Asterix

For me, Asterix and the Chieftan's Daughter was good enough for a one-time read.
But the latest one Asterix and the Griffin felt very thin. All the gags seemed to be about COVID.
Maybe it was just the translation, but something was missing
The new team are just not as funny as Goscinny and ‎Uderzo and the original English translators Bell & Hockridge.
That said, I will keep getting them. They are a part of my life.
 
The Goscinny and Uderzo books were brilliant at taking the P out of the chosen target, or at least the French caricature of them, without becoming offensive.
Thus Astérix in Britain is all about an Englishman's pride in his lawn, and the Oxford and Cambridge varsity rugby match and finally stopping for tea at 4 in the afternoon, which was why we lost all the battles against the Romans.

But my favourite (in French) was Astérix et les Normands (the Vikings) who knew about everything but fear which they'd heard could make you fly like a bird. So they wanted the Druid to explain it. Instead they showed them, but I won't say how. Read it yourself.
 
The problem I have with the newer Astérix books is that they're too faithful to the originals. The characters are strongly enough established and robust enough to be open to different interpretations. As it is they are becoming fossilised. Could you imagine Batman forever drawn in the style of Bob Kane and Bill Finger?

The character Spirou became iconic under the pen of Franquin before the baton was pretty seamlessly passed on to Fournier, then others. The currently running serial has Spirou trying to get his pal Fantasio out of a mental hospital and cure his "Syndrome d'Angoulême" which is like Jerusalem Syndrome but with people having the delusion they are comic book characters. (Fantasio is convinced he's Captain Haddock and Spirou is faking being Tintin with Spip being roped in to playing Milou/Snowy.) It's all very referential and funny and I have no idea where it's going to go but the point I want to make is that, loopy story aside, the art by Libon is like no other iteration of Spirou I have seen. It's flat and blocky and doesn't have the fluidity of Franquin or Fournier but it is still very definitely Spirou.

I'd like to see what other people could do with the indomitable gauls. It's not as if there is a strict canon continuity to mess up but I doubt if it will ever happen.

I want a Astérix/Thorgal crossover event!
 
I'm afraid I'm largely of the view that these things should be allowed to rest in peace with their authors. People have often talked about someone continuing Pratchett's Discworld or Banks's Culture books etc. but I'm afraid I think any such continuation is simply wrong. It's like saying a modern composer should write Beethoven's tenth symphony. For me it's just no. I love the Asterix books and I don't need any new imitations.
 
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