Empire: World History - 308. Asterix and Obelix, Babar The Elephant, & Colonial Cartoons

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

How did a story made up by a mother for her sick children turn into Babar The Elephant? Why did two immigrants to France create such a patriotically French cartoon in Asterix and Obelix? How should we feel about racist depictions of people of colour in beloved children’s cartoons today? Listen as William and Anita explore the controversial debates about two of the most beloved cartoons from twentieth-century France: Asterix the Gaul, and Babar The Elephant. Join the Empire Club: Unlock the full Empire experience – with bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to miniseries and live show tickets, exclusive book discounts, a members-only newsletter, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at empirepoduk.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Email: [e-mail]: @empirepodukBlue Sky: @empirepodukX: @empirepodukProducer: Anouska LewisAssistant Producer: Alfie RoweExecutive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpowerpoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnindon. And me, William Durhampool. In our writers series, we have been talking about writers of Empire. We brought you some really hefty names there. Orwell, Conrad. But in the next couple of episodes, we're going to flatten the subject,

hopefully not the mood, because we're going to look at the 2D, the comic books, the graphic novels. For many of us, our first inkling that the world is much bigger than we know. And we're going to be talking about wonderful, wonderful books like Asterix and Oblix, Baba the Elephant and Tintin and Snowy, and just even thinking of those names and looking at the picture of Oblix with his enormous trousers and Babel or with a little crowd in his this wonderful green suit or snowy with a bone in his mouth, just takes you straight back to when you were seven or eight and first had these comic books. So your friends had the comic books and you had to beg them or give them a sweetie or something

to get your hands on them. But of course, they are all books with a deep route in the period of empire, and they contain all manner of material which people today will find offensive. and it's a complicated matter. And it breaks my heart, sort of seeing these wonderful books and comment about them anything except complete love. But anyway, that's what we're going to do on this episode. So we're going to drag, William, through the briars of looking at his childhood, love affairs.

No, I mean, I love these books as well. Look, just for those who haven't maybe read the same things that we have read, in a nutshell, Asterix and Obelix, the story of two plucky Gauls who take on the world. I mean, often the Romans. and they are fighting for the freedom of being gawlish and to live the life that they want to live. And the way they do it is that they have a magic potion that gives them enormous amounts of strength.

And that's what gives them sort of, they're little superheroes of their time. So little Asterix, he's a tiny man. He gets supremely strong when he has a glug of this potion, a bit like pop-iron spinach. And Obelix doesn't need any of this potion because he's been dropped as a baby into a cauldron of potion. and so it's sort of like the sort of, you know, very genial but punchy, enormous fella.

Barber, do you want to explain what Barber the elephant is for those who don't know? Barber, the elephant is the king of the elephants, but who lives in a town that looks remarkably like Paris, and though I think he's ever named in the cartoon, and he has a green suit and he has a, I can bust of tears just looking at the picture, and has a green suit and a little crown. Children have got little blue shorts and a tiny little green spock, and I love it. Can I just say other outfits were available to Barber, but yes, he was king of the elephants. And Tintin and Snowy, perhaps, you know, the daddy of them all with an international readership, we'll give you numbers in a little while, which is absolutely astonishing.

Was Tintin and Snowy bigger than the other two? It was bigger, much bigger. And remains a seller to this day. So Tintin, this little intrepid journalist, actually, who goes around falling into adventures, ends up with Captain Haddock and Snowy the dog defeating despots. And they, you know, they travel around the world and they fall into these situations where only daring do will get them out of it. And, you know, Tintin, if you want to envisage him, and he haven't read this,

he's got the most remarkable quiff. It is a hairstyle that became popular about 15 years ago again, amongst the teenage boy population. So there we are. That's Tintin and Snowy. Now, what William was saying about his adoration, although, I mean, he's ridiculous and is almost in tears looking at an air. Elephant.

I am. I'm just spartous. Ridiculous thing I've seen. So my husband is likewise nostalgic about the books. I try and go with the trends of the day thinking, you know, they should read what others are reading because, you know, they have something to chat about around whatever the infant equivalent of the water cooler is. But he said, no, no, no, we're going to, we're going to, I'm going to give them the books that I loved. So, you know, read at bedtime. I thought, yeah, no, it's great.

I've read these. And when I was reading them, I was like, quite a lot of the time. Because there are references in these books and also imagery in these books that I had somehow just completely accepted when I was when I was a kid. But now, and I'm going to present them to you, William, and just ruin your tearful nostalgia, maybe a little bit. Because some of these things, we didn't question when we were kids. But now, when you look at them, you know, with what I suppose you can call modern judgment. And they are being read by a modern readership. So that's why we can have an interesting conversation about this.

