Having the opportunity to create a new Asterix album is a bit like winning the jackpot. Not only because it is a title which benefits from a monumental circulation – 5 million copies worldwide – but because the little Gaul and his friends are among the most universally known comic book heroes. “Everyone wants to make an Asterix,” Fabcaro sums up.
The screenwriter, known among other things for his sometimes absurd humor, was elected after a competition orchestrated by the publishers and rights holders of Goscinny and Uderzo. Like Didier Conrad about ten years ago and who also had the impression of winning the jackpot. “The kind of jackpot you have to work for… after you win it! », laughs the designer.
There is chemistry between the two creators, with whom La Presse spoke by videoconference at the beginning of the week in view of the release, this Thursday, of the new album. The White Iris, born from a synopsis by Fabcaro, is undoubtedly one of the most successful Asterix albums in a long time, which even includes the period during which Uderzo brought the series to life alone.
Fabcaro quickly made two decisions before developing his story: he wanted to make “a village album”, that is to say one which essentially takes place among the diehard Gauls and could involve Asterix’s neighbors and of Obélix that we know so well, and reconnect with the spirit of the Goscinny era. “It’s the period I grew up with,” says the 50-year-old designer.
The white iris recalls albums like Le devin and La zizanie. As in these adventures published in the early 1970s, the tranquility of the village is shaken by the arrival of a stranger. Here, it is a Roman called Vicevertus, secret envoy of Julius Caesar. He causes havoc in the Gallic village while applying the method of positive thinking that he developed to motivate the demoralized Roman troops who are less eager than ever to receive slaps.
“What interested me was to focus on those who abuse their power to have control over people who are losing their bearings,” explains Fabcaro. With this story he and Didier Conrad exploit a process already exploited by Goscinny and Uderzo, that is to say the fact of taking a contemporary theme – the ready-to-think market is very flourishing in the West – and parachuting it in the village of die-hard Gauls and see what happens.
This is less obvious gymnastics than it seems. Didier Conrad also says he worked a lot to develop certain expressions (including a “depressed” pout from Abraracourcix) and the head of Vicevertus, which is in fact a mixture of the French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy and Dominique de Villepin, former Prime Minister of France. Creating a character that only referred to one or the other would not have done the trick, Fabcaro points out, because of their political connotation. “We didn’t want to send a political message,” he explains.
The white iris, like the best Asterixes, gently makes fun of the faults of the people of the village, who are also ours. We have known for years that Didier Conrad has mastered the visual universe of Asterix, but what is pleasantly surprising with this 40th album is that we feel from the first pages that the tone is there: the puns rather endings, winks, the psychology of the characters and a very close connection with the designer’s staging. Obelix, as usual, follows the bandwagon, but Asterix (with the discreet complicity of Panoramix) once again manages to thwart Caesar’s machinations. And that’s exactly what we expect of him.
