About this comic book :
excerpt from two pages of Wikipedia (English, here and there), expurgated of the details :

" Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix is a series of French comic books written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo. The series first appeared in French in the magazine Pilote in 1959. As of 2009, 34 comic books in the series have been released. The series follows the exploits of a village of indomitable Gauls as they resist Roman occupation. They do so by means of a magic potion, brewed by their druid, which gives the recipient superhuman strength.
The protagonist, the titular character Asterix, along with his friend Obelix have various adventures. The "ix" suffix of both names echoes the name of Vercingetorix, a historical Gaul chieftain. In many cases, the stories have Astérix and Obélix travel to various countries around the world.
The Asterix series is one of the most popular Franco-Belgian comics in the world, with the series being translated into over 100 languages, and it is popular in most European countries. Asterix is less well known in the United States and Japan.
The success of the series has led to the adaptation of several books into 13 films; eight animated, and five with live actors. There have also been a number of games based on the characters. A theme park near Paris, Parc Astérix (a very good alternative to Disneyland Paris), is themed around the series.
325 million copies of the Asterix books have been sold worldwide.

• History :

Astérix was originally serialised in the magazine Pilote, in the very first issue published in 1959. In 1961 the first book

was put together entitled Asterix the Gaul. From then on, books were released generally on a yearly basis.
Uderzo's first sketches portrayed Asterix as a huge and strong traditional Gaulish warrior. But Goscinny had a different picture in his mind. He visualized Asterix as a shrewd small sized warrior who would prefer intelligence over strength. However, Uderzo felt that the small sized hero needed a strong but dim companion to which Goscinny agreed. Hence, Obelix was born.
When Goscinny died, Uderzo continued the series alone but most critics and fans of the series prefer Goscinny's albums.

• Synopsis and character :

The main setting for the series is an unnamed coastal village in Armorica, a province of Gaul (ancient France), in the year 50 BC. Julius Caesar has conquered nearly all of Gaul for the Roman Empire. The little Armorican village, however, has held out because the villagers can gain temporary superhuman strength by drinking a magic potion brewed by the local village druid, Getafix.

The main protagonist and hero of the village is Asterix, who, because of his shrewdness, is usually entrusted with the most important affairs of the village. He is aided in his adventures by his rather fat and unintelligent friend, Obelix, who, because he fell into the druid's cauldron of the potion as a baby, has permanent superhuman strength. Obelix is usually accompanied by Dogmatix, his little dog.

Asterix and Obelix (and sometimes other members of the village) go on various adventures both within the village and in far away lands. Places visited in the series include parts of Gaul (Lutetia, Corsica etc.), neighbouring nations (Belgium, Spain, Britain, Germany etc.), and far away lands (but these latter albums are not so good).

• Humour and translation :

The humour encountered in the Asterix comics is typically French, often centering on puns, caricatures, and tongue-

in-cheek stereotypes of contemporary European nations and French regions. Much of the humour in the initial Asterix books was French-specific, which delayed the translation of the books into other languages for fear of losing the jokes and the spirit of the story. Some translations have actually added local humour (Italian and British editions for instance).
In spite of (or perhaps because of) this stereotyping, and notwithstanding some alleged streaks of French chauvinism, the humour has been very well received by European and Francophone cultures around the world.

The 34 books or albums in the series have been translated into more than 100 languages and dialects (even Latin and Ancient Greek). The translation of the books into English has been done by Derek Hockridge and Anthea Bell.

They have been widely praised for their rendition of the English language edition, maintaining the spirit and humour of the original even when direct translation is impossible — as it often is when translating puns between languages which are not closely related. A good example occurs in Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield — when Obelix

Sometimes nothing of the original joke is salvageable. In Asterix in Britain, much of the humor came from Goscinny's high-fidelity rendition of the English language using French words. This, of course, is totally lost by retranslation in English, but compensated for by making the British characters speak in an antiquated, early-twentieth-century style.

• Translating names

In Asterix stories, many of the original names are humorous due to their absurdity. For example, the bard is Assurancetourix (assurance tous risques or "comprehensive insurance"), the translation of which is pointless since the bard has no connection to insurance of any kind — it's the silliness that makes it humorous. To maintain the spirit and flow of the story the translators change the joke in the name to a comment on the character. Thus in the English language edition the bard's name is Cacofonix which is an allusion to the term cacophony (a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds), since the central trait of the bard character is that the Gauls all hate listening to his music.

This happens in the original as well, as with Geriatrix (French: Agecanonix — canonical age — a French expression

• Astérix in the USA
  

• Comparison of names of major characters