They do depict Asia, Africa, lands of comedy, natives and savages, you know, the uncivilised. And this comes up again and again. And what we're doing it for us to have this conversation, you know, does it matter? I feel completely conflicted about this. I completely see the arguments of those that find incredibly offensive. And equally, I could just feel this well of nostalgia for my childhood reading. But yeah, I get it. And this is an interesting debate.

Let's start then with the one that makes you cry because I'm quite enjoying that. Describe what you're looking at. This is the story of Barbo, which is the first iteration of what became a very long series of comic books. So, I mean, he's this sweet, rounded bubble creature. He's got a trunk. He wears different outfits. He's in sort of laterhosen. Completely difficult to countenance.

The weird thing about this is this sort of very innocent sort of sweet-looking thing. will eventually find himself in the middle of a right old Barney where the likes of Adam Gopnik, Ariel Dorfman, the creator's own son, I mean all the way to even a little library in West Sussex roll up their sleeves and have a massive punch-up about this. And one influential American educationalist has even asked the question,

is it time to burn Barber? So, Barbar, tell us... Get a grip. Tell us a little more about the history because I like the origin stories of all of these things and the writers in particular. Yeah. Barbe first appeared in 1931 in the French children's book, Histoire de Babur.

And since then, there have been over 50 books, seven by the original creator, licensed in 70 countries, animation rights, merchandising, trademarks, cooperates. So it's all big business in the world today. And this little elephant is worth an estimated $100 million today. It's none extraordinary. Yeah. Look, let's talk about the opening of the book, because those of you who, who are you who, are as ridiculous as William will know this off my heart, potentially have a tattoo of it

somewhere upon your person. But the book starts like this. In the great forest, a little elephant is born. His name is Baba. His mother loves him very much. She rocks him to sleep with her trunk while singing softly to him. And this mother and son, they absolutely adore each other. I mean, he writes, you know, Barbara loved his mother every bit as much as she loved him. So, you know, it's the classic. Every parent reading this is bursting into tears now, before we've got beyond second paragraph of this. Adorable. And then they kill the mum.

Sort of a Bambi type trope, which then traumatises generations. After Barba's mother is tragically killed, what happens to him, William? Tell us. So, anyway, he flees the savage jungles and reaches a nameless city that bears a striking resemblance to Paris. And there, a kindly old lady takes him in. She buys him clothes and how's a tutor to teach him how life works in quotes. civilization. After some time, he hears that back in the jungle, the old king of the elephants has died. And Baba quickly decides to go back to his kind and is so grateful to the old lady.

Baba kisses the old lady goodbye, he'll be quite happy to go if it were not for leaving her. He promises to come back someday. He will never forget her. He goes back to the land of elephants armed with all that he has learned in Paris. The elephants, simple-minded and primitive folk, decide that Baba is the best choice because of his wisdom experience and knowledge of the world. Barbara accepts in this crowned king and marries his cousin Celeste in a grand ceremony, and together they begin a new era of leadership, blending what Barbo learned in the city with the tradition of the elephants. Can I just say, and we are going to get notes on this, that you are turning him into a

Mughal Emperor? It's not Barbo. It's Barbar. They're based on one another, I think, are they? Oh, no, they're not. Oh, they definitely are. Anyway, look, the series is always credited to two men. Jean de Brunoff and his son later on,

Laurent, who takes on the responsibility as author and illustrator after his dad dies. But, this always happens. There is a woman in this story who is inevitably left behind, and that's Jean's wife, Cecil, because it is Cecile, who is the one who really comes up with the story to begin with. There was no barber until Cecil is telling a story to her son. So we know this because Mathieu, her other son tells us, Cecile was a concert pianist. Very beautiful looking at the picture of her. She looks like Gwyneth Paltrow, actually. Oh, yeah, Gwyneth Paltrow. You know, I see that. I see that. But Gwyneth Paltrow in a sort of, yeah, Audrey Hepburn era.

So look, she is, this very talented Cecile, is looking after her sick children. And to keep them distracted, she invents this brave little elephant who's innocent and sweet. But, you know, every mother's dream has a hunger to learn and better themselves. And the children love this story and they ask for it again and again and again. So Cecile turns to Jean-Dau-Proixnav, who is a painter and an illustrator. And she says, Jean, they love this story. It would be so nice if you could come up with some pictures so that we have like something to show them. That would be lovely.

And so Jean-Tauphunov says, oh, Cecil, I love you. Of course I will. And he does. He creates his beautiful now and they've hardly changed from the moment he created them. And they're kind of perfect in their first iteration. They are just lovely. And he also sort of fleshes them out with new characters like Celeste. who is Baba's love interest.

