First, the Atelier des Lumières, then the Grévin Museum: Asterix celebrates with his friends, the diehard Gauls, his 65th birthday by investing in Lutèce… now called Paris.
It was on October 29, 1959 that the cunning villager and his cronies were born, from the imagination of screenwriter René Goscinny and designer Albert Uderzo, in the first issue of the weekly Pilote.
Popular with readers of this magazine, he remained a fairly confidential hero for several years. Until the publication of comic albums, which will give him immense notoriety.
Today, it is global. This is what the Atelier des Lumières, a digital and immersive art center based in a former foundry, in a formerly industrial district of eastern Paris, is banking on.
“Asterix, the immersive journey”, open from Friday, offers 40 minutes of indoor sound and light around the journeys of Asterix, his faithful friend Obelix and their dog Idéfix.
Quarrelsome, bon vivants
“I’m quite amazed. Very moved even,” Anne Goscinny, the screenwriter’s daughter, told AFP.
“To think that this universe which was created, on a balcony in Bobigny, near Paris, by two brilliant young authors, but who did not imagine for a second that 65 years later, there would be this show somewhere in Paris , it goes beyond the success story,” she continues.
One day when they were talking at Uderzo’s, in Bobigny, the two men, then aged 32 and 33, and responsible for launching a new series, had the idea of Antiquity and the Gauls. They would give them the faults and qualities that we attribute to the French: quarrelsome, good-natured, rebellious.
The “narrative pretext” at the Atelier des Lumières, as artistic director Patrick Vuittien explained to the press, is the kidnapping of the druid Panoramix by the Romans. As in the first album, “Asterix the Gaul”, in 1961.
From there, Asterix and Obelix will travel not only Gaul, but the rest of the world, to free the old man. Which is in the capital of the Empire, Rome.
We find, among others, the drawings of the tower of Londinium from “Asterix among the Bretons”, of the Atlantic from “The Great Crossing”, of Greece from “Asterix at the Olympic Games” or of India from “Asterix at Rahàzade”. On a very varied soundtrack, which ranges from Beethoven to rock.
«Artbook»
Asterix is a very profitable business for its beneficiaries, the families of the two creators, and its publisher, Albert René.
He launches a new album every odd year which sells millions of copies. The 40th, “The White Iris” in 2023, was another bestseller, benefiting from the curiosity around the new screenwriter, Fabcaro. However, since 2013 the design has remained the prerogative of Didier Conrad, very faithful to Uderzo’s graphics.
In even years, the Gauls found other variations. This time it will be the entrance to the Grévin museum. The wax statue of Asterix, Obelix, Dogmatix and a Roman will be visible from October 23.
The same day the “artbook” of the first album, “Asterix the Gaul”, was released. A “limited edition” for fans, with the reproduction, in a box, of Goscinny’s typescript on one side, and Uderzo’s original plates on the other.
Added to this are Idéfix et les Irréducibles, a series of comics created in 2021, or luxury reissues: five of them were published in 2024.
With the rest of Hachette Livre, of which they are one of the jewels, the Albert René editions passed at the end of 2023 into the ownership of Vivendi, owned by billionaire Vincent Bolloré.
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