History Daily - Saturday Matinee: The Untitled History Podcast

Episode Date: October 3, 2026

On today’s Saturday Matinee, we take a look at the history and cultural impact of the second best selling comic series: Asterix the Gaul. Link to The Untitled History Podcast: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/the-untitled-history-podcast Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

I don't know if this is true, but it seems to me that I grew up in a golden age of comic strips. There were still a lot of local newspapers around, delivered to your door or available from machines on the street, and in each of them was a comic section, or the funnies. Some were old stalwarts like Blondie or Dennis the Menace. There were the ones I gravitated to like Garfield, Calvin and Homs, and the far side. And there were the ones my parents read like Dunesbury. All of these were vastly popular, running year after year, producing books, magazines, t-shirts, and coffee mugs, even movies.

But there is one comic strip, first published in 1959, that has gone on to become the second best-selling comic series in the world, and I've never read a single panel. Asterix the Gaul is a French comic, translated the world over, telling the story of a small French village holding out against the Roman Empire. But it turns out it's a lot more than that. And on today's Saturday matinee, we're sharing an episode from The Untitled History podcast that explores this comic, the rebuilding of a national myth in the aftermath of World War II, and the making of modern France one hand-drawn panel at a time. I hope you enjoy. While you're listening,

be sure to search for and follow the Untitled History Podcast. We put a link in the show notes to make it easy for you. The best-selling comic series in the world is One Piece. But the second best-selling, with almost 400 million copies sold, is neither British nor American. It is, in fact, the story of a small French village holding out against the Roman Empire. In this episode, we're going to look at the history and cultural impact of Asterix the Gaul. Hello, my name is Gareth Edwards and welcome to the Untitled History Podcast. Join me each week alongside world-leading experts as we take a deep dive into your favorite topics from throughout history. From the ancient world to the modern and with plenty of historical

rabbit holes in between, we'll cover famous and not-so-famous moments in history. from all across the globe. The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely. One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries,

who garrisoned the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, laudanum and compendium. So starts the adventures of asterix, obelix and friends in almost every English translation. adventures that have sold 393 million copies over 65 years of continuous publication. Adventures that have been turned into some of the earliest audiobooks, into films, games, theme parks and more. Yet beneath that success lies a remarkable story of a French-Jewish writer and an Italian immigrant, writing about the history and foibles of the country they both loved and called home,

and of France trying to rebuild its national myth and economy in the aftermath of German occupation and the horrors of war. And to help me explore that topic to hear today is Julie Kalman. Julie, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. It's a great pleasure to be here. So for those unfamiliar with her work, Julie is a professor of history at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She is a French historian who is interested in the history of nationalism and migraine. And listeners, the clue as to why I particularly wanted Julian show for this one comes in the book she is currently working on, which the book, provisionally titled Asterix and the Making of Modern France, which is her fifth book, is about exactly the stuff we're going to talk about today. So thank you so much for coming on.

My pleasure. Always happy to talk about Asterix. So we'll get into some of its impact and why this is fascinating from. a historical perspective, not just from a literary historical perspective in a bit. But I almost feel like we should start this show by talking about how we both came to Asterisk. So I came to Asterix as a kid, as I think a lot of British kids did. I always think that there's an entire generation of archaeologists and historians who are a product of two things, which is reading Asterix books when you're small, and then watching Time Team on TV as you get older. And so my of earliest memories of things like I'm the first book that I ever remember owning was asterix

and Cleopatra, which I bought with book tokens that I thought covered the entire cost, but didn't. My mum was actually topping it up so that I could buy an asterisk books because I read them at school in the library. So that was my first encounter and that got me hooked forever. What was your first encounter with Asterix? Well, so I was born and grew up in Melbourne, which is a long, long way from Europe, but I'm the child of immigrants. And my mother actually was born in Belgium, which of course is the heart of, or has for long been the heart of French language comics, certainly was in the beginning. And there were always tintings and asterisks in the house. I had older siblings, so they were already there for me.

and any day I was off sick I would take the entire pile of asteris put them by the bed and just read through them over the course of the day I studied French at school because that was the only foreign language that was offered

there was one volume in French and I remember the very first pun that I understood and the enormous pleasure that came with that so I've been hooked also for a very long time and what I love about

both our descriptions there will come up in the show, I suspect, is they both absolutely map onto the stories of the creators and also what the creators loved doing and why these books clearly hit with everyone. And included, when I say creators,

I include within that, the legendary English translators who we'll talk about as well. But maybe, do you mind setting the scene for a bit? And I feel like Rob, before we talk about how Asterix as a book series, as a comic series, it becomes a book series, comes into being.

We can't separate that from the stories of their creators, can we? True. So they're a duo. Rene Gossini was the author. Albert Albert Udazor was the illustrator. So Gossini was the child of Polish-Jewish immigrants to France. He was born in 1926. And when he was two years old, his father got a job in Argentina. His father was a chemist.

They all basically up sticks and moved there. And this is what saved them because the rest of the family in France were wiped out during the war. So Gossini spends his childhood. He goes to the French high school in Argentina, in Buenos Aires. after his father dies in 43 and he leaves school. There's an uncle in New York who says come and I'll find work for you. So he goes to New York. He just wants to make people laugh.