And Zepir, the cheeky little monkey. And so, you know, as Mathieu, the son remembers it, this was kind of like a magical, marvellous kind of marriage of talent. You know, nobody in his childhood could have imagined that their little sickbed elephant would end up eventually taking over the world. And he did, because Jeanne took the story

and illustrations to a publisher who found it incredibly charming. But before the story of Baba was published, Cecile insisted that her name should be removed from the book because she thought her role too minor. That is such a tragic. Such a woman thing to do. A woman thing, exactly. But it of course became an extraordinary success and it became Jean's full-time job and he would illustrate six more books and there would have been many more. But Jan, rather like the elephant father in the book, had an untimely death in 1937,

which meant he never lived to see how truly huge his little elephant would become. And really was influential, particularly amongst children's writers who, just saw it as quintessentially beautiful and innocent, according to Maurice Sendak, who is just brilliant, author of my son's favourite book, where the wild things are. If you haven't read that book, I really urge you. Even now we go back to it. It's so lovely. He says, Dubronoff changed children's writing forever afterwards, and this is what he said. I like this. Like an extravagant piece of poetry and interplay between few words and many pictures, commonly called the picture book, it is a difficult, exquisite and most easily collapsible form

that few have mastered, but Jean de Poinot was a master of this form. And between 1931 and 1937, he completed a body of work that forever changed the face of the illustrated book. So after Jean dies, it is his son, one of the little children in the sickbed. Who was being read to, exactly. Law. Exactly. He takes on the mantle after World War II and we'll go on to write some 50 more books. So what is, I mean, this is so far so cute, William. So what is all the ruckus about? Well, the ruckus is about that many people who come to this today see this as basically saying that Western values are good and native, in inverted commas, values are bad. Barba was written at the same time as the great Paris colonial exhibition, which was 1931.

I think it's 1937 that he writes the first of these books. So it's very much at the heart of the 1930s, the French Empire. The second French colonial empire was composed of vast territories out North. Africa, Algeria, Tunisia Morocco, French West Africa, French Equatorial Africa, French Indochine, Indochina, Madagascar, and various other smaller colonies. And these colonies spanned significant portions of Africa and Southeast Asia, representing the second largest empire globally following the British Empire. And this is, of course, one of the empires we haven't yet done, and I'm longing to do Indochene, that whole extraordinary story. We've talked with the Coenor episode about the great exhibition in

London, but other countries were doing this too. So there was a great exhibition or the Paris colonial exposition in 1931. And it was meant to show the success of not just France, but all colonial powers. It was kind of a one-stop shop for colonizes. I mean, that's just amazing. So each colonizing country has given a pavilion in which the showcase, you know, stories of their successful transformation of savages into the civilized. So what France did, it, you know, shipped in artists, thinkers, entertainers from its then 47 colonies to entertains. the crowds. An estimated 9 million people came to see Moroccan architecture, Madagascan artists, Vietnamese films. And, you know, this is all celebrated as French greatness. And one newspaper

at the time said outside the exhibit building, this is the ugly side and this is the other dark side of, you know, what people say, Baba represented too. That, you know, the same message that civilization Western values is good, you know, when you wear a hat, a Homburg and a green suit, you're okay. But when he goes back to the jungle and he meets his own kind, they are not as evolved as him because they haven't had the privilege of spending time with an old lady in a European city who can save you. So a newspaper at the time reported outside an exhibit building. A Madagascar woman rounded up one of her little boys, stood him up in a tub and proceeded to wash him down with clear water. As the scrubbing advanced, the child glistened with cleanliness,

but the water turned progressively dirtier. Finally, the woman reached. Dan scooped up a bottleful of the liquid and had the boy drink it down. According to Jean-Cain and Andre Cobier, visitors came away persuaded that this is how the black race maintained its shadowy colour. What a bizarre story. It is a bizarre story. It was in the papers. And you sort of look at even the posters. So, you know, we talked about the kind of publicity surrounding the great exhibition of 1851 in London, which figured very much the Coenor Diamond. You know, go back to that episode, if you like, ended up being a huge disappointment to everyone who came. But Fron's centre of the Exposition Colonial International in 1931, how did they advertise it? Will you? Just describe that

poster I sent to you? There's a brilliant poster, which again, is so much of its time. And it's, in terms of design, it's absolutely spectacular. All these wonderful colours. You've got Vietnamese paddy worker with sort of pots and one of those paddy hats. We have a Moroccan legionaire with an enormous turban. We've got a bunch of guys from Mali and these magnificent red robes, a Southeast Asian dancer. It looks like she's about to do the Ramayana, various figures from sort of bare-breasted women from Central Africa. That's the imagery that was used to sell this exhibition. And Jean would have seen it. I mean, it's happening in his backyard. As he's reading these kids, their stories. Yeah, and sort of thinking about

