Asterix comics in the US?

Cafe Society
1

Inspired by a recent mention by an American here: how well known are the Asterix comics in the US? Are they commonly available? Do people outside fringe “Euro comics” circles know about them?

It’s been 20 years since I last read an Asterix story, but I recall them being superbly drawn and written. Truly funny, especially to a history / fantasy buff. Asterix has sold (tens) millions throughout Europe and the characters are real household names here. How is it in America? I’d thought they’re practically unkown there.

2

They exist, mostly through specialty comics store, in TPB collections only.

Not well known outside of the comics community. I have a collection.

3

When I was a kid, the Washington Post ran the strip for a while, that was my first and only exposure to it.

4

It’s unusual for any Americans to know what they are. There was a set of trade paperbacks a few year back; I found them unreadable (and I read every comic I get my hands on). I don’t think they translate all that well, and the humor is too broad.

5

Only the broadest of the humor translates. The subtle puns and social commentary are lost on Americans.

I remember seeing an annotated Asterix once, which explained that (for example) this character in this story is drawn as a caricature of the famous Belgian Olympic marathoner Blah-blah.

Personally, I liked them when I read them in the early Eighties. I have been able to use “These Romans are crazy” in everyday conversation, but only one other person has picked up the reference.

6

I haven’t read them sine the early 80s. When I found they made a live action Asterix movie I emailed my sister about it but she didn’t even remember who Asterix and Obelix were. Even within comic book circles I don’t believe most Americans are familiar with the characters.

7

Maybe it’s because my parents are Indian, as are most of their friends, but I grew up on Asterix comics, and most of my friends growing up knew who the characters were, at least.

8

I had a British nanny for a while. (Okay, after-school day-care, but I like British nanny better.) She had tons of Asterix comics. It was my favorite thing in the world for the time I was there. It took me a while to understand why I never saw them in general circulation.

9

Have you checked your local library system? My library has several copies of just about every one of them.

10

They’re more widely available than most people think, especially in larger cities. I’ve seen them n sale in New York, Boston, Cambridge, Rochester NY, and Salt :Lake City, and I’m certain there are others.

I’ve known about Asterix since 1967, when the newspapers ran a sytory about him in connection with Canada’s Expo67. Ever since, I’d kept an eye out for them. I’bve got quite a collection, which I’ve used to introduce our daughter to them. The books have recently been republished in the US, so they’re definitely available. Check out Amazon or one of the other on-line sellers.

Incidentally, they were published in Britain in the standard format paperback size, in black and white. I have two of these editions.
There have been Asteric cartoons and Asterix live action movies (with Gerard Depardieux as Obelix!!!), but try and find these in the US! I’ve seen one or two of the cartoons, but only clips from the live-action movies.

One thing that bothers me is that the books were translated in Britain, so the jokes are slanted that way. Evidently it bothered people that Harry Potter has a “Philosophers Stone” enough to change that for US audiences, but it doesn’t bopther them enough that the Asterix books are crammed with Britishisms that don’t make much sense to an American audience. Oh well, it’s a good way to catch up on your non-American culture. Examples include:

“licenses to listen to the Town Crier” – referring, obviously, to TV licenses

Jokes about “Bangers” = “sausages” and “explosives”.

Joking about constantly exercising and working out and comparing it to a “holiday camp”

Jokes that depend upon knowledge of French Lessons.

It’s pretty clear to me that many of the jokes in the British editions aren’t in the original French editions. In many cases, it’s because English-language puns obviously don’t translate directly into French. In one case, they kept the French coloring, but altered the drawing, creating a weird effect. They turned a joke about a chariot wheel/tire into a Michelin Man gag that clearly wasn’t in the original.

One joke that is in the British edition puzles me. It’s in Asteric in Britain, and the Romans have confiscated a bunch of barrels, looking for the one containing the Druid’s potion. Predictably, after much tasting, the legionaires get drunk, and start going hic…hic…hic. To anyone with even a few months of Latin (and the Asteric books are filled with jokes about studying Latin), you think that they’ll start going hic…haec…hoc. In the British edition, they do. But in the original French edition I looked at, they didn’t! I can’t believe Goscinny and Uderzo missed that.

My biggest complaint, though, is the way they “translated” the names for the British editions. Asterix and Obelix are unchanged, which works. Ideefix could have remained the same, but I suppose it was inevitable that it became “Dogmaatix”. Most of the others they did a good job on. But the Druid, who is Panoramix in the original French, became “Getafix” in the translation, which makes him sound like a drug pusher. Inappropriate, even granted the Magic Potion and other things. It’s like naming Dumbledore “Cocaine”.

11

Yeah, growing up, all of my friends had Asterix and Tintin, and we would quote them constantly. It was baffling when I found out that it was just us, not Canadian society as a whole.

12

Growing up in California, I had a huge collection of Asterix comics. Magazine-sized, and in full color. Great stuff, but not as good as TinTin.

13

I have quite a few of the Asterix comics. We got them as presents from dad when he came back from European business trips.

I have seen them in Barnes and Noble. But that is only in the last 10 of 15 years. Before that I never saw them in the states.

14

I have a bunch a relative used to bring back from England for me. About eight or ten of the first series, I guess. My Junior High School library had a bunch too.

15

I knew about and enjoyed them growing up in the early 80’s. They were definitely not common, but our library had some and they were for sale in a good mainstream bookstore.

My favorite was The Mansions of the Gods.
I’ve gone back and read a few as an adult and have enjoyed them but not as much as I did earlier.

16

Do you mean don’t translate to America, or to English? Because I always hold the Asterix comics up as one of the best translations of foreign humour into English I’ve encountered. It’s not Tin-tin, but it’s better than a lot of other French-language comics I’ve read in translation.

17

I’ve got to say, though, that’s a pretty fantastic translation, since it maintains the general gist of the French, while introducing an additional (if obvious) pun in the English.

18

My husband wears an Asterix T-shirt that I got in Korea. Occasionally we’ll run into someone who recognizes it, but not often.

19

We grew up on Asterix (and Tintin), but that’s not quite normal. My daughter likes reading them now, though she’s a little young for them–she gets Tintin better. Now that I’m an adult and am studying a bit of Latin, I go back through them and see that I missed an awful lot of the jokes.

I would say that most Americans aren’t familiar with Asterix comics–but it’s not just Euro-comics folks that know them. They’re only slightly less well-known than Tintin.

20

I read up on Asterix a little while ago, and the consensus is that it’s an amazing translation, not so much because it’s literal but because it captures the spirit of the original script, changing things around so what was a pun in French stays a pun in English, even if the literal meanings are different.