He draws. He's not a bad artist. So he's basically going around trying to sell his comics. Meets Harvey Kurtzman, of course, one of the founders of Mad magazine, and they maintained a friendship over many years. does his military service in France. So he's very attached to France. And then kind of gets into those circles of comic writers.

That's the time when he meets Morris, who is the illustrator of Lucky Luke. And Gossini becomes the author. So Gossini wrote many of the Lucky Luke comics also. And he meets a fellow called Georges Trofontaine, George Three Fountains, George, Three Fountains, is the translation of his name. Twyfondon is trying to build a publishing empire in Brussels, and he says offhand to Gossini, oh yeah, if you ever in Brussels look me up, and Gossini takes that as an invitation. So a year or so later, he lands in Brussels.

Twyfonte is very surprised to see him, but Twyfonte is setting up a business called the World's Press, a very grand name, which is going to supply content to magazines, comics and columns and he's setting up a Paris office on the Chans-ZZZZ, so he's making a statement and he sends Gosini there. That's where Gosini meets Udazil.

Well, let's dig a bit, let's dig a bit into Gazzini first and his background in that regard because I think it's so interesting some of the things you've touched on there. And also I think this is very much in the spirit of asterix, is in true British style, I'm going to absolutely mingle every French word and name I say in this,

which I feel he'd really find is appropriate given how, given what asterix in Britain does in its own native translation. But I really like the story of him because he's so very French. He is distinctly French, and that's tragically early death as well, which we'll talk about in a bit. But as you've described here, even he is on the immigrant journey. He goes to Argentina, he spends his time in New York and he comes back. When he serves in the Army, actually, he's in the Alpine Infantry Battalion.

I mean, obviously only for a year because it's National Service. But his journey in a way is actually very, very similar in many aspects to what a lot of French people will have, or those who come from abroad. And as you say, he studies French and he goes to a French school in Argentina. and it's very clear to me from all I've looked into and studied on him that he sees himself as very, very French. He genuinely loves France as much as part of this. There's no question in his mind that he's not French, even though he spends time in New York and elsewhere.

And I kind of feel like that really comes through in his later work across the board. I think we can think of him as an expat. The family, so the family moves to Argentina in 28, and every three years they take a cruise back to France to see family. So he has this connection. The last time they go is 1940 and they see family for the last time in the free zone and then leave and spend the war in Argentina.

You know, he learns the French canon, all the old works at Racine, Moliere at school in France. So he's getting a French education. So yes, he absolutely. sees himself as French by nationality, if you like. And you also touched on there that that he does befriend Harvey Kurtzman. And that I feel is also like, he is a joker. He likes making people laugh, as you say. He does that as a kid.

He does that all through his life. And I've always loved the touching points you get when people encounter people, creative people encounter other creative people. And I think you can see why those two would. get on. Like they have a very similar sense of humour. And you can see actually some of that come through in Asterix. You can see that come through in Mad magazine. And we'll talk a bit about the US translations a bit later, which in a way almost don't capture that spirit that both men get. But yeah, like, I just want listeners, you've got to understand it. I think expats

a great description of him. That kind of, it almost makes him love the country more maybe than if he'd He sees it for what it is. He sees it as both an outsider and insider. And I think that absolutely comes through in asterix when he comes to publishing. But, yeah, I mean, let's talk a bit about Udozo because his origin is both similar and different. So he is a child to Italian appearance. He moves to Paris in 1927. But his experience of growing up in France is different to Gazini's, isn't it?

Yes, so he spends his childhood in Paris, large family, relatively poor. He copps a lot of racism in the interwar period. There was a lot of anti-Italian racism and there was this sense as, you know, the kind of anti-immigrant playbook that these Italians were coming and taking jobs, but also from 33 onwards, of course, there's the fascist regime. So he experiences a lot of that. He is an absolutely wildly talented artist. He can draw anything.

And the sign of that is how young and early he gets a job as an illustrator. But one of the things that I think is really interesting for me about this story is how these two figures who in a way we can think of as peripheral to French colour, culture see right through to the centre. And this is an aspect of the story for me that I'm really interested to explore. Yeah, the more I looked into the background of both men, the more that really does shine through. It is that they're viewing it from both the outside and the inside simultaneously,

and then they've experienced or can see its negatives, but they can also see the absolute strength of French culture. of what makes it tick and what makes it work. And clearly because both men are so talented in various ways is that they're just laser-focused on that. They pick that out in a way that few other authors have done, but they do it in such an unique and interesting way that we'll see through all their work together,

not just through Asterix, or Asterix is almost the culmination of that. And so, and I didn't realize until I started digging into, Erdozo was colorblind. Like, so he didn't do most of the yinking for his, for the comics. Yeah, his brother did it.

So actually there's two Adazzo's involved in this. Is that, I think it's Marcel is it? Is his brother that does a lot of the coloury? But yeah, I mean, and before we talk about how they came together and anything else, just to really capture how much they come to represent French culture and they're accepted and appreciated for doing so. I mean, O'Dazzo gets the Ligion d'Aire in 2013. And you have to suspect that Gossini would have got it as well if he was still alive.

One of the parts of this book is really the story of the national grief that overcomes people on the announcement of Gossini's southern death. and the headlines that you see across the whole kind of range of newspapers in France, the profound shock that people experience. It's extraordinary. Well, before we get to the sad bit, let's talk about the fun bit. So as you said, like, this is to put you back into context here. It's 1951-ish, world press is a thing.

