April 25th - Asterix

A Year in Comics - April 25th

Astérix, Obélix & Idéfix - Asterix

Alberto Aleandro Uderzo, known as Albert Uderzo, was born on April 25th 1927 in Fismes, Marne in France, as the son of Italian immigrants.  He was naturalised as a French citizen in 1934, and aspired becoming an aircraft mechanic, despite being talented in art.

In 1940 - aged 13 (!) - Uderzo found a job at the Parisian publisher Société Parisienne d'Édition, where he learned designing letters and text, and editing photographs.  During this time, he also became an apprentice to the French comic artist Edmond-François Calvo (1892-1958), eventually even having one of his early comics published.  However, soon he would leave Paris and spend a year living and working on a farm in Brittany, gaining a love for the area and its people.  Later during the difficult war years, Uderzo also helped out his father's furniture business.

In 1945, after the War ended, Uderzo returned to Paris where he started as a professional comic artist.  He made numerous small comics, before becoming a reporter and illustrator for France Dimanche in 1949.  As such, he eventually had an encounter with Georges Troisfontaines* of the Brussels-based World's Press Agency, which also produced comics, and which counted among its staff comic artists such as Victor Hubinon*, Eddy Paape and MiTacq, as well as the comic writers Jean-Michel Charlier* and René Goscinny.  Uderzo became a member of the Paris-based branch of the World Press Association, starting off with collaborations with Charlier on a number of minor works.  However, it was especially Goscinny with who Uderzo would go on to create a number of works.  Among their early ideas was a series about a native Indian warrior called Oumpah-pah, a comic intended for the American market, but it was the pirate Jehan Pistolet with which Goscinny and Uderzo made their first joint venture in 1952.

(* More on these three tomorrow...)

By 1955, Uderzo, Charlier, Goscinny and Jean Hébrard founded their own syndicate, resulting in two agencies: Édifrance and Édipresse.  Soon, Goscinny and Uderzo dusted off their 1951 sketches for Oumpah-Pah, and worked them into a series which would run in the Tintin weekly comic magazine from 1958 until 1962.  However, in 1959, Edipresse started its own, rival comic magazine: Pilote.  For this publication, Uderzo created two new series: Tanguy et Laverdure, an aviation series following the adventures of French Air Force pilots Michel Tanguy and Ernest Laverdure, written by Jean-Michel Charlier; and a series about the adventures of two Gaul warriors (or more precisely, a Gaul warrior and his menhir merchant friend), Astérix, written by René Goscinny.  Both series became succesful (Tanguy et Laverdure was actually adapted into a live-action series by 1967), but by 1962 the succes of both meant that Uderzo had to give up working on Oumpah-pah (ending the series); and by 1967, the success of Astérix meant that Uderzo began to concentrate on it alone, passing the pen for Charlier's Tanguy et Laverdure to Jijé, the first of a series of artists to pick up the series. (Following Jijé's death in 1980 and Charlier's death in 1989, it is currently written by former fighter pilot Jean-Claude Laidin, with art by Yvan Fernandez, Renaud Garetta and Frédéric Toublanc).

Following Goscinny's death (1926-1977), Uderzo continued the Astérix series by himself, before finally retiring in 2012.  Astérix has since been continued by Didier Conrad and Jean-Yves Ferri.

Albert Uderzo passed away in his sleep, aged 92, on March 24th 2020.

It is worth noting that Albert Uderzo was assisted by his younger brother Marcel Uderzo (1933), who would remain the inker of Tanguy et Laverdure until 1972 (working on the series both with his brother Albert, and his successor on the series, Jijé), as well as being the colourist of Astérix until 1979, also providing additional artwork for various Astérix merchandising.  Marcel subsequently became a comic artist in his own right, albeit not as famous as his elder brother...

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140th entry of ?

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