the Great Crossing.

Asterix Marathon #20 - Asterix in Corsica

The 20th album in the series, and also the last one to be serialised in Pilote.

The Indomitable Village is holding a feast to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of Gergovia, an important Gaulish victory against Caesar. Many of the characters from the previous albums come to the village to join the festivities, which includes a surprise raid of the nearby fortified camps. This brings them into contact with Boneywasawarriorwayayix, an exiled Corsican chieftain being detained at Totorum. After rescuing him, the chieftain invites Asterix and Obelix to accompany him back to Corsica, where he shows them how the Corsicans deal with the Romans.

I've heard that this album was one of Uderzo's personal favourites. I've not been to Corsica, but I can imagine from the pictures I've seen. It's a beautiful place, and looks like a pleasure to draw.

However, I have to regard this as one of the weaker albums. My main issue is that Asterix and Obelix aren't really involved in the story. They don't even have any real reason to go to Corsica. There's no fetch quest, nobody in need of help, and nothing threatening The Indomitable Village. They're literally on holiday.

My other issue is that a lot of the humour is something of an acquired taste, similar to Asterix and the Banquet. Many of the jokes revolve around Corsican stereotypes, which didn't really permeate outside of France, and most of the jokes in the English translation are references to Napoleon.

But does that mean I don't like it? Not at all! I love the portrayal of the Corsicans, who are incredibly work-shy, hold age-old vendettas which emerged over trivial things, and hold elections with pre-stuffed ballot boxes (reflecting a political scandal from the time of writing). There's also the infamously labyrinthine maquis, and a Greek Chorus of four old men sitting on a bench observing the events of the story. There's even a reference to Corsican cheese being depicted as so strong-smelling that the other Gauls can't stomach it. And it's explosive. We all know the stereotype of the French loving smelly cheeses (I like those cheeses, by the way), but it's hilarious that they have their own stereotype which takes it up to eleven.

My favourite joke has to be at the beginning, when the garrisons of all four camps surrounding The Indomitable Village use Gergovia Day to go on "special manoeuvres" so they're away from the camps when the Gauls show up. But the garrison at Totorum is waylaid by the delivery of Boney, and have to stay in. There's a collective chattering of teeth from the whole garrison, and Centurion Hippopotamus actually releases their prisoner. Who refuses to leave because he's having his siesta.

This was one of the best-selling albums in France, and I did enjoy it, but I think it had some major issues which I can't really overlook.