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It’s competition time and exam time too: with baccalaureates, A-levels, high-school and college-entrance exams, pupils are revising, hoping to resit an oral, celebrating their success or anxiously awaiting their results … In the gb.asterix.com virtual village, there are exams all year round! Every month, the feared and dreaded Asterix Quiz gives you the chance to win Asterix prizes. But there’s only one catch: you have to know all the Asterix adventures inside out! We have five expert winners of our May Quiz, who will all be receiving two Astérix in Picard albums: Estelle Schouver, Sophie de la Vaissiere, Christelle Sverin, Véronique Guillot and Jérôme Delugeard.  But they’ll hardly have any time to rest on their laurels: a new Astérix Quiz is here, with prizes of two Asterix at the Olympic Games puzzles to be won by the lucky ones among you. It’s also the chance to discover our new set of pages dedicated to Asterix puzzles. And of course there’s no point in telling you that your favourite heroes, who love nothing more than to scatter Roman patrols “like jigsaw pieces”, have put all their heart and soul into designing these pages! |
Monday 30 June 2008
Tuesday 24 June 2008
Asterix: a Gaul in tempered steel!
 As Summer 2008 approaches and brings with it the promise of long days of sunbathing on the sandy beaches of Armorica, our indomitable Gauls are in top form. Fulliautomatix sums up the mood saying “We Gauls have steeled ourselves for 2008!”And it’s our music-loving blacksmith who brings us proof of this: two superb Asterix and Obelix embossed metal plaques, all ready to invade Gaulish shops. Produced to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first edition of the Asterix at the Olympic Games album, these two plaques capture two key moments of the adventure for eternity: Asterix in the athlete’s parade bearing the Gallo-Roman flag and the unforgettable encounter between Obelix and Gluteus Maximus.  As the stamp of authenticity (“certified Fulliautomatix production”) provided by Asterix’ blacksmith attests, these plaques are exceptionally high quality: printed in four colour process on 0.5mm-thick tin plate, they are painted and embossed to emphasize, among other things, Gluteus Maximus’s impressive set of muscles. 
And Fulliautomatix has thought of everything: four small holes allow you to hang these plaques on the walls of your Gaulish home.So then, how can you get your hands on one of them? Make a date for 18 June 2008, D-Day for the launch of these plaques in all participating Gaulish bookshops in France. And you will receive one of these two plaques free when you buy two Asterix albums, but beware: limited stock only! There’s bound to be some impromptu scrambling for these plaques from fans eager to add these Fulliautomatix-certified collectors’ items to their Asterix collection! |
Saturday 21 June 2008
The Tournament of Indomitables
The official asterix.com website
What excitement! Spectators had their hearts in their mouths during the 1st round of the 2008 Tournament of Indomitables! There have been some very tight matches, and a few surprises too… Everything needed to make the beginning of this tournament a memorable event. It’s very simple, with the exchange of virtual balls overseen by the Egyptian Ptenisnet, we have no idea of what to expect! 
The wonderful Miss Bicarbonatofsoda won against Bonanza in a pulsating encounter. Later, Semi-Automatix gave a lesson to Orthopaedix thanks to the precision of his slicing balls, while Cacofonix’s game plan stopped Cleverdix in his tracks with his singing exercises between shots!Nor have the big guns lost their nerve: Asterix, Obelix, Dogmatix and all the others will appear in the 2nd round. The only seed eliminated, Dubbelosix succumbed to the technique of his spying colleague Mintjulep. The pirates also had a rough time: Redbeard, defeated by a spirited performance from Pepe, and Pegleg, narrowly beaten at the net by Sarsaparilla, Asterix’s mother. All the results can be found in the official Tournament standings, and all the 2nd round matches can be followed live on our Gaulish circus. Get voting now! |
Tuesday 17 June 2008
The EncyclObelix - Miss Bicarbonatofsoda
Psychoanalytix's assistant, the sublime Miss Bicarbonatofsoda, is an expert in moral and psychological suffering, Lord knows she sees enough of them!Greeting patients in her role as the renowned therapist's receptionist, she ends up seeing some of the most difficult cases. She must therefore reassure the patient who has a morbid fear of the sky falling on his head,  who refuses to go anywhere without cowering under a shield, or the man who thinks he's a wild boar and who bothers the other patients with his sudden oinking (also stimulating Obelix's appetite since he can't hold out against the sound of a wild boar without thinking of a barbecue …). It has to be said that Psychoanalytix's surgery is a very lively place and that for Miss Bicarbonatofsoda some cases can become more problematic once they've been solved… Such as when Psychoanalytix demonstrates his talent by successfully healing the shy Barbarian who, once healed, wants to "catch up with his work", knocking out all the sick patients sitting in the "waiting glade"! More in the EncyclObelix |
