The White Iris, the new adventure of Asterix and Obelix, signed Fabcaro and Didier Conrad, is definitely doped with the magic potion of the druid Panoramix. Some ten days after its release in bookstores, on October 26 exactly, this album which sees Julius Caesar using a method of psychological motivation developed by a somewhat guru doctor called Vicevertus, has already sold 511,521 copies, according to figures. from our specialist colleague GFK/Livre Hebdo, published on November 3.
This fast-paced release should not surprise the publishers (Hachette Livre) who have released this adventure, which resembles La Zizanie in reverse mirror, in 5 million copies. For comparison, Asterix and the Griffin, the previous opus published two years ago on October 21, 2021, sold some 520,000 copies over an identical period.
Also read: Asterix, The White Iris: “A humor that doesn’t hurt, in the spirit of Goscinny”
The very current subject of L’Iris blanc, – a sort of guru, therefore, with the false air of Dominique de Villepin and Bernard-Henry Lévy wants to infuse the Gallic village with a radically positive spirit, far from their quarrelsome temperament -, is perhaps -to be or even surely at the origin of this umpteenth bookstore success.
The search for the pun, the play on words in the first and second degree, dear to Goscinny and Uderzo, is certainly the second ingredient in this dynamic of bookstore success. Indeed Fabcaro, the new comic strip writer, gave it his all here. For example, “But yes! We are putting crazy sesterces in this Gallic village which resists again and again”, aping Emmanuel Macron, or even “If you want war, prepare for peace?” Yeah…”, mischievously inverting the famous Latin quote, participate in n There is no doubt about the flavor and triumph of this 40th album.
Since 1961 and the release of Asterix the Gaul, the craze for the stories created by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo has never waned. Nearly 400 million albums have since been sold on four continents. A true miracle of adaptation, they have, over time, been translated into 117 languages, and even into a few dialects. The White Iris confirms it, Gallicism knows no borders or limits.