Albert Uderzo, co-creator of the phenominally successful (in Europe at least) Asterix the Gaul, turns 80 this Wednesday, which Deutsche Presse-Agentur uses as an opportunity to sit down and talk with the renowned artist:
The idea of the funny gallic duo first turned up in August 1959 in a Parisian Bistro where it took Uderzo and his friend and fellow comic author Rene Goscinny only 15 minutes to put down to paper the comic heroes, who later turned into national heroes.
‘If we had known then that we were going to be successful in such a way, we might have taken our time’, Uderzo said.
Among the revelations: He’s working on a new Asterix album and he’s color blind. I did not know that.
via Dirk
April 24th, 2007 at 11:20 am
To comemorate Mr. Uderzo’s birthday, tomorrow will be released a special comic in France and many other european countries. It will be done by A LOT of guest artists (including many of Europe’s top creators - and Stuart Immonen!) and it will be a sort of “crossover” book, where the gaul will meet dozens of other comic characters (including Uncle Scrooge, XIII and a dog that looks to me much like Krypto). Check out a preview:
http://www.asterix.com/80ans/indexalb.htm
Print run will be “limited” to 400k books (yeah, this is a SMALL print run for an Asterix book!) and all proceedings will go to a child defense charity. Classy!
Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)
April 25th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Happy Birthday, Dear Albert Uderzo! The Whole World Loves You!