The 40th album of the adventures of the famous Gaul is expected for October 26. It will stage Asterix and Obelix facing a new philosophy of life advocated by Julius Caesar.
Asterix’s next album, a humorous fable about “positive thinking” and personal development, will be titled White Irisannounced the Albert René editions on Monday.
This 40th adventure of the Gaul with the magic potion must be published on October 26. The screenplay is signed Fabcaro, for the first time. In the drawing, we find Didier Conrad, who took over the series in 2013 after the retirement of Uderzo.
Julius Caesar’s New Age Thought
In this 1st century BC, the White Iris is the name of a new school of thought, coming from Rome, which advocates benevolence, healthy living, individual fulfillment. Among its precepts: “To light up the forest, the flowering of a single iris is enough”.
The Roman emperor Julius Caesar has the idea of instilling this state of mind in his demoralized troops, stationed near the Gallic village which resists in Armorica. What no one has foreseen is that this popular philosophy, which recommends among other things to eat much less wild boar, will enter the village. And divide the pro and anti-Iris white.
“I’m not too New Age but the album is not intended to be a criticism of this whole movement”, assures Fabcaro to AFP.
“As long as personal development has positive effects, why not? I don’t use it too much, but if it works for some people, I don’t generalize.”
Asterix, mirror of certain news
“I want to treat this contemporary phenomenon as Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny did at the time. For example, in Obelix and Companyan album that I really like, they talked about capitalism and the concentration of companies, with humor”, he adds.
Asterix is a phenomenon in bookstores. Each new album, every two years in the fall, exceeds the sales of any other book. White Iris Should thus be printed in five million copies worldwide.
According to Albert René editions, this series started in 1961 has been translated into more than a hundred languages and dialects (from Afrikaans to Vietnamese via Latin, Occitan or Swabian). Sales reached 393 million copies in total.