Gozany has The one thing I love about this is if you go on Wikipedia listeners and you look at the story of this is the classic Wikipedia thing if you look at the story of how two people meet or how they come together

so it's very a fate accompli it's always presented as if it's this thing that was just inevitably going to happen and if you read the accounts on there about how Gozany gets his job at World Press it's very much presented as oh yeah he was made this official offer

and then he went over and he obviously accepted the offer and all of that and as you've described Julie, it's far more he turns up and it's like, I wasn't necessarily serious about that offer, but now you're here. I know you're talented, so yes. So always remember that listener when you're reading things on Wikipedia. It is generally very accurate, but doesn't always tell the entire story, and that's why we love

recording podcasts. But so, yeah, they effectively meet in 1951 while working at World Press, don't they? Yes, in the Paris offices. They're employed separately as illustrator, script writers and they have, so they're in this fairly bare office. They call their headquarters the cafe downstairs and they have sloping desks. There are sort of artists sloping desks, opposite each other. Udell's all really liked to draw and that was his preference and Gossini worked out that

actually his preference was writing script and very quickly they form a friendship and they they are extremely close friends right through their lives. And Gosini describes the kind of the way the friendship develops. He says that it was almost telepathic, the way they could communicate. And I think that you see that in Asterix. The extraordinary, you could look at this and imagine it was done by one person. The extraordinary coming together of text and image. You're right. There's a synchronicity to their work. There's times you see this sometimes

of creative people where someone else is just entirely on their same wavelength and everything they create together just becomes almost the finishing of another person's towards. This is, I think, where you see so many successful comedy writing duos. So, I mean, modern terms for listeners, Rob Grant and Doug Naler are two of the guys who create the British TV show Reddwarf. And they, when they, when they, are working together when they create that show together, they are on fire. They are finishing each other's thoughts, they're doing everything else. Later, they both work on separate things.

Those things are good. They're maybe not quite as good as when they're working together. And towards the end of the time they have a bit of a rapprochement and work together again. So obviously there will be asterisks after the death of both men ultimately. But it's very much the ones they're on together that really just show and capture that imagination. But it's not the first thing they work on together, is it? No. So they create lots of comics, actually. They sort of are getting into a groove of working together. And a whole lot, most of these are lost to time. They create one of a Native American that they call

Unpapa, who they peer with an 18th century aristocrat, French aristocrat. I noticed, I noticed, that you had his English name as Brussels Sprout. In French, it translates to puff pastry. This did get published. It didn't necessarily go anywhere. Certainly fans know about it. They also wrote, they were employed to write a women's advice column on etiquette. They had great fun with this.

And Gossini would sign it Lillian Dorsey. and do things like advise that it's probably not a good idea to wipe your shoes on the curtains. The advice that got them completely shut down was when a woman wrote to say that she was having a CEO, a bishop, and a bishop come to dinner and how should she seat them. And Gossini's advice was on chairs. At that time, he says we would do anything, anything. It just captures their humor though, I think. That just absolutely captures the core of the humor.

But this is a period where Gosigni really lives in polity. And this effectively brings us to the beginnings of Asterix itself. So I like to think that you can see almost the lurking origins of that in Umpapa. You know, as you said, you can even see the lurking origins of the difficulty of transatlantic. translation in that, as you say, like, you know, in French, the French aristocratic officer's character, who is not necessarily painted as this glorious, overarching, amazing figure. That's a parody figure in itself. If anything, it's Unpapa, who is almost the, you can almost see the little tendrils and prototypes of what will become asterix in that. But, yeah, like, in the English version, he's Hubert Brussels sprout, because clearly they're trying to go with actually what is a food joke we can make that is a reference. to it in the same way in France, it's the puff pastry thing. So yeah, let's get to Asterix now. And listeners, you can punch the air as now we're getting to the bit. But hopefully you've realised that you kind of need to understand where these guys are coming from to really know

where it's going. So talk us through how Asterix comes to be as an idea. So the long and the short of it is that they're now working for a different company called Eddie Press and Eddie France, which also supplies content. And the fellow who runs that company, a friend of theirs called Jean-Jean Ebrard, is a mate of another fellow called Francois Clotho. Now, Clotho worked for L'Oreal, but his real passion was a magazine that he'd read as a child called Benjamin, in Brussels. And his dream was to create a French version of that, a magazine for children. And his idea was that it absolutely had to be called pilot, pilot.

And he's looking for people to supply content. And he turns to his mate Jean, and he knows that Jean has these workers, and he thinks this is going to be perfect. These are the people I need. And he wants this to be very specifically French. So his instruction to Gosigny and Udazzo is create a comic that is, specifically French. So their first thought is, oh yes, the novel of Renart, that's this medieval stories about a fox. They think this will be perfect. Well, anthropomorphies the animals,

and then they find out that someone else is already doing that. So they have to go back to the drawing board. It's August. It's very hot. It's the last minute. They have to come up with something, they're sitting on the terrace of Udozo's flat in Paris, they're smoking, they're drinking pastis, and Gossini says to Udozor, right, run through the historical periods. So Udazzo says, cavemen, and Gossini says, no, no, I don't think that's right. Then Udazer says, Gauls, and they stop. Because, and I can talk about this, but Gauls have a particular significance of resonance to the French. And they realize that they realize that Gauls have this specific

kind of significance and resonance and no one has written about them. So then Udazor says, okay, so we'll have a pair and the hero should be a big strong bloke. And Gossini says, no, no, no, he should be a little guy. Big strong bloke sounds funny. I want him to be funny. Little guys are funny. and that I tell you what, we'll give him a mate and basically to assuage Udelsor, he says he can be big and will make him a many-a-delivery man. And the way they describe it, and in the French press this is described over and over and over because it's the foundation story. Then they realize, so then Gossini says to Udalsor, and you can decide where we put them,

but it has to be on the coast because I want them to be. able to take the boat to go places. And Urazo says, well, I had the Udazzo, during the war, would spend time in Brittany to escape the obligatory work program that sent young Frenchmen to Germany. And he had these lovely memories of Brittany. So it was setting Brittany. And then they realized, of course, Romans. So then they create the Roman camps.

