The great ditch

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The great trench (French original title: Le Grand Fossé ) is the 25th Asterix band. It appeared in 1980 both in the original language and in German and was both drawn and written by Albert Uderzo .

action

War is raging in a Gallic village. Therefore a trench was dug there that divides the village. The inhabitants have different opinions: some want Griesgramix as the village chief, others Grobianix. After a battle that ended in a draw, Greulix, who smelled of herring, made the suggestion to Grobianix that the Roman army should help. Grünix, the son of Chief Griesgramix, learns about it from his girlfriend Grienoline, daughter of the other chief. He receives an order from his father to travel to the village of Asterix and Obelix to get Miraculix to help. In the meantime Greulix succeeds in persuading the Romans to help them conquer the village. However, the Romans demand that they receive the defeated as slaves in return. When Grobianix does not want to support this contract, his half of the village is enslaved. Miraculix, together with Asterix and Obelix, offer themselves to the Romans as kitchen slaves and brew the magic potion that makes invincible, but praises it as a delicious soup. Since Centurion Tullius Tortengus distrusts him, he offers that she and the imprisoned followers of Grobianix taste the soup. This enables them to free themselves from captivity. When they had entered the camp to offer themselves as slaves, the guard called Obelix "fat", whereupon he beat him up. Miraculix was able to regain his strength with an elixir that also made him forget the incident. But then he forgot the elixir in front of the camp, where Greulix found it. He now uses the elixir to revive the Romans and urges them to level the Gallic village.

In the meantime, the halves of the village, encouraged by the intervention of Asterix and Miraculix, decide to work together against the Romans. Miraculix therefore brews his potion and it is decided to store it between the village halves above the ditch in the hut of the neutral verdigris panix, where Asterix wants to watch over him so that no one from the village halves can take it. That night Greulix comes and overpowers Asterix, in order to distribute the potion to the Romans afterwards. However, the potion has strong side effects with the Romans due to the elixir they previously consumed: Instead of becoming strong and powerful, the Romans are first puffed up into balls and then small as dwarfs, so that it is child's play for Asterix and Obelix to defeat them. In the meantime Greulix has kidnapped Grienoline and asks for a ransom, but is caught by the pirates on his escape who try their hand at river pirates after their bad experiences at sea. Asterix, Obelix and Grünix manage to free Grienoline. Grünix throws Greulix into the air with one last blow, which lands in the Roman camp.

Since this still does not lead to Griesgramix and Grobianix renouncing their claims as chief, Grienoline demands that they fight this out in a duel that should last until dawn. The loser would be the one who remains on the ground. Since both are on the ground at sunrise, Asterix, as referee, determines that there is neither a winner nor a loser and proposes Grünix and Grienoline as a new pair of chiefs, which is cheered by the entire village.

At the end the Gauls divert part of a nearby river and fill the ditch, build a bridge over it and the two former chiefs sit peacefully fishing on the bank while Greulix does slave services in the Roman camp.

Remarks

It is the first Asterix album to be written by Albert Uderzo. Previously, the lyrics were from René Goscinny, who died in 1977 .

The love story is reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet . According to the author, the great moat is a direct allusion to the Berlin Wall , while others saw it as the divided France before François Mitterrand was elected president.

publication

After irreconcilable differences between Uderzo and the publisher Dargaud , Uderzo's own publishing house Les Editions Albert René took shape in the autumn of 1979 and published this volume in France in 1980.

The German translation was published in issues 254 to 259 of Yps magazine and was published by Ehapa in 1980 as the 25th volume in the Asterix series. With the new edition in 2002 this volume got a new cover picture.

Albert Uderzo redrawed the Gaul map, the page with the presentation of the Gauls and the vignette on the back of the album in The Great Trench . The Dargaud publishing house filed an objection and was right. As a consequence, the reprints of the titles published by Albert René since 1989 have had a new opening credits.

The volume was published in English, Spanish and Turkish as well as in the dialects Swabian , Schwyzerdütsch , Viennese and New Hessian .

See also

Web links