London - Now that the Queen has returned to our cousins in Great Britain, British publisher Orion is planning to recommend to Her Majesty that she replace their favourite national drink. Elizabeth's tea, always carefully brewed with the water from Buckingham Palace (which Her Majesty always brings along in a container wherever she goes in the world), should actually soon be dethroned (!) by magic potion.
After five years of near-invisibility, the first Asterix albums are back on the plains of Albion. And what a comeback! The first six albums (from Asterix the Gaul through Asterix and Cleopatra) have not been released yet and they are already in their second printing. The British booksellers are delighted: Asterix is a Gaul whom our British friends absolutely adore!


Barcelona, Madrid - Five months after the Spanish release of the album Asterix and the Class Act, it is still at the top of the bestseller lists in Spain. Spaniards' enthusiasm for Asterix is reaching a crescendo, as they rack up sales in Castilian and Catalan. A large share of the credit is due to the new publisher, Salvat. The press campaign for our latest album was clearly a big success among our Iberian neighbours.
Twenty-first-century Spain is evidently very open to the appeal of the Gauls according to Goscinny y Uderzo. One proof of this is the latest publishing effort that is selling briskly at the kiosks (the newsstands that you see on the Ramblas, while enjoying your churos or tapas, depending on the time of day): a reduced format hardcover edition of the entire collection of 32 Asterix albums. ¡Viva España!

We promised it, and now we'll deliver. Night and day, we have been reading all the questions that you have sent to Albert Uderzo, at great risk to our eyesight, and after a bit of sparring - you can imagine that Monix was the toughest, since she clobbered Catarinix with a two-week-old trout until she got her way - we selected three questions to submit to him.
You may send your questions for the next missive to Doubleclix.

So here are the master's answers to his readers all over the world.

Question 1
Félix Bernier (Canada) : Which Asterix character do you think you resemble?

Albert Uderzo : "None of them, I hope! But I am not the best one to say. To tell you the truth, they say that an artist often draws himself without realizing it. So, some people in the course of my career have said I look like Laverdure (!) from the Tanguy series written with Jean-Michel Charlier, and later, others thought they could discern my features in those of Cacofonix. And, by Belenos, I sure would like to know why! "

Question 2
Raphaël (France) : Will the fairyland that sometimes appears in the panels of some short stories (from the Gallic Springtime to Chanticleerix) ever flood the Village in an Asterix album?


Albert Uderzo : "It's true that in some panels I have a little fun by slipping in references to the fairy tale realm. There are two things I can tell you about this. First of all, the imaginary world created with my friend René Goscinny was indeed built on magical themes. Without the Druid's magic potion, how would our heroes endure? That is indeed the secret of Asterix's strength. The second thing is connected to most of the series that I developed when I was younger. From Arys Buck to Belloy, many of the characters I developed were immersed in a more or less magical world, with miraculous potions and winged helmets. In the Asterix album, The Secret Weapon, I remember I even slipped in a dragon!"


Question 3
Esteban Lopez, (Mexico) : Como fue la idea de crear a Astérix ?

Albert Uderzo : "I am delighted to answer this Mexican reader's inquiry about the eternal legitimate question: how was Asterix born? After eight years of wonderful but financially meagre collaboration with René Goscinny, François Clauteaux's project for starting the magazine Pilote was the trigger for the Asterix idea. With the task of creating a series for the French public (meaning a series unlike the American ones that were invading the French illustrated periodicals market at the time), René and I had to find the magical idea. On a hot afternoon in the summer of 1959 - it must have been August - during the cocktail hour over a glass (or two) of pastis, René asked me to recite the history of humanity, from the very beginning. Like a good schoolboy, I began with prehistoric man, but Neanderthal and company didn't inspire René. Then I moved on to cite the Gauls, Vercingetorix… "It's a deal!" said René. And he began to invent an exhaustive dictionary of our communal culture, and I started to envisage the battles, a Druid and his magic potion. So with this and that and by Toutatis, Asterix and his friends were born in a matter of minutes on a balcony in the suburbs of Paris! "

From 1989 to 2004 makes fifteen years!
Yes, it has already been fifteen years that an "Amusement Village" to the north of Paris, at the border of the Picardie region, has been valiantly resisting the menace of boredom that has sadly invaded our globalised world! This year, Parc Asterix has renovated and enhanced Asterix's Village to restore it to its place as a must-see attraction. The park draws more than two million visitors per year. Festivities and banquets have been scheduled throughout the season - something to appeal to every stripe of visitor who may be strolling along the Via Antiqua! On my latest visit, I wasn't brave enough to take another whirl on Goudurix, the big roller coaster. My wife called me a coward. I told her that I would veni and vici! Now I'll have to - whew! that park can be a tough place for guys!