Then they create the chief and the barred and the draught and the draughts. Druid based on the things that they remember learning at school about Galls. And they say within about half an hour, we had the whole basis of the story laid out. Well, let's dig a bit into, as you say, the, why does Gawl, why, why did they stop when they hit Galls? And as you say, why did it resonate so much? From 1870 to, or 1871 to 1950, there was a, primary school textbook and every single French child in primary school, so millions of children over those years, learned the phrase, our ancestors were the Gauls. And they learned about Versingotorix. And they have, so it was written by a fellow called Ernest Lavis and it was called

the little Le Pete Lavis. And there were all sorts of pictures of Gaulish villages of big strong galls with broad shoulders and blonde plaits. And this is really significant. This book is developed in the wake of another national humiliation, which was the Franco-Prussian War. And the Franco-Prussian War, France is invaded by Germany and loses Alsace to Germany, and they don't get it back until after the end of World War I.

And this is an enormous national humiliation. And this is a story. So this happens at a moment when primary school education becomes obligatory and is secular. And so this is a kind of uniting narrative. It is a narrative that is deliberately designed to bring together little children from Brittany, from the south of France, from the north of France into this one narrative. And so Gossini and Udaozal were children who went through the schooling schoolings, system who learned this, this kind of phrase, our ancestors, the Gauls, is available to every

French person. And this is why they had also that knowledge at their fingertips, Romans, bards, druids, chiefs. So they understood what they said was that the Gauls were like our wild west. One of the reasons I really wanted us to dig into this is I think it's a thing that be really easy to overlook. And I always say that history doesn't repeat, as the saying goes, it echoes. And I think this is one of those wonderful connections you see in these kind of things where people are inspired by things that were also inspired by similar events. So what we end up with with Asterix, and we'll talk a bit in about its impact on post-war fronts. But it's in some ways a product of a similar impact in terms of a national crisis that happened after the

Franco-Prussian war. So, listeners, you've got one of these historical echoes here. You know, the same thing that produces the textbooks, the education style that creates this, this gaudish fascination after the Anglo-Franco-Prussian War echoes again after another war against a Germanic people, this time the United Germanic people, to give us asterisk. And then that, like, I just, we have to remember that this is it. History echoes. But, yeah, so you've really described nicely how this comes together and where the characters come from. How does this get into print and what happens after it gets into print?

So the very first issue of Pilot on page 20, and it's the fifth cartoon in the magazine, not the first one, there's a full page. The very first page, what becomes the very first page of the volume asterix, the gall? And every week they publish another page. So this is a weekly magazine. And so they're working very hard to get this ready every week. And very quickly this becomes popular and they start getting mail. And very quickly children start sending in drawings. If it doesn't appear one week, they get letters besieged by letters asking where it's gone.

The popularity comes very quickly. But at the same time, the magazine is going financially bankrupt, and it's at the point of failure, and it's bought by another would-be publishing mogul, a fellow called George Dalgou, for one franc, and he puts Gosini in charge as editor. Dalgou becomes the publisher of the volumes. So, 1959 is the first issue of Pilot. 1961, Dalgoor decides he's going to bring out volumes of the comic series that are doing well in the magazine.

So 1961, the very first volume, album of Asterix, and that's Asterix the Gore, is published. And for listeners who are unfamiliar with what other than the short bit I read at the D.E. beginning about how the English translations always start. Asterix as a series is very much about the Gauls holding out in this village in Brittany fighting against the surrounding Romans. It is absolutely jam-packed with both history and humour. We'll talk in a second about what form that humour takes. But it's aimed at children, but it's not afraid to lean on literary and cultural references from outside.

side of that, which what really makes it fascinating, I think, as a cultural piece of history as much as anything else. But all of their adventures, as, as, as duties described, are as much about, it starts very much in that village and in the defence that village, but Gozni has always had this desire to do the things abroad. So you get asterix in Britain, you get asterix and the goths using the English names of these things. You get them asterisks in the black gold, another one of my early purchases, which is effectively about them going to the Middle East and trying to find petraolium, as it's translated in English, which is the mysterious black ingredient that the druid uses in the potion that gives them extra and amazing strength. And that extra

and amazing strength is how they can hold out against the mighty Roman Empire. As a massive swerve in that one, I love. And spoilers, if you'd never read a asterisk and black gold, is they go on this massive mission to try and get this ingredient, get back and find that actually the druids worked out how to replace it with something far tastier. and they didn't need to go at all. And I just love that there's almost a mad magazine element to that of just the entire book is effectively useless. They didn't have to do any of it.

