Albert Uderzo: 1927 – 2020

“If, one beautiful summer morning in 1959, Rene Goscinny and I had been told that, one day, somebody would publish a book exploring the adventures of a little Gaul we had just created, I think, after initial amazement, we would have burst out laughing, slapped our thighs, and our foreheads like good old Obelix does so often, and said, “They must be crazy … !”

-Albert Uderzo, “The Complete Guide to Asterix”

Off the top of my head, I can count on one hand the number of times the death of a comic creator emotionally affected me: Carl Barks. Mike Wieringo.

Today, Albert Uderzo.

I’m starting to run out of fingers…

As close as we are to creators these days, there’s still that distance. They’re still the people behind the page that we mostly don’t see.

And, honestly, most of the creators who’ve died in my comics lifetime have been older ones who we didn’t get to know personally in the age of social media. That distance has always been there.

But a few get through anyway. Their work is so powerful, so strong, so memorable. Their work means so much to so many.

Albert Uderzo didn’t have a Twitter account. He didn’t even speak English. He never traveled to an American comics convention, I don’t think. His body of work in this country isn’t even all that well known, generally speaking.

But his work is legendary in so many languages thanks to all of the translations, and his biggest creation (with the equally legendary Rene Goscinny), Asterix, has been translated into as many languages as you can likely name.

Albert Uderzo drew the Mickey Mouse of France. That’s a pretty impressive line on a resume.

Uderzo, at the age of almost-93 passed away in his sleep from a heart attack last night. It’s not a complete surprise. I don’t think he did any press for the most recent Asterix book, and he was starting to show his age when he did press for the previous one, two years earlier. This isn’t exactly something nobody saw coming.

But it’s still a sad, sad day.

I’m not about to write a bio of the man. Trust me, all the news outlets will have those. They’ve been pre-written for years. But let’s talk about his art for a second.

The Art of Albert Uderzo

Uderzo’s art fits into the style generally thought of as “The Marcinelle School,” so named from the house in Marcinelle, Belgium where Jije collected artists (Morris! Peyo! Roba! et al.) and effectively created the house style of “Spirou” magazine. Picture big noses, cute cartoony characters (a Disney influence, for sure), realistic backgrounds, and a very animated look and feel.

Asterix evolved quickly. Here’s a graphic I put together last year to show how big a difference the first ten years made:

But, truth be told, the finalized style of Asterix mostly locked in after five or six albums. Minor variations in the look happened here and there, sometimes due to different inker (Uderzo’s brother, at times) or Uderzo’s tastes, but the general look and feel was there.

Uderzo’s pages were packed. He could draw intensely detailed and crowded looking cityscapes — such as cities were in 50 B.C. — but could also do a page of Asterix and Obelix walking through the woods that looks just as full of life and detail. He didn’t let an inch of page space go to waste.

But the stories in “Asterix” were packed as well. Forget decompression. This was super-compression. Four tiers per page, two or three panels per tier. The pages were so detailed that they were drawn on two boards sideways and then taped together.

His storytelling was second to none. Goscinny provided masterful scripts, but Uderzo knew how to maximize those jokes. He knew when to “lock down the camera” and when to isolate a character.

He drew as much as needed to on every panel. If that meant the same line of eight Roman warriors marching through the woods for three or four panels straight, so be it. Or, if ten of them needed to drink some wine, then that would be fine, too.

There are ten armed soldiers in this panel and they are all different. They may be dressed the same, but they have different faces, they hold their shields slightly differently, they have different heights and weights. Uderzo didn’t miss a trick or take a shortcut.

And he pumped these books out through the decade of the 1960s at a pace faster than one a year. Each book is 42 or 43 pages of story. By the time the series was ten years old, 14 albums were in print.

But, to me, the pure joy of Uderzo’s art and his most masterful quality was the ability to animate every character. The characters in Uderzo’s art had mass and volume, and they physically moved across every page, perfectly complementing the actions and the dialogue in Goscinny’s scripts. No line of dialogue didn’t get paired with a gesture and a look from the character speaking it. Uderzo sold Goscinny’s scripts so hard that you couldn’t look away and you couldn’t not understand what was going on.

