In an interview with “Journal du dimanche”, screenwriter Jean-Yves Ferri reveals that it will be a “travel” album, but the destination of the Gauls remains secret.
Le Monde avec AFP
The 39 th album of Asterix is expected for October 21, announced at Journal du Dimanche the scriptwriter Jean-Yves Ferri, who became one of the” fathers “of the irreducible Gaul with the cartoonist Didier Conrad.
” It is about ‘a “travel” album, since the last adventure took place in the village. Asterix and Obelix will leave for a new destination (…) this country does not really exist today as such “, indicated the screenwriter to the French weekly. “Each album is a small step towards bringing something new. And Obélix continues its slow psychological evolution”, he added.
Asked if he could still play on the clichés of the visited country , as this comic used to do, Mr. Ferri admitted that the task had become more complicated. “In the 1960s, Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny could laugh at foreigners, caricature the English with their big teeth, the Greeks with their Greek profile. The atmosphere was good-natured. Today, you almost need a dictionary on your desk to know what we are allowed to joke about or not, “he said.
” Playing with clichés is part of Asterix’s codes. But I don’t mind. move away a little. I’m lucky that my personal humor does not lead me to too frontal caricatures. In La Fille de Vercingétorix, I attenuated the way of making teenagers talk, for example, “continued the screenwriter .
A story approved by Uderzo
The 38 th album, “La fille de Vercingétorix”, by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad, was the best-selling book in 2019 in France, by far. Since 2013, the heroes imagined sixty-one years ago by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo (who died in November 1977 and last March respectively) have alternated between an adventure in the village and a trip.
“He was trying to talk about the coronavirus which affects the whole world, but I left that aside. The epidemic is a sad subject, full of anxiety. It is better to laugh at something else and wish that at the release of the album we have finally turned the page “, underlined Mr. Ferri. “Even so, you might find a hint of a potion that looks like a vaccine or a few winks.”