Asterix has encountered all kinds of villainous characters since the release of the first album of his adventures more than 60 years ago. In the 40the The volume of the series, which launched on Thursday, sees brave little Gaul face a positive thinking guru who is trying to sow chaos in the village.
His name is Vizevertus, he multiplies proverbs that mean nothing, and he advocates kindness, healthy eating, meditation, and personal achievement. In The White Iris, the new Asterix album, this charismatic guru of Julius Caesar will succeed in turning the inhabitants of the village of die-hard Gauls against each other, especially through the seduction of Bonnemine, the wife of the chief Abraracourcix.
Fabcaro – real name Fabrice Caro – in an interview by videoconference on Tuesday.
“He is a guru character who tries to access a form of power through seduction. He exploits his position to have control over people who are losing their camp.”
Since the first albums, the authors of Asterix have always oscillated between village and travel stories. With L’iris blanc, Fabcaro and the designer Didier Conrad respected this tradition.
“When the publisher asked me to write a synopsis, I asked him whether it had to be a village story because of the previous album [Astérix et le Griffon] was one of travel. He told me that it was indeed a tradition to alternate between the two, but that it wasn’t mandatory.
“But despite everything, I still preferred to make a village album. The characters in the village are so strong that I wanted to have fun with them. So it’s pretty good timing, says Fabcaro, who succeeds Jean-Yves Ferri, the screenwriter of the five previous Asterix albums.
On the day he was offered to write the 40th album in the Astérix series almost two years ago, French cartoonist Fabcaro immediately had a thought of the six-year-old boy he was when he first experienced the adventures The famous discovered Little Gaul.
“I read my first Asterix album when I was six. “It was love at first sight and I have been reading Asterix my whole life,” says Fabcaro.
“There are so many reading levels that you can read Asterix over and over again throughout your life. It works at 10 years, at 15 years and at 30 years. It is one of the “comfortable” readings that have accompanied me since childhood. At the age of 6 you read your first Asterix and at 48 you are told that we thought of you, that you should write a new Asterix album. C’est surrealiste!”
Fabcaro became known to comic fans with his graphic novel Zaï Zaï Zaï Zaï, published in 2015. Even if the absurd humor of his books differs from the good-natured humor of the Asterix albums, the 50-year-old cartoonist did not have any problems adapting to the tone of the comics created more than 60 years ago by the late René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo were created.
“The fact that it was very codified helped me a lot,” he admits. There are so many codes to respect that it becomes difficult to leave the field. There is a space that you have to respect and you have to manage to have fun within that space. And we do it while always being guided by the masters Uderzo and Goscinny. “It’s the right way to be as natural for me.”
More than five million copies of L’Iris Blanc, Asterix’s 40th album, will go on sale worldwide this Thursday in twenty languages and dialects.