But that, in summary, gives you an idea of what their adventures are like. Asterix and Cleopatra, when they meet Cleopatra, all of these things kick in. And what they do is create opportunities for Asterix and Obelix to encounter other characters. And the humour comes from those, their observations both of themselves and their own culture, and of the other cultures and the people from other cultures they're encountering.

In the French originals, what form does that humour tend to take and what references does it pull on? So lots and lots of puns. And Gossini would basically, he would say that he would stuff as many jokes as he could into the books. I think the characterisation, he works on the characters themselves and the relationship. between Asterix and Oblex. And the fish must are the running jokes, the fishmonger whose fish aren't fresh, the barge who's singing is off.

And also then the characters and the premises of the story. My favourite is Asterix in Switzerland, I have to say, and the way he pokes fun at the Swiss. But he also stuffs it full of references. And I think that one of the reasons for the extraordinary success of the books is to think about them as a great big in-joke. Because he has, Udell-Zor draws actors. So in the books who people would recognize, TV hosts and TV is brand new. So this is a big thing.

So there's sometimes a figure pops up and it's clearly a cartoon drawing of, of, someone who's well known. Jacques Chirac comes up at some point. So there's that. There are references to songs. There are Shakespearean references, references to films. So Asterix and Cleopatra is the whole opening section is a spoof on the film. You know, this many bottles of ink, this many hours drawing.

If you know the beginning of the film, it's a similar sort of thing. So any kind of cultural reference that he could draw on, he would pull down into the books. And yeah, I like Asterix and Cleopatra is a really good example for that. Like, as I say, it's one of my first. And so many of those jokes as a kid just go straight over your head. There's an entire, all the way through there's references to her nose. But like, it's all of those references go through you. But it doesn't. matter if you're a kid because actually you're picking up the vibe, you're picking up the puns, and it's almost like there's an onion aspect to it. The reason I think they hold their relevance, the reason people still pick them up and read them now is because it's almost as each time you

age up, you almost unlock another layer of humor within those books. You can go back and read them now as an adult and you will find things that genuinely make you laugh that you had not read as a kid. Let's, so this, this explodes in popularity as you've talked about. And we should spend a bit of time talking about what that actually has in terms of cultural and economic impact on France at the time. Because remember, listeners, we are still very much at this point. We're talking early 60s moving forward as these books are becoming incredibly popular. There are at a point where French culture, as it is in Britain in a similar way, is at a tipping point where economically the country is at a tipping point. Maybe let's talk

briefly about the economic side of this first. And then we'll dig into the culture. side. But what's the sort of the economic outcome of this? So in the post-war, Francis is kind of behind the rest of Europe and the UK. It's still overwhelmingly rural. It doesn't have a great deal of industry. And it experiences, every country has its own name for it, right? In France, they're called the 30-glorious years. So really up until the oil shock of the mid-70s. where the economic leap ahead is extraordinary, but massive changes, massive urbanisation,

massive changes to farming and farming methods. So you have to think tractors, refrigerators, TVs, cars, huge kind of mechanisation. And at the same time, then a kind of democratisation of culture. So the transistor radio is kind of, comes in at this time and it's really, really important because rather than a whole family gathered around a great big heavy radio that has to be plugged in, young people can carry this thing around with them and listen to whatever they want to listen to. There's the advent of

TV. So culture is kind of shifting also. And you get then also the rise of consumption and advertising and marketing, which are new things or take on new forms in the post wall. And the Asterix series rides this wave. So very quickly there are demands to use Asterix in advertising and merchandise. And they sign up to a brand new company that manages this. They charge companies a fortune to use Asterix. And he's never, allowed to speak. You can only have his image. But, you know, the laughing cow cheese, for example, so they pay up, and you also have to pay a proportion of your profits. They decide, they put Asterix on the cover, and their sales go up 28%. Right. So people, Asterix becomes this hot property.

And it can, I mean, there's this story where in the same year it's used to sell butter and Margarine. So, I think one of the stories of the success of the series is that they really, they really latch onto this and they understand the significance of this. And as I said, they ride this way. And culturally, as you say, the reason they can ride this wave, in fact, actually, I'm going to absolute sidebar on this before we go and just as you talk about them becoming the face of effectively laughing cow cheese.

This is another one of those wonderful historical. ripples because the reason Laughing Cow is called Laughing Cow cheese is because the guy behind it, that was what was painted on the side of the ambulance he drove when he was used to taking supplies to relieve the fort of Vodan in World War I. So again, you've got all these key moments in French cultural history, almost combining up. But yeah, the reason it can ride this merchandising wave is one of the, the asterisk is one of the very first, what we would call now an audiobook. It's one of the first things to get a sort of audiobook version and then on a record. But why is it having this huge, why is it resonating so much with the French at the time?

So France in the post-war, in the immediate post-war, they're not in a good way. They have suffered a really humiliating defeat in 1940. They're overrun in about three weeks. and then they basically experience a civil war throughout the Second World War and they have this highly effective collaborationist regime. And this is a really difficult past. They come out of the war and almost immediately from 1954 onwards

into, first of all, a humiliating defeat in Indochina. and then a long-drawn-out eight-year brutal war of independence in Algeria. So they have experienced national humiliation and they are experiencing the loss of their colonies, which in itself is also a kind of sense of humiliation. Charles de Gaulle, who very quickly becomes president, is trying to basically puts him, in place a myth that the majority of the French resisted.

