For the first time, Asterix's readers will be able to (re) discover the very first album of the adventures of the little Gaulois with the 44 original plates in black and white, inked by Albert Uderzo, one learned Wednesday with the 'editor.
The album will cost 35 euros. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the publication of the first Asterix, the Albert-René publishing house (Hachette Livre group) has decided to reissue Asterix the Gaul , the first installment of the adventures of Asterix and Obelix, the two Gauls imagined by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo.
The album with only 5,000 copies (128 pages, 35 euros) will include the original 44 pages in black and white, the color album and a 32-page folder on "behind the scenes of the creation of the album" with unpublished working documents of the two authors.
Another box drawn 800 copies. For aficionados, the publisher also planned to publish in a box the entirety of René Goscinny's tapuscrits and René Uderzo's plates concerning the first album of the adventures of Asterix. Readers will find in this limited edition set of 800 numbered copies (released on February 6, 200 euros) two books facing each other with, on the left, the entire typewritten scenario (synopsis and cutting) typed by the machine by René Goscinny and, on the right, the 44 original plates drawn and inked by Albert Uderzo.
The box will also include 5 ex-libris: the first handwritten notes of René Goscinny signing the birth certificate of Asterix (2 ex-libris), the first sketches of Asterix and Obelix by Albert Uderzo (2 ex-libris) and the board with the colors alone of the first page of Asterix the Gaul published in Pilot on October 29, 1959.
Asterix remains the most translated comic in the world. Translated into 111 languages and dialects, Asterix remains the most translated comic strip in the world. 380 million albums have been sold since 1959. The 38th opus of the adventures of the famous Gauls (by Didier Conrad and Jean-Yves Ferri) is to be published on October 24th. The 37th album, released in October 2017, sold a total of 5 million copies.