“The White Iris”, a new “Asterix” good for zygomatix

2023-10-25 20:07:54
Excerpt from the new “Asterix”, “The White Iris”, scripted by Fabcaro and drawn by Didier Conrad. 2023 HACHETTE LIVRE / GOSCINNY / UDERZO

Tired of kindness? Fed up with positive thinking? So read L’Iris blanc (Albert René, 48 pages, 10.50 euros), the new album ofAsterix, which comes out Thursday, October 26. It may relax your zygomatic muscles, and you will simply relax, without resorting to the advice of a personal development expert.

Scripted for the first time by Fabrice Caro, aka Fabcaro – replacing Jean-Yves Ferri, who wanted to take a break in order to complete a project left fallow twelve years ago (De Gaulle in Londonto be published) – and still designed by Didier Conrad, the flagship series with 393 million albums sold targets the well-being market.

The social satire dear to its creators, René Goscinny (1926-1977) and Albert Uderzo (1927-2020), operates again for the benefit of one of the funniest opuses since the relaunch ofAsterix in 2013, at the initiative of Hachette Livre, owner of Albert René editions.

Read the interview: Article reserved for our subscribers Fabrice Caro, comic book author: “I like people who fail, they are the ones I remain attached to”

Fortieth title in the collection, L’Iris blanc perhaps has only one weakness: sometimes recalling one of the peaks of the original series a little too much, Discord. In this album published in 1970, a special envoy from Caesar, Tullius Détritus, managed to sow discord within the village of diehard Gauls by pitting its inhabitants against each other. Finding Asterix smarter than him, the manipulator will end up seeing his practices turn against him.

To deceit, Fabcaro added sycophancy, dispensed by a chief physician of the Roman armies named Vicevertus, keen on ontology and esotericism. He receives a mandate from Caesar, who no longer knows how to raise the morale of his troops, among whom mutinies and desertions are multiplying: if Vicevertus manages to ” submit ” Asterix and company, his method will be applied to all Roman soldiers.

Excerpt from the new “Asterix”, “The White Iris”. 2023 HACHETTE LIVRE / GOSCINNY / UDERZO

Obviously, the screenwriter had fun making fun of the flourishing sector of personal coaching, likened to a scam that is more contemporary than ever. Indiscriminately bamboozled by the barker, Romans and Gauls converted to hypertolerance, indulged in physical exercise, and ate seeds.

The fishmonger Ordralfabétix and the blacksmith Cétautomatix no longer send each other slaps but sweet words to settle their differences. The elder Agecanonix begins to gallop since the guru saw in him a “lascivious body carved in marble (…) with affirmed wisdom ». The leader, Abraracourcix – “handsome man with the voice of a majestic animal that makes hearts vibrate” –, begins to worry about the situation, like Asterix. What if the strategy of this smooth talker consisted of dulling the vigilance of the Gauls in order to better subjugate them?

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