Asterix and the Secret Weapon

[history79]

15 pages of 45

Comments

[icon_uk]

Oh dear, Asterix remains a favourite from my childhood, and most of them I can go back to and still thoroughly enjoy, but this is... well, it wasn't subtle in 1992, and it hasn't aged well since then, has it?

The art is still charming, and some of the jokes are still spot on, but the overall plot is so... stereotypical

[arilou_skiff]

Yeah, Asterix always tended to have stereotypical jokes, but Goscinny was just much more a deft hand at it than Uderzo. (who even then had a bit of an "Old Man Yelling At Clouds" vibe)

[owlbrigade1]

That is my feelings too. I recognise all the problematic material, but for some reason I can't stay mad at it anyway.

[lucean]

This was from 1992? Jesus Christ. I remembered reading this as a kid and thinking how much worse it came across now, but I didn't realize it was that recent.

[wizardru]

Wow, yeah. I would have assumed this was something like the late 60s or early 70s.
The gender politics here...are not great. YIKES.

[gnarll]

I seem to remember it drawing a lot of fire even back then. Uderzo just seems to have needed Goscinny to say "thats not a good idea" now and then.

[penguinzero]

It's been alluded to in other comments, but for those who don't know: Asterix was originally written by René Goscinny and drawn by Albert Uderzo, starting in 1959. They did 24 books together until Goscinny's death in 1977. Uderzo then tried to carry on the series by himself, but his works are often said to have lost a lot of the charm -- and in some cases were pretty transparent cases of Uderzo yelling at modern life for changing.

A new team finally took over in 2013, but I haven't yet looked at any of their work. Reviews seem to be middling.