Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo dies at 92
PARIS: Albert Uderzo, the co-creator and illustrator of the Asterix and Obelix comics that delighted legions of children and adults over the past six decades, has died aged 92, his family said Tuesday.
“Albert Uderzo died in his sleep at his home in Neuilly, after a heart attack that was not linked to the coronavirus. He had been extremely tired for the past several weeks,” his son-inbrought law Bernard de Choisy told AFP.
Uderzo created Asterix in 1959 with the fellow Frenchman and writer Rene Goscinny, who them to life in Frenchbelgian comics magazine Pilote.
The adventures of the shrewd and indomitable Gaul, with his winged helmet and blond moustache, and his massive sidekick Obelix as they gleefully thwarted Roman legionnaires became a huge hit, with translations in dozens of languages.
The series has extended into 38 books, most recently “Asterix and the Chieftain’s Daughter” from last year. Uderzo had stopped illustrating the series in 2011, having carried on alone after Goscinny’s death in 1977.
Nearly 1.6 million copies of “The Chieftain’s Daughter” were sold last year in France alone, putting it at the top of bestseller lists. Both men are considered founding fathers of modern comics and graphic novels, with 380 million of their books sold worldwide. He took up his crayons for one of the last times in 2015, to draw Asterix in homage to fellow illustrators and others killed in a jihadist massacre at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.