'The year is 50 B.C. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely
One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders." So, for over four decades, has begun one of the world's most popular comics about the cunning little Gallic warrior Asterix and his overweight pal Obelix. Powered by the village druid's magic potion, the dynamic duo bash the hapless Romans, enjoy lavish boar banquets and travel the world.René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo used the Roman era to tell the story of French resistance against German occupation. The visual gags and fist fights as well as clever dialogue and historic detail appealed to child and adult alike. But the comic's real charm was its tongue-in-cheek treatment of various national stereotypes -- not least of all the French. With self-deprecating humor, the immigrants' sons made French chauvinism palatable, to the tune of 300 million books in several dozen languages.
But the latest offering, "Asterix and the Falling Sky," shows what a fine line there is between charming and distasteful. Since Goscinny's death in 1977, the illustrator Mr. Uderzo has taken on the writing duties as well and the comic has been in slow decline. Last week's release marks a new low. Mr. Uderzo worked four years on the book. It feels like 20, considering the strange 1980s-style Japano-phobia at the heart of the story.
In "The Falling Sky," our Gallic village comes under attack from space aliens from the planet Gmana, an anagram for Manga, the Japanese word for comics. Wearing a cockroach-like body armor, the villain has a yellow face and Asian features and flies a rocket modeled on a Samurai warrior. The Nagmas, as they are called, are vindictive, envious and domineering. They only copy from other cultures but create nothing original themselves.
Perhaps the Japanese can take heart that their country is now taken seriously enough again to be blindly bashed in the West. But the coarse clichés employed here mark a disheartening contrast with the good-natured Asterix of old. Even France's arch-enemies, the British, were lovingly mocked as overly polite and phlegmatic but stiff-lipped in the face of grave danger.
In a bizarre twist here, the Gauls get help from unexpected quarters -- extraterrestrial Yanks led by Toune, as in "loony." He's a cross between Teletubbies and Mickey Mouse, purple-colored, with a white face and white gloves. Red-caped "super clones" that bear an uncanny resemblance to a dim-looking Arnold Schwarzenegger come to his aid from a planet called Tadsywine, an anagram for Walt Disney. Some reviews have focused on this supposedly anti-American plot line. Toune's boss is Hubs (i.e. Bush). Yet, if anything, the Americans are France's "white" allies against the Asian menace, and Mr. Uderzo himself claims to pay homage to the "great Walt Disney."
The real story here is that all good things can come to an end in the wrong hands. So Asterix, once great, is now merely crude. After 44 years, Mr. Uderzo has managed to give French chauvinism a bad name.