putting it together in a book. And it's very much that sort of West is best theme that dominates the time. And you see it in the comic books. Now, if you look at it through our eyes, and you know, we can talk about this in a bit about whether it's even appropriate to look at it with our eyes now. The elephants at home, when Barber goes home, are largely naked. And the civilised, you know, family of Barber, they dress like fashionable Frenchmen. And they are the ones who save the day. And Laurel, you know, carries on that tradition. In 1949, he takes up The Raines. He does this book, Barba's Picnic. It was a story that was started by his father. And just, I mean, you know these books and love them so well. So, I mean, just tell us a little bit

about what happens in that book. So the story is simple enough, Barbara the Elephant, along with his family and friends, decide to go on a lovely picnic in the countryside. And the group packs, of course, food and games and heads out for a beautiful day outdoors. And they share a meal, play together, relax in the fresh air. But as often happens in children's tales, the outing isn't entirely without a surprise, such as unexpected weather or little mischief that adds to the excitement of the day. And in the end, everyone has fun. The story closes on a cheerful note, emphasising the family togetherness, joy, the simple pleasures of life. But the images that go with this are now regarded as incredibly problematic. Describe them, Anita, because they are quite something.

So they are. I mean, they really are problematic. So you have Barbara Celeste and their child, who have decided to take on the dress of the country, which is basically a red grass skirt and feathers in their head instead of a crown. And you have these native figures that would not be out of place in Jim Crow America. So you have sort of semi-naked black figures with, I think you described them as the watermelon smiles. I think it's a Boris Johnson usage I've just picked up. I think he did use it. He certainly did.

So look, in this picture, You have them sort of, you know, they have waving spears, they're holding shields, they are, you know, sort of semi-naked. The reason I think this is really interesting is that will be the first introduction for millions of children to a different country where people's skin colour is different. That is what it will look like to them. And the other thing I think, which I remember at the same time in my childhood experiencing as same time as watches, are the movies of the period that also had these scenes. And like, remember Tarzan films from that period? Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where again, you have these figures with, you know, just shields in a jungle clearing. The 1960s, this is when the massive kickback happens against these depictions. Because, I mean, people just read them, they accept them, they see, you know, the charm in them, I guess. And it's just what was there. It was the language of the time. But, you know, times change. But books remain on shelves. And that's the interesting thing about this debate.

So 1960s and in the United States, This is the rise of the civil rights movement. This is where people are questioning the position given to them by virtue of the color of their skin and decades and decades of post-colonial grievance. You've got people saying, hang on a minute, this is not okay that children, even now, are looking at those from the African continent and seeing this. This is literally the thing that mothers are reading to their children at their most vulnerable time, heads on pillows, and this is what they see.

And it becomes this sort of, it gathers this head of steam. So, you know, Laurel is suddenly finding himself in the middle of this, this storm. And he does say, he comes out and he says, look, I regret this. I do regret this. I'm embarrassed about these books, particularly. He says, you know, where Barber is fighting black people in Africa. And Barber's picnic, you know, that image that we've just described, he is actually, you know, having heard the arguments of black civil rights leaders saying, you know,

actually, I'd like my publisher to withdraw this. I'd like it gone. Can we just clean up and just get back to this sweet creature that my dad and mum invented to make little kids feel happy, can't we? And, you know, he's also kind of completely wrong-footed by this, because for him, this is purity and childhood, and he's a good guy. You know, his dad was the guy that Maurice Sendak and other children's authors held up as a paragon. So how has this happened? How is it suddenly that we're talking about racism and slavery and, you know, Jim Crow? This was nothing to do. do with what we were writing. Why is this happening? And this doesn't go away, does it? Because in 1983, the great Chilean author, Ariel Dorfman, would call the books an implicit history that

justifies and rationalizes the motives behind an international situation in which some countries have everything and other countries have almost nothing. Babu's history, Dorfman wrote, is none other than the fulfillment of the dominant country's colonial dream. And his critique appeared in his book The Empire's Old Clothes, where he also put the boot into the Lone Ranger and Donald Duck. I mean, you can see the Lone Ranger with Tonto. I mean, do you know that Tonto means stupid? Was at the time? The literal translation of Tonto.

