Asterix is a fictional character, created in 1959 as the hero of a series of French comic books written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo. Uderzo has continued the series since the death of Goscinny in 1977.

The 33 main books have been translated into more than 100 languages and dialects and one of the most popular french comic books in the world with people of all ages. The key to the success of the series is that it contains comic elements for all ages: young children like the fist-fights and other visual gags, while adults appreciate the cleverness of the allusions and puns that sparkle throughout the texts. Especially the names of the characters. Asterix is a small but fearless and cunning warrior, alive around 50 BC in a fictional village in northwest Armorica (Brittany). This village is celebrated as the only part of Gaul not yet conquered by Julius Caesar and his Roman legions. The inhabitants of the village gain superhuman strength by drinking a magic potion prepared by the druid Getafix (French: Panoramix). The village is surrounded by the ocean on one side, and four unlucky Roman garrisons on the other.

Asterix' parents are former villagers who now live in the city of Condatum (Rennes), and he has cousins in Britannia [Britain]. He shares his birthday with his clumsy, oversized, but extremely strong and good-hearted best friend, Obelix. An occasional running gag is that his age is 'indeterminate'.One of Asterix’s most visually engaging features is his helmet, the wings of which mirror his expressions. Everywhere they visit, Asterix and Obelix encounter people and things borrowed and caricatured from 20th century real life.

In Asterix and the Goths, for instance, the Goths (early Germans) are represented as militaristic and regimented, The helmets worn by these Goths even resemble the German Pickelhaube helmets worn up to World War I and one of their leaders bears an uncanny resemblance to Otto von Bismarck. The British are shown as polite and phlegmatic, drinking warm beer or hot water with a drop of milk (before the first tea has been brought to what would become England by Asterix); they boil all their food and serve it with mint sauce, and they drive their chariots on the wrong side of the road.

Spain is the cheap country down south where people from the North go on vacation and the locals are proud and hot-blooded. The French are not exempt from satire, and almost all of the peoples Asterix meets are portrayed positively, even the Romans. The only tribe depicted completely unflatteringly is the Goths, possibly a result of the Second World War.

Some caricatures of the traits of certain French regions are also used: people from Normandy smother their food in cream and cannot give a straight answer; people from Marseille play boules and exaggerate matters, and Corsicans don't like to do any work, are easily angered and have generations-long-standing vendettas that they settle violently, and make cheese that smells so bad that it actually becomes an explosive.

French adults and children love Asterix - so we will be featuring him occasionally - good learning books for all ages- characters names have meanings. ..Ed