How to Read “Asterix and the Big Fight”

Maybe you’re reading this after April 30th, you just finished watching “Asterix and the Big Fight” on Netflix, and now you want to read the original comic. Or maybe you want to read the book before you see the series.

What’s the best way to do that? I have the answer, though it is a slightly frustrating story in places.

Just to level set here — this is intended for the American market. Asterix is translated into dozens of languages. Every country has a slightly different story.

The Print Solution

The current publisher of Asterix here in the States is Papercutz. They also publish books like The Smurfs, Nickelodeon’s The Loud House, the Winx Club, and more.

Since picking up the license for the Asterix series, they’ve focused on reprinting the series — currently 40 books strong with a 41st due out at the end of the year — in Omnibus editions, collecting three Asterix stories into one book at a time.

“Asterix and the Big Fight” is the seventh book in the series, so you can find it as the lead-off story inside the third Omnibus in the series. It’s available in both hardcover and softcover, so let your budget be your guide there.

The book is already sold out from Papercutz’s own store. Barnes and Noble has it in both hardcover and softcover, as does Amazon (affiliate link), though it’s with an extremely limited quantity of the hardcovers as of this writing. And of course, you can always check your local comic shop or bookstore to see if they have it in stock.

You can also look for the British edition of the book, which has a different translation and is printed on larger pages. It’s pretty easy to find someone selling that version affordably, even if it’s through someplace like AbeBooks or eBay.

The Digital Solution Is More Complicated

The Omnibus collecting “The Big Fight” is not available on Comixology.com, which is now an Amazon site. Volumes 4 and up are available there, but not volume 3, which is the one you’re looking for.

It’s one thing not to reprint a paper edition book, but to not even have the digital edition available?!? Maybe it’s a licensing limitation and Papercutz is playing the hand they’re dealt? Whatever the reason or excuse, it’s not good.

When I first saw this last month, I thought it meant that maybe there was a print special edition of the story by itself coming to capitalize on the Netflix series, and a digital release would come at the same time. I was wrong.

Again, mind boggling, because here we have the perfect solution to the ages-old comic book movie problem: What’s the comic you sell to readers who loved the movie or TV series? With most Marvel or DC properties, there are a couple dozen answers. That confuses the potential readers, and could easily disappoint the ones who do bother buying something. With “Asterix and the Big Fight,” there’s one answer: “Asterix and the Big Flight.” Perfect.

We’re even squandering that here by only having an Omnibus version of the book available. Lots of people won’t pay for three books just to get the one they want, even though a single book wouldn’t be nearly as cheap as they might think.

There are, however, two other digital comics houses where you can read the book.

The first is GlobalComix.com. While they have all the first eight Asterix Omnibus volumes, there is a curious issue. They have the listings for books three and four mixed up. The description for book 3 is correct, but the cover is that of Book 4. When you click to read the preview of book 3, they show you book 4. So if you were to buy Book 3, which book will you get? Hopefully, that part will be right, but I can’t guarantee it. If you spent $10 here to find out, please leave a comment.

The other digital distributor that Papercutz links to in their listings is DriveThruComics.com. Strike One: Their site doesn’t work on the Safari web browser. Strike two: They don’t seem to have anything from Papercutz on their site anymore. That explains the dead link to it on Papercutz’s website, though it doesn’t explain why Papercutz still lists the site there at all.

Annoyed yet? There’s one more solution. Borrow the book digitally through your library. Mine uses the Hoopla app. I had no problem finding, downloading, and reading the book from there, and it didn’t cost me a dime!

Overseas Special Editions (Because Of Course There Are)

Other areas — including an English language edition in Great Britain — have been getting special editions of this book as a solo volume, complete with a Netflix logo prominently on the front cover. Those books contain an extra 16 pages’ worth of material on the making of the book, and 6 more pages about the Netflix series.

The French even have a super deluxe edition which prints the book with its original black and white line work, no color, plus those extra 22 pages.

It looks like Papercutz didn’t jump on this bandwagon. That’s mind-boggling to me, but here we are. I can only guess that they don’t think the Netflix series is going to inspire new readers looking for the book, or they don’t have the money to fund a special printing.

I’d be interested in hearing from comic shop retailers in a week or two if they start getting requests for the book. Papercutz might be right, but with a little marketing, they could expand their own audience for the other Omnibus books and special editions they have to sell.

Papercutz has, however, recently started to re-issue the books one at a time in that special edition format. They call them “Collector Volumes”. The first 2 — “Asterix the Gaul” (my review is here) and “Asterix and the Golden Sickle” — are out now, with a third planned for this summer. At this rate, that special edition of “The Big Fight” should be out next year. I guess we’re hoping this goes well enough for a sequel series in that time frame? Sigh

Welcome Aboard

If you’re new, welcome to the world of Asterix!

If you like this book and want to read more, I always recommend starting at Book One. It’s not an origin issue or anything, but it does spell out the set-up for the series pretty well. All the books stand on their own and really can be read in any order. There’s no continuity, beyond some recurring characters, particularly in the later volumes.

Keep it simple. Start at the beginning and read straight through.

And then read along with my reviews, which you can find by searching on this site, or just going straight to the Asterix Agenda Portal page.

For more excruciating detail on “The Big Fight,” follow along with me on “Page By Page By Toutatis” over on YouTube, where I’m reviewing the book page by page, panel by panel.