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SCOTLAND

French hero Asterix returns in Scottish antics

Iconic French comic book hero Asterix made his long-awaited return on Thursday with "Asterix and the Picts", the first new volume in eight years. The 35th installment of the series started in 1959 takes Asterix and Obelix on an adventure in ancient Scotland, of all places.

Published: 24 October 2013 11:43 CEST
French hero Asterix returns in Scottish antics
Iconic French comic book hero Asterix made his long-awaited return on Thursday with "Asterix and the Picts", the first new volume in eight years. Photo: Patrick Kovarik/AFP

Five million copies of "Asterix and the Picts" – the 35th installment in a series that has become a publishing juggernaut – were released on Thursday in 15 countries and 23 languages, after months of anticipation.

The Gallic duo's latest adventures take them for the first time to ancient Scotland, with the new edition's cover depicting Obelix in full caber toss as a winking Asterix sits nearby.

Two million copies were printed for France and another three million for foreign audiences, including copies in Scots Gaelic.

The Asterix series – created by illustrator Albert Uderzo and writer Rene Goscinny in 1959 – is a bestseller in the comic book world, with 352 million copies sold worldwide and translations in more than 110 languages and dialects.

It features the adventures of an indomitable tribe of Gauls resisting Roman occupation, often with the help of a Druid-brewed magic potion that grants them superhuman strength.

The series has been adapted into four live-action films and is the inspiration for a popular theme park, Parc Asterix, outside Paris.

The latest edition is the work of writer Jean-Yves Ferri and artist Didier Conrad, and is the first not written and illustrated by one of the series' original creators.

Uderzo, who took over the writing when Goscinny died in 1977, announced in 2011 that he would no longer be drawing the series.

The 86-year-old did supervise production of the latest book however, and drew the Obelix featured on the cover.

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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