Asterix at 65

2024 is Asterix’s 65th anniversary. Les Editions Albert René are marking the occasion with a few special items throughout the year.

I’m mostly interested in the high end reprints, which is unfortunate because my wallet wants nothing to do with any of them. Let’s torture myself by looking at them, anyway.

It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: all of these books are in French. We’re never getting English editions this nice.

“Asterix the Gaul” Deluxe Edition

This is a reprint of the first book in both full color and black and white. It also includes 32 pages of Behind the Scenes material. The book comes in at 14.5 x 10.5 inches in size, compared to the usual 11.5 x 9 inches of the standard album size.

They’re printing 6000 copies at 42 euros apiece. That’s not a bad price for this format.

It’s the kick-off to the celebrations and will be out on January 17th. You can pre-order it already at Amazon.fr and FNAC.

“Asterix the Gaul”, The Artbook Edition

But, wait! “Asterix the Gaul” is getting one more edition. The ArtBook Edition is a cool package. It’s two books packaged side by side. Printed at 8.5″ x 11″, the book on the left reprints René Goscinny’s original typewritten script pages. The book on the right shows the original black and white pages. I’m not sure if those are shot from the original art in Artist’s Edition style or not, though. Since the final pages are so much smaller than Uderzo’s artboards, some of that magic would be lost, anyway.

This is meant to be an affordable edition of this style, so it’s priced at a mere 25 Euros. It’ll be out on October 24, 2024.

While it’s a shame the pages are sized down like that, I can understand why it’s done that way to keep the costs down and make the more affordable package.

The Inevitable Paris Olympics Tie-In

The Summer Olympics are coming to Paris in 2024. The city is busily transforming itself to get ready for this, including cleaning out the Seine to make it swimmable again.

Naturally, “Asterix at the Olympic Games” is getting a Special Edition on June 5th, which will be the original album plus a 16-page Behind the Scenes section.

It’s also getting a Deluxe Edition with a 32-page Behind the Scenes section. I’m not sure if that includes both the color and black-and-white reprints, but that would make the most sense.

Also getting the Deluxe Edition in 2024 are “The Mansions of the Gods” and “Asterix in Belgium.” I have a perhaps irrational love of the Belgium album, so I think it’s a good choice.

More Dogmatix

A sixth book of stories set in the world of the animated Dogmatix series is coming on June 12th. This one will be drawn by Jean Bastide. If that name sounds familiar to you, then you must be a fellow Spirou Journal reader. He’s the current aritst on “Boule et Bill.”

Philippe Fenech returns in September for the seventh volume.

So I guess the animated series is successful in France? As always, let’s hope the animated Asterix series proves so popular for Netflix that they start bringing all sorts of Asterix material to the service, like this one.

(That series is stil set for 2025, by the way.)

IDEFIX

One non-publishing bit of business: France’s space agency, CNES, is launching a rover to Phobos, one of Mars’ two moons. This is part of a larger mission with Germany and Japan under the MMX brand – Martian Moons eXploration.

It’ll launch in 2024 and land in 2027, then is scheduled to drive around for 100 days. If all goes according to plan, martian moon samples will return to Earth by 2029! You can read all about it here, but they’re hoping to discover whether the two moons are “Captured” asteroids, or the results of chunks of the planet being blown out into orbit.

That’s cool enough on its own. Even better is that they’ve named the relatively small rover IDEFIX!

The sky isn’t falling, but Dogmatix will be falling from the sky onto Mars’ moon. What a wild world we live in!

If you want a model of the IDEFIX rover of your own, there’s a 1:10 3D printable you can download today.

“The Banquets of Asterix”

This is a new book set up as a fundraiser for “Les Restos du Coeur,” a charity that serves to feed those in need in France. It promises to include images from all 40 book-ending banquets and an assortment of recipes from renowned chefs in the region.

It has a publication date of September 18th. It’ll be 15 Euros and published at standard album size.

I have one of these books that they did to support Doctors Without Borders. It’s a fun little artbook with some nicely enlarged panels being shown, but don’t buy them for the sake of Asterix. Buy them for the support of the charity. Your Asterix collection doesn’t necessarily need it.

And More!

Naturally, Parc Asterix will celebrate the anniversary with a new stage show and parade float, plus a whole lot more, I’m sure. Oh, the merchandise possibilities!

Licensees will go nuts, including more Playmobil sets. There’s a planned Dogmatix exhibition in Belgium starting in December 2024.

And you know that Van Gogh exhibition where they project paintings onto the walls so you can fully immerse yourself in something Instagrammable? There’s an Asterix version of that coming to Europe via Atelier Des Lumieres from October to January.

And, of course, as soon as 2024 is over, we’ll start 2025 with the tease of Asterix v41 and get that ball rolling again.

Keep an eye on Asterix.com for further updates in the meantime!