It means stupid. And you still say people go Tonto. Yeah, people go Tonto. But his faithful sort of native helper was Tonto. I hadn't ever put that Tonto together there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, Dauphan's not the only one. So there is an influential American educationalist, which, you know, if you're not

from America you may not be familiar with Herbert R. Coal. So Herbert Art Coal was big shakes in the 70s and 80s. He also condemns the books and he describes their corrosive effect on how the world sees non-white people and how they see themselves. And he writes an essay called, Should We Burn Barber? And he says, in Barber, the reader learns that there are different classes of people. And the rich lady, the old lady, I think he means, is the better class. The elephants are not as good as people, but might be if they just imitate these other people. Was I aware of those distinctions as a child? Ask Cole, did I learn to admire the rich from reading the book? Did I also learn about the inferiority of creatures from the jungle, people included?

This is suddenly another gaze is coming on these books, and people start asking the question of what are we showing our children. You know, in those moments when the brain is most malleable and memories of What are we teaching them? What are we showing them? And should we do it? And that's when, actually, some start banning the books or taking them down. And it comes very local, doesn't it, actually, William? I mean, even here to, you know, Great Britain. There's a library in East Sussex as recently as April 2012, after a slew of parental complaints about the book's depiction of Africans in the stereotypical way. And the complaints focus on the harmful portrayals and potentially racist language such as to do. as the term savage cannibals in the book. So this is a discussion that's gone on right into the 21st century. And, you know, I think it's really hard when you're talking about a children's book, you know, one that people grew up with, people have loved,

but which, frankly, includes descriptions which give you, well, the ick. They just do. So we're going to take a break here. And after the break, I'm going to struggle even more because we're talking about my absolute favorite cartoon growing up. And I'm reading it with my kids even now. asterix and obelix, because that too has found itself in some hot water. Hello, I'm Gordon Carrera, National Security Journalist.

And I'm David McCloskey, former CIA analyst turned novelist. Together, we're the host of another Goldhanger show. The rest is classified, where we bring you the best stories from the world of secrets and spas. And this time, we are delving into the dark and twisted story of the man who dared to challenge Vladimir Putin. Yevgeny Progosen, and the ruthless war machine he'd built the Wagner Group. From Putin's chef to mercenary warlord, Progosion's journey is one of the most extraordinary rises and halls of the 21st century.

He went from serving canopays to George Bush and Tony Blair to masterminding a covert campaign to disrupt the U.S. presidential election in 2016 and unleashing mercilessing mercil. troops that reshaped conflicts across Africa and the Middle East. But when he flies too close to the sun and begins to challenge Putin's power, it's not just ambition. It is a death wish. And for our declassified club members, we go even further. We sat down with Mark Galliotti, who's one of the leading experts on Russian organized crime and also a man banned from entering Russia, to explore the hidden forces that shape Putin's cold, paranoid psyche and the forces that threatened to take him down.

If this sounds good, we've left a clip for you at the end of this episode. Welcome back. So as I said before the break, we're going to talk about Asterix now. We have another episode coming on the dardy of Orchantropsy. And that's a really, I mean, an extraordinary story, an extraordinary story about the author as well. But let's talk about Asterix. Asterix is brilliant. I loved it. I've absolutely loved the wordplay in this. It just tickled every time my funny boehm.

So you have the stupid Romans who are sort of clumbering around and really are, at the most part, vain and thick. Particularly vain Julius Caesar, who's always this sort of aging matinee idol. Yes. And then you've got, you know, the poet who gets duffed up all the time because he keeps sort of trying to do some kind of, you know, long ballad. And he's called cacophonics. I loved cacophonics. Cacophonics, who looks identical to my producer at the Gipanich Festival, Sanjoy Roy, who is. models his entire style of long grey hair.

It's completely on kangaponic. Well, you've got, you know, sort of Cleopatra's very pretty nose, which is a refrain all the time. And I remember joy, and I thought for this, you know, actually, if I'm going to beat up one of William's favourites and sort of have a look at that, let's have a look at mine. And you know this, again, very interesting. It's the same kind of, you know, sort of lazy stereotypes, if you like. You know, black people are slaves. They have the same sort of big lips and animal skins. Chinese people are depicted in the way that the movies used to,

you know, in a way that actually just very recently Swatch got into trouble just a few weeks ago. Did you see that? I miss this. The watch company Swatch. So Swatch, in their bizarre thinking, decided in August this year that they were going to have a Chinese model who is sort of modelling their watch, but pulling the corners of his eyes up, Like that sort of, you know, the slitty-eyed, slanted-eyed thing that kids used to bully Chinese kids in the school, right? You know, they used to do that.

Hopefully they don't do that anymore. But this was massive, and this was such an again, sorry, this is a bit of a tangent, but it's interesting. So Swatch did this. And of course, China is a massive market. So Chinese social media went mental at this. As you would expect, there were calls for a boycott of Swatch. What a swatch thing. And this whole discussion was happening just in August this year.

