Asterix In the Days of Good Queen Cleo 4 (Print)
A rare unique Collector's item. This is a hand-coloured bromide.
Artist: Albert Uderzo
Medium: Watercolour on Bromide
Size: 14" x 19" (350mm x 470mm)
Date: 1966
Code: UderzoAC8
This is a print.
A hand coloured (by Fleetway Studios) bromide from the Uderzo original pen and ink art. This is a very unique item and a rare collectors piece. Original Uderzo Asterix art now commands upwards of £100,000 per page. This fascinating example is as close to the original as most budgets will allow.
The Asterix strip originally appeared as "Asterix le Gaulois" or Asterix the Gaul in France in 1959 in the first issue of Pilote and then was subsequently reprinted in album form in 1961.
The original English translated version of Asterix then appeared in Valiant magazine in 1963. In this Asterix was a Briton called Little Fred: the Ancient Brit with bags of Grit, his sidekick Obelix was called big Ed and Getafix the village druid was called Hocus Pocus. The artwork was all from "Asterix the Gaul" and there was no change in storyline except that it was set in Britain.
However in 1965 Asterix was again reprinted, this time in Ranger Magazine. The original French story 'Asterix and the Big Fight' was serialised in Ranger and called "Britons Never, Never, Never Shall be Slaves". The first episode was printed for the 1st issue of Ranger on 18th September 1965. The story was changed to make the heroes ancient Britons rather than Gauls, and sometimes the text was pretty different too, but the artwork was identical to the original. Asterix was renamed Beric, Obelix was called Son of Boadicea and his dog, Idéfix, was called Fido. As far as we know Ranger used the black and white bromide of the original artwork which was then coloured in Fleetway's art studio. When Ranger ceased publication in 18th June 1966 and was incorporated into Look and Learn, the following week on the 25th June 1966, the French Asterix story "Asterix and Cleopatra" was serialised as "In the Days of Good Queen Cleo". The strip ended on the 22nd April 1967 with no subsequent Asterix strip succeeding it.
As in "Britons Never, Never, Never Shall be Slaves", the artwork for "Cleo" was the same but the wording was totally different including Obelix's name being changed from Son of Boadicea to Doric. Likewise we believe Look and Learn got the black and white prints of the original artwork and then had it coloured in their own studio.
It is important to note that these translations of Asterix for Ranger were done by Ranger's editor John Sanders and are completely different to the translations by Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge first published in 1969.
It is interesting to note that before the Hockbridge/Bell translations, English versions of Asterix cartoon movies often used the Ranger/Look and Learn names- Asterix remained Asterix but the village chief became Tunabrix rather than Vitalstatistix.
- Artist Biography
Albert Uderzo (born 25 April 1927; Marne, France)
Albert Uderzo is a French comic book artist, and scriptwriter. He is best known for his work on the Astérix series, but also drew other comics such as Oumpah-pah, also in collaboration with René Goscinny.
Uderzo was born Alberto Aleandro Uderzo in Fismes (Marne, France), to parents, Silvio and Iria, who had recently immigrated from Italy. His name comes from the Italian village called Oderzo (formerly called Uderzo), where his family tree can be traced. His childhood ambitions were to become an aircraft mechanic, despite his talents in art at an early age.
Uderzo obtained French citizenship in 1934, and during World War II, the teenaged Uderzo left Paris and spent a year in Brittany, where he worked on a farm and helped with his father's furniture business. He loved Brittany, both for its scenery and its people. Many years later, when the time came to choose a location for Asterix's village, Goscinny left the decision entirely to Uderzo, only stipulating that it should be near the sea in case the characters needed to travel by boat. Uderzo had no hesitation in choosing Brittany.
Uderzo began a successful career as an artist in Paris after the war in 1945, with creations such as Flamberge and also Clopinard, a small one-legged old man who triumphs against the odds. From 1947 to 1948 he created some other comics, such as Belloy and Arys Buck.
Throughout some more creations and travelling for the next few years, he eventually met René Goscinny in 1951. The two men quickly became good friends, and decided to work together in 1952 at the newly opened Paris office of the Belgian company, World Press. Their first creations were the characters Oumpah-pah, Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior. In 1958 they adapted Oumpah-pah for serial publication in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Tintin, though it ran only until 1962. In 1959 Goscinny and Uderzo became editor and artistic director (respectively) of Pilote magazine, a new venture aimed at older children. The magazine's first issue introduced Astérix to the French world, and it was an instant hit. During this period Uderzo also collaborated with Jean-Michel Charlier on the realistic series Michel Tanguy, later named Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure.
Astérix was serialised in Pilote, but in 1961 the first album Astérix le gaulois (Asterix the Gaul) was published as an individual album. By 1967, the comic had become so popular that both decided to completely dedicate their time to the series. After Goscinny's death in 1977, Uderzo continued to write and illustrate the books on his own, though at a significantly slower pace (averaging one album every three to five years compared to two albums a year when working with Goscinny). The cover credits still read "Goscinny and Uderzo".
Uderzo married Ada Milani in 1953 and has one child, daughter Sylvie Uderzo (b. 1956). According to The Book of Asterix the Gaul, it was speculated that Uderzo had based the characters Panacea and Zaza on Ada and Sylvie respectively, though this has been denied by Uderzo. When Uderzo sold his share of Editions Albert René to Hachette Livre, Sylvie accused him in a column in Le Monde, that with this action it was "as if the gates of the Gaulish village had been thrown open to the Roman Empire". Sylvie owns 40% of Editions Albert René, while the remaining 60%, previously owned by Uderzo and by Goscinny's daughter, is currently owned by Hachette Livre.
Uderzo has a brother, Marcel, also a cartoonist. Asterix and the Falling Sky was dedicated to his late brother Bruno (1920–2004).