Exclusive: Asterix Returns with New Writer | News

Papercutz, which recently became part of Mad Cave Studios, has been busy announcing new properties and reviving old ones, and today we have an exclusive piece of news about an old favorite: Asterix. Papercutz will publish vol. 40 of the long-running series on October 26, and this volume will have a new writer, Fabcaro, working with artist Didier Conrad, who has been drawing the fiesty Gaul and his friends since 2013. Fabcaro comes with the endorsement of the daughters of Albert Uderzo and Rene Goscinny, who created Asterix back in 1959.

In an interview supplied by the publisher, Fabcaro describes his long relationship with Asterix:

I grew up with Asterix. When I read my first one – it was Asterix and the Great Divide which my mum bought for me the day it was published – I fell head over heels. I went straight on to read Asterix and the Big Fight, Asterix and the Roman Agent . . . and I very soon found I was reading them all on a loop. I learned to read with René Goscinny and to draw with Albert Uderzo. I remember copying whole frames from the albums. I’ve reread those albums regularly all through my life, and I always enjoy them just as much.

Asterix is one of the most popular comics in the world, with 393,000, 000 copies sold. Papercutz has been publishing the early Asterix volumes as three-in-one omnibi and the later ones, like this one, as standalone volumes. Some of the early volumes included racist representations of people of color, and the previous Papercutz publisher responded by modifying some of the images and including essays by creators of color putting the comics into context. The newer volumes do not have this problem.

Here’s a look at a previously unpublished page of the new volume:

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