So that is where we are. I think they withdrew the ad. But you know what? Let's go about to asterix because if we find that so reprehensible now, when we see it in the comic books, what do we think? So I sort of, you know, saw this whole thing in a different way. I'll tell you how I saw it. And then you tell me whether I'm coming down too hard on Barber and not hard enough on Astros.

Because it's set in this small, Gaulish village, you know, basically the French, in 50 BC. It starts always with this first line, isn't it? In 50 BC, all of Gaul was conquered, except one brave little village, exactly. Yes. And the reason, I mean, I mentioned this in the first half, the villages are protected by this magic potion, that is, again, beautiful names here, brood by their druid get a fix. Very much of its time.

Very much of its time. This is translated in the 1960s or early 70s. And so brilliantly translated, because, you know, the punnage works in French and, you know, it's then translated into so many languages. They've got to make this work in every language. But this potion gives them superhuman strength. So you've got Astrix, clever, cunning warrior who leads the adventure. Obelix, his oversized, loyal friend who fell into the potion as a child and is permanently super strong.

And then you have, I mean, can I just go for some of the name? So, you know, you get a fix. You've got an old fellow called geriatrics. You've got the faithful dogmatics. And then you've got the chief who's called Vital Statistics. So brilliant. I loved that. A lot of that was completely lost on me as a child. But again, these things are often done so that the adults who are reading them to the kids enjoy it. I absolutely adored these. And I, you know, dog-eared copies of this because I love them so much.

And they fight the Romans. They travel the ancient world. They encounter exaggerated versions of different cultures. And there's slapstick and there's wordplay and there's parody history and there's politics and there's stereotypes. You know, Cleopatra was a real thing. Julius Caesar was a real thing. But the central message, I think this is why. those books got away with it because it was resistance against an oppressive empire and they were the Romans. This was the kind of, this was the French resistance against the Nazis sort of played back into Roman towns. 100%. So who illustrated and who wrote it? Okay, so this series first appeared in the Franco-Belgian comic magazine Pilote on the 29th of October 1959.

It was written by René Gostini and illustrated by Alberto Udeuze. This went on until Gersini dies in 1977. He was born in Paris in 1926. Now, again, backstores important and interesting. And he was born to Jewish immigrants from Poland. His parents were... Really? Yes.

His parents were emigres from a small village near Kiev in Ukraine. They end up in France in 1959. And they will have, you know, the parents and the family would have seen the horrors. So they're not actually French, French, despite all this French nationalism. So they end up in France. in 1959. And this is at the same time this Franco-Belgian magazine Copilot

was looking for a regular comic strip. At the time, there was this brilliant illustrator called Albert Uderzo. And his parents, too, are an interesting mix of things. A modest background. Dad was a carpenter, severely wounded during World War I. His mother had worked in a munitions factory

during the war, and, you know, they fell in love, they get married, they have two kids, and then the family moves to France, from Italy to France in 1922, and five years later, Alberto was born. So just a second. So look at the backgrounds. They see the rise of fascism. They see the writing on the wall that Mussolini and others are sort of, you know,

that kind of tenor is rising in their country. Gorsini's family are running from the kind of pogroms that were common in Ukraine. And so there's that in their DNA. Plus, on top of all that, little Alberto is born with six. six fingers in each hand. And the additional fingers was surgically removed early in childhood when he was little. And he had a lot to deal with his childhood. The family lived in Paris and being of Italian extraction, the young Uzzeros often faced racism from the local kids. This is how outsiders make a legendary hero that works, okay, despite some of the problematic imagery that we've talked

about. You know, they know what it's like to scrap against the odds. But despite even Udezzo's experience in the playground, they love France. France for them is everything that, the countries that they fled from, you know, were not. It saved the family from fascists like Mussolini. It was a safe place. Ukraine for the Jews in these years was not. And Asterix, they felt, was just like them. He, like them, loved Gaul. He loved his fellow Gauls. He abhorred the fascistic uniform, the power of bigger armies. Rome was an analogy for the Germans. Of course, yeah. And so Asterix first appears October, 1959 in Pilot, and it is an instant success.

And the first comic book came out a year later. And then you've got the collection of weekly strips. And just give us a growth of the gall. By now, Asterix is sold around 393 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling European comic book series and the second best-selling of all time behind One Piece. What's One Piece? Oh, One Piece is wonderful. My kids love it. It's a kind of a pirate thing where kid pirates go out on the Seven Seas. Anyway, the series has been translated into 110 languages and dialects. There are 18 films, including animated and live action adaptations.