Super clear storytelling, done with style, in a way that commands your attention. It’s as good as comics get.

Speak to any classically trained animator and learn all their tricks — Uderzo did them, save perhaps for some squashing and stretching. His characters retained their form, but they still bounced when they needed to. (See Obelix’s jail break, above.)

You can study these books and learn an awful lot.

Albert Uderzo was a master dessinateur.

Uderzo Lookalikes

On top of all of that, he also did great caricatures, peppering the pages of Asterix with appearances from politicians, singers, actors, and even a certain pair of Asterix creators.

Here’s where Goscinny and Uderzo appeared carved in stone on the back wall:

And here’s something more in his natural style, where Goscinny and Uderzo find the modern-day Obelix:

EverythingAsterix.com lists The 24 Best Caricatures and Cameos in Asterix. It’s worth a look.

I also put together a compilation of drawings of Uderzo by other artists that’s a lot of fun.

Random Albert Uderzo Facts

Some interesting/fun/oddball facts:

• On his birth certificate, his name is “Alberto”. His parents were fresh out of Italy.
• He was born with two extra fingers, which were removed when he was still young.
• He was color blind.
• He ran off with his older brother during the second World War to avoid the Nazis in Paris. They wound up in Brittany, which is the inspiration for Armorica in Asterix’s geography.
• He loved Ferraris, and owned one that passed through a couple hands before being auctioned off for $866,000. The car has “Ex-Uderzo” in its name. Uderzo only owned it for a short time, drove it on test days, and still managed to damage it.
• He came out of retirement once, to draw two cartoons in tribute to the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting. He later sold a page of Asterix art for over $150,000 that went to the victims.
• He once drew his own house into an Asterix album:

The Uderzo Tribute Books

In 1996, the publisher Soleil, in cooperation with Uderzo’s company, Albert-Rene, published “Albert Uderzo Croque Par Ses Amis.” I’m not 100% sure of this translation, but I think it works out to “Uderzo Roasted by His Friends.”

It’s a collection of 21 short stories featuring Uderzo as a main character by a selection of BD creators. Asterix and the other Gauls are in the stories, as well. One of the recurring jokes used in the book is that Uderzo drives a Ferrari Chariot.

Admittedly, I haven’t read much of it yet, but there’s some very nice art in it.

In 2007, Albert-Rene directly published a tribute album titled “Asterix et Ses Amis,” which is a fascinating book for a completely different reason. Once again, it’s an anthology of short stories, but this time it features Asterix and friends meeting other comic characters — including Scrooge McDuck, Lucky Luke (there’s a connection!), Oumpah-Pah (Uderzo’s own pre-Asterix character), Titeuf, and a lot more.

The artists on the book you might be familiar with include Stuart Immonen, Milo Minara, and David Lloyd. From the world of BD, it also includes Zep, Vance, Boucq, Jidehem, Vicar, Guarnido, and bunch of others.

I reviewed the book last year, so you can see more panels and art from it at that link.

This Amazing Picture

Uderzo, Morris, Goscinny, Roba, Franquin & Peyo. Gracias a todos ellos!!!! 😰 pic.twitter.com/r0c3CYCLBj

— Cartoonist Pics (@Fotosdecomics) March 24, 2020

They’re all gone now. But I would make the argument that it’s the single greatest collection of cartoonists in a single picture, alongside perhaps the greatest comics writer of all time, as many would successfully argue.

Le fin

Asterix.com looks like this today:

That’s one of the two images Uderzo came out of retirement to draw after the Charlie Hebdo shootings.

Translating that text:

Thank you Maestro

It is with great sadness that we learned of the death of Albert Uderzo, the co-creator of Asterix with René Goscinny.

For more than 60 years, Asterix has inspired in millions of readers around the world, page after page, and with each re-reading, a pleasure and a deep joy.

Becoming a real myth, the little Gaul is today part of the universal literary and artistic heritage, and will continue for a long time to carry its values of tolerance and resistance in its adventures.

Beyond the immense artist that he was, we lose an exceptional man, whom all those who had the chance to meet him cherished.

We extend our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of Albert Uderzo.

Merci beaucoup, Maestro Uderzo. Requiescat in pace

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