He's trying to find a way to bind the French again, to find a kind of national narrative. But Asterix gives the French a workable past. Asterix lets them leap over the events of the Second World War, and in a way to just completely forget about that. And instead, you go right back to Gauls. and the, so part of the research for this book has been hundreds of newspaper articles about the books and reactions to the books in the press.

And what is extraordinary is that the overwhelming story is people saying, well, of course, this is us. This is exactly who we are. So I think that it's, it's for the French, it's a workable story. It's a story that gives them a kind of narrative of themselves that is comfortable. And of course, in Asterix, they are the colonized. They are not the coloniser. I think also this is kind of key as they're experiencing these brutal wars of decolonization.

But also this is the moment when in the 60s the French start to think of themselves or France as the hexagon. So there's a kind of turning inwards. They no longer think of themselves as a great imperial power. they have to learn to think of themselves as a great nation and de Gaulle really works on that. But again, Asterix serves that because he gives them a past that says, you know, we were the, and all the narratives about them,

yes, this is us, we were the plucky little guys, we stood up to the bullies, this kind of story. And it really is quite extraordinary, but the response, the kind of embracing of this, is overwhelming. It's a history and an era they can retrieve, as you say, because they're not the colonizers there,

they're the being colonized, but they can retrieve it because it didn't exist in a way that could be co-opted by fascists in other ways, in a pre-war way. So I always think it's a really interesting comparison with Italy, because Italy does not have the ability in that period to go back to the Roman Empire and say, actually, let's remember how great we were as Romans,

because Mussoluni had already co-opted that in the pre-war environment for his Italian fascist narrative. So what Gazini and Adazzo do, as you say, is they unlock an entire area of French history that French can go, actually, that's the bit we want to associate ourselves with now. That's the bit we're going to rebuild our myth on. And I think when you view it through that window, it's not hard to see why it just became so unbelievably popular in France. I mean, one thing I know you've said to me is like it's, It's not really an exaggeration to say that every France and every household in France has a full or near complete full set.

And you must, it must be an interesting one to do in your research because you've got access to the Gazzini archive. And you say you've seen hundreds of newspapers, but you've talked to me as well about fan mail and just how much fan mail is there. Yes, yes. So it's extraordinary to work in a private archive and it's in a, the Gossini archive is in a very shishi part of Paris on the, Avenue Victor Hugo, which runs down from the Chances at Art de Triorff. And they have the publishing arm there of Nicholas, which is another Gossini production. In English, I think it's called Little Nicholas, and it's just absolutely wonderful. And they have the archive and a full-time archivist.

Gossini's daughter, Anne, is also an author of children's books. So she has her offices there as well. and I was given access to his correspondence. And this includes general correspondence, all sorts of letters from very well-known people and fan mail that he kept. And sometimes the most gloriously loopy fan mail was people getting fully into the joke

and completely identifying one fellow who lives, near Dijon, styles himself as a Gaulish warrior and writes these letters in sort of completely co-opting ideas of, Gaulish kind of ideas and language in, you know, come and visit and park your chariot in the laying behind the house. And yeah, yeah, and we'll drink some hydramil to your health. And, yes, so it is, it is a wonderful read. And so for the rest of the main part this podcast, well, I want us to get across to listeners and what we'll cover for your listeners is. I want to talk a bit about, in brief about the process of translation, but also look at, because it's death and its impact on both France and the series. But listeners, if you really, really, really want to know about the remarkable English translations and the person behind them, we'll talk a bit about the two people behind them in a second.

but also if you really just want to geek out on some asterix name puns that stuff is going to be in the extra episode because we just do not have time to cover everything we would dearly love to cover in the main bit but we'll try and cover a little bit of that in the main podcast but genuinely you're going to have to get the extra bit

if you want all of that so with that warning in place let's continue now and look at briefly look at the English translations because obviously the first English translations comes in. Well, and this is translated everywhere in Europe in particular. We should be clear on that.

The English translations in particular are Andrea Bell, and I think it's Derek Hockridge, is it? Who works with her on that? So she is a literary translator. She's a literary translator with a bit of a focus already by that point on children's books.

But what she is is she's incredibly talented and good at taking at the pun side of things. and the reason or one of the reasons for that is she's actually the daughter of Adrian Bell who's the guy who effectively invents Times cryptic crossword. So she talks, has talked in later life about how one of the things that trained her

in being a good translator and particularly of works that need a bit of lateral thinking is because Adrian used to practice on his cryptic crossword clues on her and her brother when they were sat at the breakfast table as kids. And her brother, by the way, for English listeners,

as you will also recognize name of because her brother was Martin Bell who went on to become a legendary BBC journalist and broadcaster and briefly an independent MP. So this is the family of the people who are creating this. But we also mustn't overlook Derek as well. So Derek Hockridge was at the time, he was actually a professor at the University of Leicester and his specialism was in French culture.

