Asterix in Corsica

Asterix & Obelix rescue a dour Corsican Exile captured by the Romans and go with him to his village in Corsica to help retrieve the tax that the greedy Roman Praetor Perfidius has extorted from the Corsicans. In Corsica, they get mixed up with inter-clan vendetta, a bunch of idiot pirates, an overenthusiastic Roman legionary named Courtingdisastus, not to mention the Praetor himself.

Two of my favorite pieces in this book:

(1) A Corsican explaining to Asterix the roots of a very bloody vendetta between 2 Corsican clans:

Asterix: What’s the vendetta about?

Corsican: The old folk say Boneywasawarriorix’s Great-Uncle married a girl from the Vionecellix clan and a cousin by marriage of OllabellaMargaritix was in love with her. But others say it was because of a donkey which OlabellaMargaritix’s great grandfather refused to pay for when he got him from the brother-in law of a close friend of the Boneywasawarriorix clan claiming that he was lame (the donkey, not the Boneywasawarriorix’s brother-in-law). Anyway it’s very serious.

(2) Conversation between Obelix & a Corsican chief:

Obelix has mistaken the sound of a pig for the ‘secret’ cry of a chief of a Corsican clan.

Chief: Can’t you tell the difference between a pig and a chief of a Corsican clan?

Obelix: I don’t know, I never tasted the chief of a Corsican clan.

Asterix in Corsica is not in the same league as “Obelix & Co” and “Asterix the Legionary”, but is pretty darn good and a definite must for any Asterix fan. And I despair of those that have never read an Asterix comic. Come on!

Obelix & Co

This is a brilliant book at many levels and can be enjoyed not only for its classic Asterix humor and puns, but also as a clever satire on modern economies and hype driven marketing.

Fed up with the sacking of the fortified Roman camp of Totorum by the Indomitable Gauls in honor of Obelix’s birthday, Julius Caeser dispatches Caius Preposterus, a hotshot young graduate of the Latin School of Economics, to corrupt the Gauls with gold. The profit motive, as Caius explains, will enfeeble them and keep them busy, and as proof, he points out the example of the fat, corrupt, senators of Rome. With the Roman treasury behind him, Caius befriends Obelix and starts buying menhirs for handsome (and artificially inflated) prices and starts to convert the Gauls’ barter economy to a money based one, enriching most of the Gaulish villagers, except Asterix and the Druid Getafix, who refuse to be taken in. The villagers, busy trading, stop fighting the Romans and leave them in peace. It looks like Julius Caesar is going to control all of Gaul, after all.

However, seeing the enormous prices obtainable for the next-to-worthless menhirs, other nationalities (the Egyptians, Phoenicians) jump into the menhir trade, creating an artificial bubble for a product that does not have any intrinsic value and is purely driven by hype. In the meanwhile, the native Roman traders, upset at being left out, lobby for protectionist economic policies and “keeping out the foreigners”, threatening to derail Julius Caesar’s Gaulish conquest plans.

As is inevitable, the market for menhirs eventually comes crashing down, depleting the Roman treasury and forcing a devaluation of the Roman Sestertius. Our hotshot grad of the Latin School of Economics seriously falls out of Caesar’s favor and everything ends happily with the Gauls going back to their old ways.

Incidentally, is there anyone that has not read an Asterix comic? Please accept my condolences on a very misspent life.