The Agence France-Presse reports Albert Uderzo, the artist who created the “Asterix” series with writer René Goscinny, has died at the age of 92. “Albert Uderzo died in his sleep at his home in Neuilly, after a heart attack that was not linked to the coronavirus,” his son-in-law Bernard de Choisy told the AFP.
Uderzo was born in Fismes, France, on April 25, 1927, to Italian parents. He grew up in Paris reading comics and watching early Disney cartoons, and excelled in sketching and the arts at school. In 1940, when Uderzo was 13, the Nazis occupied France, and he was forced to end his education. He became employed by the Société Parisienne d’Édition, where he edited photographs and learned text design. His first illustration work was a parody of Aesop’s fables, “Le Corbeau et le Renard” (“The Raven and the Fox”), which was published in the magazine Junior in 1941. Albert went into hiding from the Nazis with his oldest brother Bruno from 1942 to 1945, living out the rest of the war at a farm in Brittany.
After the war, Uderzo trained to become an animator, but mediocre output led his instructor Renan de Vela to encourage him to pursue comics instead. Uderzo soon began providing humor strips for various publications. After serving in the military, he began illustrating newspaper and magazine columns. It was in 1951 that Uderzo met René Goscinny: their collaboration began with a column Goscinny wrote about everyday life and proper manners for the women’s magazine Bonnes Soirées. The two created various characters together while working at the newly opened Paris office of the Belgian company World Press, and in 1959 they became the heads of Pilote, a new magazine aimed at older children.
It was in the pages of Pilote that Uderzo and Goscinny introduced Asterix the Gaul, and his tribe of Roman-bashing warriors. The strip became a runaway success, becoming translated into over 111 languages and dialects across the globe, and spawning over 14 films, various games, and a theme park. (By 2017, 370 million copies had been sold worldwide.) Uderzo and Goscinny created 24 volumes of “Asterix” adventures until Goscinny’s death in 1977: afterwards, Uderzo wrote and illustrated the series until his retirement in 2011, handing over the comic to writer Jean-Yves Ferri and artist Didier Conrad.
Uderzo was married to Ada Milani, whom he wed in 1953, and had one daughter, Sylvie Uderzo (b. 1956). He had a falling out with her and his son-in-law after he decided to sell the “Asterix” rights to publisher Hachette in 2007 (in the press, she said he had “betrayed the Gaulish warrior to the modern-day Romans – the men of industry and finance”), but they eventually reconciled and made an out-of-court settlement over the royalties by 2014.
During his lifetime, Uderzo was honored with the title of Chevalier and Officier de la Légion d’Honneur, as well as that of Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion. He was also inducted into the Eisner Award Hall of Fame, and the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Paris. Tributes have begun pouring in from across the world: artist Rafael Albuquerque said “‘Asterix’ was the first comic i’ve read, from my aunt’s bookshelf. With him I learnt about expression more than anyone,” while Mahmud Asrar called him, “A true giant of comics. Words aren’t enough. Thank you for bringing joy to so many lives.”