So he was an English professor who was specialising in French culture and specialising in understanding, things like that. So you can almost see why, as a pairing, you've got a literary translator who is pretty good at lateral thinking and therefore translating puns and references combined with an expert in French literature and French society and French culture

creates the exact right combo for translating Asterix books. That to me is fascinating. There's almost an element of the right people coming together in the same way as Gazzini. and others I would do, isn't there? Yeah, absolutely. Translating, you know, asterix is very difficult

because it was written and because of what I think of as the in-jokes. Gossini had a method. Well, first of all, Gossini spoke fluent English in Spanish, so he could actually read the translations, but he would get the translations then translated back into French. and he would say if he understood the jokes,

then the translation was no good because the translation had to then speaking the vernacular, it had to have the in-jokes of the language it was translated into. And I met people who were absolutely convinced that Asterix was written in German, for example, because it is for them so thoroughly German. Asterix sold easily as well in Germany if not better than it deemframents.

But the German ones are a really good example as well of how much care Gazini put into making sure, as you say, those translations map to what he wants to get across because he rejects the entire first German translation of it because he feels it's too nationalist. Oh, well, in the 60s, there was a group who actually co-opted Asterix and these were neo-Nazis

and made him an extreme right-wing figure, basically exacting revenge on the Slavic eastern lands. Gossini got the lawyers in to stop them. Yeah, and I think that really sums up both how much, how protective they were of the character, not just for economic reasons, but because they knew the cultural side of it was just as important. And they knew that making it reflect the,

the cultural norms and the jokiness of the nation it was being translated in was just as important. And so the English translation, as I say, we'll talk a lot more about the role that they play in this, but 1969 is the first time that that comes out with the first translation of Asterick de Gaulle, enormously popular in English, just as much as it is in French. But one thing we'll briefly touch on here is it never really takes off in America, does it? and I've always wondered how much of that is. I mean, if you look at the name examples

and you say, like, the puns are so important to this in terms of, in terms of names, in terms of everything else. And I think a really good example of this is, so the chief,

who's obviously an important character, in French, and I'm going to butcher this, and I do apologize in advance, is, I think it's Aberra Corsix, which is effectively a double pun almost because it's,

It's sort of literally translates as with shortened arms. And he does have little stubby arms. Exactly. It's the combo. It's almost like it's both a physical reference. And it's also that if you hold your arms up in front of yourself in a defensive position. So it's both a sort of, it's a translation of a French idiom, but also a literal thing that works. And actually when Bell and Hockridge translate this into English, they go, we can't really capture

that second bit, but we can capture the first bit. So they go with actually he becomes vital statistics because they're like, right, well, actually, because he is very wide. So we can make a pun on the fact that actually it's his girth and that he is the stout defender. So it gets across the same idea as raising your arms in defense in a very similar way. But if you look at the first American translation of that character's name, it's macroeconomics. And it's like, well, there's no representation of that there. There's no capture of any of that. And do you, have you looked much at the American sightings?

Why do you think it didn't quite grab the Americans in the same way? I think there's something about the humour. The French will say that it's very English humour. I think that you, as you said, I think you can see traces of the Kurtzmann's sort of mad magazine humour. One of the things that they have in the archive is all the advertising, marketing material that was produced in the 1960s to try and break into the American market. And it's extraordinary because they talk about Asterix and his wacky friend Obelix.

And that, I think, is really an extraordinary misrepresentation of the UK English translation and the original French. So it's trying to speak to a kind of American idea of humour that the books don't work. that way. And I've always wondered how much of that is because, as you say, from an American perspective, they're trying to fit it into an existing framework of cartoons and comedy that people are used to. And if you look at, say, did the debut of the Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle happens before

this? And that, I think, is one of those things that you can almost see the Americans trying to go, well, we need to make it like that. We need to make it like that because that's what kids will get. They don't allow kids the sophistication. They don't go, this joke is it's okay if this joke. washes over someone. I mean, the last thing and maybe we'll touch on translation, the main podcast, is there's a fascinating account. We'll link to it in the show notes that Andrea Bell wrote,

called Asterix My Love, which is an article she wrote about her joy in translating it throughout her life. But she describes a nearly extent they'd go to to get these things right. And she talks, for example, about, so in Lacado de Cesar, so Caesar's gift is the English version of that. Gazzini's put a whole running joke through an in-keeping scene where Asterix effectively slips into the character of Serrano de Bergerac as he's fighting a sword duel with a Roman while composing a ballad. And as you said back to the beginning about the influences on Gazzini

is like it includes quotations from like Rostas, so Serrano's creator and they're just thrown around in this sword fight. Some of those maybe are going to get, a French kid's going to get, are they going to guess the kind of thing that it is, but they're not going to get everything. But when they translate that into English, they're not just there going,

well, let's just blanket translate that. They could go, let's just make that Serrano de Bergerac as well. It's vaguely known. But they don't. They effectively went, well, what's the most famous literary sword fight in English? And so if you read the English version,

it's effectively littered with Shakespearean quotes. It's effectively the, it's from Hamlet. It's Hamlet and Lirtis. and it's all the in-keepers' wife sort of advises her husband act with disdain, you know, and the Roman can then say, I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. These are, the care that's gone into that translation is huge. And we'll talk a bit more about that in the extra episode. But we should get to the tragedy of Gossini's death because he dies incredibly young, doesn't he?

Yes, he was 51. So November 177, he's doing a stress test in the cardiologist's office, and he has a massive heart attack. Which dark as it is, I do have to say, as I think, is exactly the way he would have wanted to go based on his sense of humour. Possibly, although maybe not quite so young. Not quite so young, definitely. Yes. And this is a, he dies in his wife's arms. This is a profound shock.

a deep and profound shock and headlines the next day. Asterix and Obelixar have been orphaned. Asterix has lost his daddy. All of call is in mourning. So fully in, and one of the things that's so fascinating about the French response is the slippage. Like there are people, or the way they write and talk about this, it's almost as though they believe this is real.

