The daughter of Vercingetorix

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The daughter of Vercingetorix ( French original title: La Fille de Vercingétorix ) is the 38th volume in the Asterix comic series , which was published on October 24, 2019. As with the previous three volumes, Jean-Yves Ferri was the author and Didier Conrad the draftsman. The title of the tape was announced on April 10, 2019 in Parc Astérix near Paris . The issue was published on the 60th birthday of the title hero and the 30th birthday of the amusement park.

action

Asterix & Obelix , the heroes of the series, meet Adrenaline, the daughter of the Gauls -Fürsten Vercingetorix , who, accompanied by two Arvernians appears -Häuptlinge in the village; all three are on the run from the Romans . Adrenaline is supposed to stay in the village for a while. The teenage girl is unadjusted, rebellious and shows this through her tight pants, black clothes and red braid. Right from the start, and then again and again, there is a warning about her most critical quality - she likes to run away. Adrenaline quickly meets the village youth, the blacksmith's son, Selfix, and the fishmonger's son, Aspix, with his little brother, Surimix.

In addition to the main storyline (Caesar wants Adrenaline's neck ring - as a symbol of the Gallic resistance - and the girl herself to be brought under his power, whereby Miesetrix, a renegade Gallic chief, is supposed to help him as a spy) there are other storylines, one of which is growing up treated. It's about the criticism of society, the wild boar-menhir magic potion system, and the choice of profession, whereby the fishmonger Verleihnix and the blacksmith Automatix regularly get into each other's hair, whose son now receives the more decent education from the father.

Adrenaline's dream is to escape with orphans to the legendary island of Thule to enable the children and themselves to lead a fulfilling life. After she escaped from the village with the help of the other youths, she got on the pirate ship, but was tracked down by the renegade Gaul. Meanwhile, the Gauls start a large-scale rescue operation. Aspix and Selfix are made responsible and can prove themselves because they are given responsibility. The showdown takes place on the open sea, first on the pirate ship, then on a Roman galley, where the captain has his highly gifted and hyperactive Gothic adoptive son Ludwikamadeus as a drummer in the team and ultimately experiences the ups and downs of fatherhood with him.

While rescuing Adrenaline, her neck ring - a gift from her father Vercingetorix - is lost in the sea and the treacherous chief tries to get it back. He then swims towards land, and a suddenly appearing shark fin suggests that it will end soon. The pirate ship is sinking, as it has always been. Adrenaline goes her way and sets off on the ship and in company of Letitbix, who quotes a few lines from Imagine by John Lennon , to the island of her dreams, whereby it is indicated that she (with probably taken children on the way) instead of north to Thule by winds directed south to a tropical island.

The loss of Adrenaline makes one of the two Arvernian chiefs guarding her lose his composure in tears, who during the time she was overseeing Adrenaline had increasingly seen themselves as the father of the girl. Before the end of the story, Aspix and Selfix discover their true professional interests, and so the blacksmith's son will probably begin his apprenticeship at the fishmonger's and vice versa. The heroes' identifier and motto “Strong as the aurochs! Discreet like the mole! ”Not only characterizes adrenaline and the strength of youth, but also becomes the didactic-pedagogical motto of this story about adolescence , the beginning of love and of course friendship. The druid Miraculix confirms to Asterix that Adrenaline is implementing her father's legacy of resisting and staying free, albeit in her own way.

At the feast the Arverni chiefs forge plans to recapture Gaul, but "the only thing that counts in the end is the happiness of our children". And the spiral ring of Vercingetorix rests on the bottom of the sea.

Special

In the volume Asterix on Corsica , the sons of Automatix and Verleihnix fight like their fathers, in this volume they are close friends.

publication

The first edition in German was published by Egmont Ehapa Media with 1.6 million copies. The translator is Klaus Jöken . The total print run in over 20 languages ​​was around 5 million copies.

reception

Timur Vermes criticizes a "stolen story" in the Spiegel and also describes other gags as "stolen" from previous volumes. He criticizes the “novelty” that the villain Miesetrix is ​​“deadly serious about the motivation for his villainism” and also sees drawing deficits, for example in facial expressions and action scenes. With Asterix (which only appears on 120 of around 350 panels) "that has nothing more to do".

Martina Knoben states in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that “the old men who eat wild boars” in this comic against the backdrop of the eponymous heroine Adrenaline (who has similarities with Greta Thunberg ) and the other young people “seem more like backwoodsmen than ever”. For the reviewer, “clever and funny” is “how Ferri and Conrad, in the clash of generations, comment on the old heroes with loving irony”. In terms of drawing, the album is “a pleasure”, and the translation is also “a good tone”. The story is "secondary". The basic problem, however, is that the modern world, which is reflected in the figure Adrenalines, "cannot really be integrated into the Asterix universe" without destroying the classic, which is why the possibilities for satire that were in the material in the course of history "almost completely mess up".

The Frankfurter Rundschau wrote that as a fan you have to "just pay deep respect" for the drawings (main characters or group scenes). The recycling of nameless secondary characters from old volumes in new roles also makes it easier for fans of the classics from the 60s and 70s to get used to. The "ingenious anarchy " for which the copywriter René Goscinny was responsible until his death in 1977 is painfully absent . Nevertheless, the current band could "compete with some of the classics of the series".

According to Rupert Huber ( Augsburger Allgemeine ) it is "really funny" how Ferri and Conrad integrate the village youth into the story. Nevertheless, “the accumulation of the Averner ( sic !) Dialect” complicates reading pleasure.

For Kathrin Hondl ( SWR ) the new band is “a worthy anniversary album, committed to tradition, funny and full of allusions”. The time was really ripe for a rebellious girl.

During this time , Nina Pauer is happy that parents now have to have fewer bad feelings when they read Asterix comics to children: The time when all female characters appearing in them are portrayed as “thin, shopping and argumentative, hysterical and worthy of protection” would be over. Contrary to their first impression, it is not about feminism or climate policy , but about puberty on the main page , but the fact that Adrenaline moves unhindered to a utopian island at the end is a step forward: “The rascals let them go”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b By the Teutates! It's a girl! , Nürnberger Nachrichten , April 12, 2019.
  2. ↑ Joseph Hanimann: They're crazy, the teenagers. In: literature. Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 11, 2019, accessed on October 20, 2019 .
  3. ↑ The Daughter of Vercingetorix - Volume XXXVIII. www.comedix.de, 2019, accessed on September 19, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Timur Vermes: Rumble football in comic form. www.spiegel.de, October 24, 2019.
  5. ↑ Martina Knoben: Against the wild boar system. www.sueddeutsche.de, October 24, 2019.
  6. ↑ "The Daughter of Vercingetorix": The new "Asterix" is here. www.fr.de, October 24, 2019.
  7. ↑ Rupert Huber: This is what awaits you in the new Asterix "The Daughter of Vercingetorix" www.augsburger-allgemeine.de, October 24, 2019.
  8. ↑ Kathrin Hondl: New Asterix "The Daughter of Vercingetorix" - A girl in the wild boar system. www.swr.de, October 24, 2019.
  9. ^ Nina Pauer: Puberty in Aremorica. The new "Asterix" relies on a young, female hero figure . In: Die Zeit from October 30, 2019, p. 51.