Paris (AFP)
On the occasion of its 60th birthday, Asterix, the irreducible Gaul invented by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, will be exhibiting at the National Library of France (BnF) as part of the European Heritage Days. learned Tuesday from the institution.
The set of original plates of the very first album of the series, "Asterix the Gaul" as well as the handwritten notes, the synopsis and the scenario of this album, lent by Anne Goscinny, the daughter of René Goscinny, will be presented to the public of the September 20 to 22 at the François-Mitterrand site.
This is the first time that is presented the entirety of the original documents (texts and drawings) of the first album of Asterix. This exhibition, open to the public free of charge, follows the major retrospective of the BnF devoted to Asterix in 2013.
Asterix and the BnF have a special relationship since March 2011, the designer Albert Uderzo has donated to the institution of 120 original plates from the first two albums in the series, "Asterix the Gaul" and "La Serpe d? gold ", but also from his last collaboration with René Goscinny," Asterix among the Belgians ".
The 44 original plates exposed from 20 to 22 September highlight the genesis of a work that develops and experimented with the boxes, like the portrait of Julius Caesar, unrecognizable between the first and the last board.
These large boards (the format is almost doubled compared to the printed album) inked with a brush over the pencils, lettered with the pen, "show the drawing, the strength of the movement, the shadows and enlightenment, the verve caricaturist, the effectiveness of onomatopoeia, the art of the letter, "said the BnF.
With regard to the original plates, the first handwritten notes of René Goscinny, as well as the synopsis and the screenwritten scenario preparatory to this first adventure of Asterix allow to better apprehend the birth and the factory of this phenomenal work which does not finish not to enchant generations of readers, "she added.
Asterix made its appearance on October 29, 1959 in the first issue of the weekly Pilote. For six decades and 37 adventures (the 38th album, "The daughter of Vercingetorix", appeared on October 24), the series Asterix has become a "place of memory" of the French identity, being ingenious to parody the myth of " our ancestors the Gauls".
Since its creation, 380 million albums have been sold worldwide. The adventures of Asterix have been translated into over a hundred languages.
© 2019 AFP