And you can see from the headlines that effect also, because they're quite serious these headlines. Not Gossini dies, that's the description in the article, but Asterix and Obelix have been orphaned. And this is, I mean, again, just countless newspaper articles and headlines. So the shock and the grief are really profound. In Le Monde, they say, so it's a major centrist newspaper, Gossini was to comics what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris.

We do need to also remember that with Eurzo, they're huge friends. They are so much a part of each other's lives. And just the absolute trauma that creates, It's not just for his family, but for Udazzo as well, who's now left in that situation of being almost the sole guardian of the characters they had created together. And the angst that must have created in him about,

do you continue this? Do you not continue this? And I think that's reflected as well, isn't it, in the arguments at the time? It's like, what happens now? Well, he, so Asterix in Belgium was half done. And he absolutely did not want to continue. and he was completely broken by Gorsini's death.

And Georges Dalgou, so the publisher, actually legally forced him to finish the volume, and he never forgave that. And when he could, he sold the rights to the Asterix volumes. They now belong with the French publisher Hachet. so he's forced to finish that volume and he takes a couple of years and eventually he decides that Gossini would have wanted him to continue and that's when he goes on and does several volumes where he writes does illustrations but also writes text and as you say that the thing with Asterix and Belgium is listeners if you've got a copy or you can

find a copy in the library, go have a look at it because you can see in that the sadness, the profound sadness, because if you, when you get to page 32, I think it's 32 or 33, beyond that, the colour of the sky changes. So he doesn't draw a blue sky in that comic after that point. Everything beyond that is grey skies, it's rain, and that's a deliberate mark of the point that's how far they'd got together before he died. And right at the end, if you look in the lower left corner of the final panel, you'll see a small rabbit sort of,

and it's sadly walking towards Gazzini's signature and looking at it, because you can just, it's heartbreaking as an adult, reading that book again, because you can feel the grief coming off the page. And I think there's, obviously, Asterix continues beyond that.

it continues even beyond those deaths and that in itself is somewhat controversial but I think the general agreement is they were a pair that were at their peak together and the later work was also good but I just think asterix and Belgium stands as that real marking point

if you have never read any if you read don't read that one first go read asterix to gall go read whatever one on the shelf looks and he takes you fancy but then make the second one you read asterix in Belgium because I think you really capture the emotional relationship between the two men in that.

I mean, well, look, thank you very much for joining me on the main episode of the podcast. I know it's a while before the book comes out, but where can people follow you, find you to make sure they're up to date when the book does come out? Because I don't think there can be many people who haven't listened to this episode. You can't now hopefully understand the historical context

of asterix and why it's important. So where can people find you online? So I have an official page at Monash University, but I will make sure, I'll be sure to post repeatedly on Blue Sky. And I'm just Julie Kalman on Blue Sky. When the book comes out, it's due, so it's being published by Princeton University Press,

and it's due there next March, and I'm working very hard to get it done, which means that with a bit of luck it'll be out either very late 2027 or first thing, 2008. Amazing. Well, look, I'm going to give the last word here to Anthea because I think as a translator, I think she said something years ago that I think really captures the spirit of these books. But extras, listeners, hang around because we're going to talk more about Asterix.

You've absolutely won the extra bit on this one. So much more we can talk about and we'll talk about. listeners who aren't members, don't forget you can get access to those at Untitled-Dashhistory.com. You can sign up there that's going to get you ad-free episodes. It's going to get you the extra bits.

It's going to get you all the weird stuff I post between them, which is random history things I find on YouTube and papers and articles and stuff that you might find interesting or a good weekend watch. So sign up there. And if you've enjoyed this episode, please remember that it's really, really hard for us to get this podcast in front of people,

harder than it is for most history podcasts. Precisely because we're trying to bring you stories like this. We're trying to not cover exactly the same thing that's been trodden over thousands of time on YouTube and Spotify to bring you unique content. But the positive of that is it's great to listen to, we hope. The negative is it makes it really hard for things like YouTube or Spotify to know how to recommend us to people.

So word of mouth is huge for us. Spread the word. If you've enjoyed this, if you know an asterix fan, send them this link. If you know a French cultural historians, send them this link. You know, pop it on WhatsApp, talk about it on Blue Sky or Mastodon or X if you really have to, Instagram and TikTok. But share the message and get the story out. But extra listeners, you're going to really enjoy the extra bit on this one. But for main episode listeners, I'm going to leave you with the words of Anthea Bell, one of the society did key figure in translating the English versions.

because I think she captures asterix entirely. And so years ago she wrote this. I would call the comedy not solely French but European. French children's history books traditionally open with a tribute to Nossin-Tres-Legroix-Legroix. There you go. You're far better at saying it than me. Seller and Yeatman's book, 1066 and all that, the sort of the English comedy history book that was so influential.

and the television series is Up Pompeii and Blackadder are in the same tradition. All of us in Europe enjoy making anachronistic fun of the past. I think that absolutely encapsulates what makes these books great. So thank you for joining me on this on this adventure so far, Julie. Hopefully you've enjoyed it as well. Oh, yes, absolutely. Perfect. In which case, we will now carry on to the extra bit, and extra listeners, we will see you there.

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