Park Asterix, the official Asterix themed park near Paris, draws around 2.3 million visitors every year since it opened in 1989. The precise values, the kind of business value of the franchise are hard to get. But one, states that Asterix brand, including comics, films and merchandise, is estimated to be worth over $1 billion, making it one of the most successful IPs of all time. So you've got love from us and success in the markets. Shall we talk about the ick factor, which does cause controversy even today? Okay, well, look, I'm sending you an image and we'll tweet it out as well. We took a couple of images from Asterisks.

Again, sort of enslaved people, black people are always enslaved in this. In the first, you've got the Roman senator striding around, and you've got, again, I mean, it's just awful depiction of a person of colour. So this black man who is huge and large and carrying a leaf fan and wearing, you know, a leopard skin with the tail still attached. And he has, again, that sort of black and white minstrel parody. Big red lips, white eyes, very black skin. and people might complain that if you are wanting to defend Astrid's that slavery exists, that black people are black, but what people don't sometimes realize is quite how many of the most powerful people in the Roman Empire were in fact Africans.

And Scotland, my own country, was conquered by an Algerian. Lollius Urbacus was a Berber chief who not only reinforced Hadrian's wall, but then conquered Scotland, took the wall forward to the Antenheim Wall, and he ended up buried back. home in Algeria where I've seen his tomb. So it's unhistorical. Unhistorical, fine, but I'm not sure cartoons care all that much. And I'm honestly not sure that Cleopatra had a pretty nose. But the thing is, this is 1959, okay? So this is on the cusp of the civil rights movement, on the cusp of people questioning things. And still, these magazines were produced with these comic strips. The other image I've got is Julius Caesar being carried

on a palaquin by four black slaves, enslaved people again. And again, I would arguably even worse depiction. All you can see are the eyes and the lips and these little loincloths and some sort of strange weird headdress. Now, look, that is not to say that we don't acknowledge that every single person is caricatured in this. You know, they're all ridiculous, big noses, big ears, all of that. The Roman in the litter is this huge sort of fat monster. Yeah. But I mean, Does it have a problem with racist abiction of African people? I don't know. What do you think?

Because this is the same time that the black and white minstrels were a thing, you know, sort of on the television, sort of white people blacking up their faces. Yeah, well, the black and white minstrels were on the BBC, as late as what, mid-1970s? It was surprisingly late on. But, you know, for those who don't know what black and white minstrels were, give us an idea of what people were entertained by. It was a song and dance show where white men put boot polish

on their faces and dressed up as black men and pretended to be sort of jolly African musicians. Yeah, sort of, I mean, it sort of had slight plantation vibes about it. Yeah, exactly. You'd have sort of singing, dancing, leaping, but then they weren't black at all. Do you know how long it ran? I've just looked it up. When? It ran from 1958 to 1978.

I remember it. That's late, isn't it? I remember it very long. It's very late, yeah. Again, and so, you know, this was just every day and every day. But it's only recently that people have started re-evaluating. these things. And you write in and tell me whether you tell us, rather, whether you think this is good, bad or ugly that these things are being re-evaluated with a current gaze. Five years ago,

the American publishers of Asterix, a company called Paper Cuts, which got the license for marketing this in America, publishing it and marketing it. The parent publisher was Hashet. They said, actually, you know what, we're a bit worried in America. This won't stand. This is just, you know, sort of five years or so ago. And they said, look, this French format just doesn't work here. So they went back to the parent publisher said, can you we redraw those? Parent publisher said, no, because that's what the original was. That's what he did. That's what there is. And, you know, maybe that's how it should stay. And then you get this American protest at that and saying, you know what, this is damn racist. I don't care if it's original. I don't care if that's what he did. I don't care if

it was a different time. And spearheading this is an award-winning cartoonist called Ronald Wimberley. He is African-American himself. He has drawn for Marvel. He's drawn for DC Comics. He's drawn for Dark Horse. And he sort of spearheads the discussion and saying, this is disgusting. Blatently white supremacist was the phrase he is. Right.

He's a man who's spent time in France. And when people say, I know it's a different culture, he'd worked in France. He was a resident comics artist at the Maison de Otterre, home of the annual French Comics Festival. Why don't you say what he says about this? Because it's interesting, isn't it? And then we can talk about it. So, yeah, it's really interesting. He says, it's clear that O'Darzo had the chops to draw a myriad of things. It's true that he had a limited bag of tricks for characters, but he takes times to differentiate by type and by importance.

He has three traits to differentiate slaves from other characters, black skin, full lips, and quotes oriental clothing and accessories. And he says, even a child knows that the Romans kept all types of slaves and promoted ethnicities of all types to high position. So it's easy to see the purpose of making all the slaves black is a modern white supremacist device. He's not wrong. Exactly the point you made, which is, you know, there's no historical accuracy. Did you get emperors called Philip the Arab, you know, this sort of thing? And Septimus Severus, I mean, some of the greatest emperors were Africans. Yeah.