Tuesday 10 June 2008
Asterix unveils his secrets in English
 Although Asterix, guided by his British cousin once removed Anticlimax, set off in 1965 for Britain and Londinium when Asterix in Britain appeared in Pilote French magazine, English readers had to wait until 1969 before finally discovering the adventures of Gaul's most famous son in their own language. A decade on from his creation, Asterix thus proved that he too could speak "in tongues" and be appreciated beyond Gaul's borders, not only in the United Kingdom, but also in the USA, India, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Translated by Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge, and reread very carefully by René Goscinny who was perfectly bilingual, Asterix albums have since become classics in countries whose comic-strip culture is largely based on oversized comic-book heroes.  An article by Anthea Bell which appeared on 7 May 2008 in The New York Sun gives an insight into just how challenging it is to translate an Asterix album. Under the heading "Asterix and his secrets", the article looks at the solutions that the translators found to adapt the countless wordplays and references which give Asterix albums all their spice.  
We go on to learn how the Roman legionaries, who "lose their Latin" [colloquial meaning in French "to be baffled, at a loss"] under the rain of blows being dished out by Asterix and Obelix instead "decline" in the English version, so that the grammar-based metaphor can be continued. Similarly, the words of Victor Hugo commenting on the terrible battles in Asterix in Belgium have been replaced in English with the words of Byron, Shakespeare and Milton referring to battles no less evocative than the Battle of Waterloo that the French poet depicted in "Les Châtiments".The success of Asterix publications in English has thus proved that Asterix unique sense of humour was not specifically Gaulish, as some critics claimed at the time, and that people from all around the world could have great fun reading the adventures of a little hero from Ancient Gaul. On this point, Anthea Bell explains that "the pictures speak for themselves", noting that she once saw some 8-year-old children who - without any knowledge of French - were immersed in a pile of French Asterix albums, able to follow the basic story line from the pictures alone! Today, when Anthea Bell is asked what she translated, she responds that her work ranges from Freud to Asterix. Then, comparing the Freudian slip with the use that Asterix's authors make of wordplay, she suggests that maybe Freud and Asterix aren't so far apart after all… Our erudite druids have conducted their own inquiry, at the end of which they discovered that in the original French version of the album Asterix in Britain, there was in fact a Roman called Claudius Lapsus! [Ed: A "Freudian slip" in French is "un lapsus révélateur"]. These Britons are crazy! |
Thursday 5 June 2008
Asterix ready for Roland Garros and Euro 2008!
The official asterix.com website
  Impedimenta made it quite clear to her "piggywiggy" husband: with sunny days filling a Gaulish sky that shows no sign of falling on our heads, there could be no more excuses for not doing a bit of sport and fighting that (slight) tubbiness which had been making life difficult for his two shield bearers recently.But far from acquiescing, Chief Vitalstatistix scowled back, fearing he would sweat to death under the beating sun. But it was either that or undergo another drastic cure under the care of druid Diagnostix in the spa town of Aquae Calidae (Vichy)… Luckily for Vitalstatistix, the virtual village gb.asterix.com will let you indulge in some sport without leaving your armchair, and have lots of fun to boot! The Gaulish ancestor of football competitions, the Champions Cup is a game whose success cannot be denied. Your task is to form the best team, with the help of the most talented indomitable characters from the Known World, to confront the fearsome line-up from imperial Rome.  Today some people still think that the tensions underlying all clashes between France and Italy date back to these exhilarating encounters in Asterix's time… So why not scale the lofty heights of the forthcoming Euro 2008 football tournament and play a match in advance?!If though, like Vitalstatistix, you prefer to practice individual sports, the new edition of our Tournament of Indomitables is for you. It's the "Gaulish Open", based on Roland Garros and presided over by the Egyptian Ptenisnet, and it's your votes that decide the winners!  |