Well, I mean, so the American publisher finds himself in the middle of an absolute firestorm. And he says, look, I want to change it. Please stop shouting at me. but the original rights holders won't budge, and this is a quote from him. It is an issue. We brought it up to the rights holders, and we've been having discussions with him.

But Hachette was not open to changes, he said. And the book carries only a cursory disclaimer. It was pointed out that this is what they wrote. Asterix was born in 1959 in France. This omnibus respects the artwork as originally created, as per the wishes of the authors and the publishers. So this goes sort of to and fro and two and fro and two and pro. That's not an apology at all.

Well, it's just like, you know, basically this is the way it is. And this is really interesting. You learn this from Wimbledy and all the kind of reportage around his fury at this. The American publishers get a few subtle changes. The lips are recoloured. They're subdued to a point. He asks about adding an explanatory essay that provides context about, you know, history, race and representation. And this is now still something that is being negotiated, I think.

This is ongoing now as we speak. Yeah, I mean, I'm not aware. it's been settled. Wimberley himself says, you know what, I don't think the comics should be changed either, but I don't think they're appropriate for children. And this is what he said. He said personally, I believe they belong in textbooks along with historical context. I think the way I experienced them in the museum is a great context. It takes an adult. It takes a professional or a scholar to see and appreciate it for what it is, to differentiate between form and function to place it within a politically subjective context. Now, if this is sold as it was when it was first

produce without any of that context, then the publisher is producing and selling white supremacist cartoons. Now, what do you think of that? This is the sort of thing that supercharges whole sections of the right wing press, the idea that something that everyone loved has been banned. You could just see the quotes coming in from the right wing pundit saying, political correctness got mad, these beloved things should not be changed. And yet, you're right. I mean, I'm looking at a cartoon at the moment of asterix, an obelisk obelix, with the mania on the great wall of China, the caricatures of the Chinese would be incredibly offensive. And if they were to go out on Chinese social media today, the whole of hashette would be. Well, I tell you, what, that did go out and it was

withdrawn because these things are really interesting. So it's interesting China you brought up, because there was the latest Asterix movie. Did you see it? I did. It was kind of fun, but it was sort of set in China. And in the film, they take enormous pains because, again, the Chinese market is kind of the swatch experience. The Chinese market is so huge and lucrative. And they wanted it to do well in China. The Chinese characters are heroic and they're brave and they're beautiful. And everyone else sort of bumbles around them, but it's very, very different. So I think the image that you're talking about on the Great Wall of China was sort of used as a promotion and then I think it was dropped. It was sort of used online

and then completely erased. I don't think you'll find that again. So look, let's carry on talking about. I think it's really interesting. And it's making me realize, again, how much the world that I grew up with, which I associate with all these children's books, is now so completely vanished. And how far in just our lifetime things that have moved on, Baba is something which is from my childhood, which you do find real problems with. But asterisk, as you say, you love. And this is also, yeah, guess it was funny. And they were kicking a higher power. They're kicking up, I think, rather than kicking down. Anyway, look, we're going to talk about, so the mother of all controversies in the next episode, we're going to talk about Tin Tin.

And let me tell you the story behind Tin, I mean, it blew my socks off. It's really interesting how one chance encounter can challenge a writer, author's entire life body of work. Challenge it a bit. Anyway, join us for that. If you don't want to wait, you know what to do, EmpirePoduk.com, EmpirePodukuk.com, and then you get these sort of mini-series on and one go. Until the next time we meet is goodbye for you. For me, Anita Arnan.

And goodbye for me, William, Durhampool. Hey, it's David from The Rest is Classified. Here's that clip we mentioned earlier. You have Genie Progosion, restaurateur to Vladimir Putin, co-founder, the Inters Wagner Group, who a couple of years ago led a mutiny, which was the closest Vladimir Putin has ever come to being toppled from power. He's one of Russia's richest and most powerful oligarchs.

He knows what people want. Progosion brings this entrepreneurial streak to violence. The man, the Kremlin, calls on to do its dirty work. He is moving into a space that really only Putin should be in. The government depends on Wagner for its survival. At the moment of the peak, he's going to fly too close to the sun. The world watched as the Wagner group turned on Russia's military. Yevgeny Progogs was enraged by what he says were Russian strikes on his troops in Ukraine.

This is the moment where you go, civil war. Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback, so I would be surprised if Progoshan escapes further retribution for this. If you cross Putin, the likelihood is you're going to die. To hear the full episode,

listen to the rest is classified wherever you get your podcasts.