Albert Uderzo

The 92-year-old artist has suffered a heart attack.” Albert Uderzo died in his sleep at his home in Neuilly (on the outskirts of Paris) of a heart attack, unrelated to the coronavirus. He had been very tired for several weeks,” his son-in-law, Bernard de Choisy, told the AFP agency.

Albert Aleandro Uderzo  -his full name- was born color blind and with two extra fingers (which were surgically removed) in Fismes, in the Great East region of France, on April 25, 1927, where his family had just moved from Italy. As a child he displayed great artistic talent, but dreamed of becoming an aircraft mechanic. During World War II, he spent a year in Brittany, in the west of the country, where he worked on a farm. It was he who would suggest René Goscinny locating the village of the irreducible Gauls there , when he was creating the immortal characters.

After the conflict ended, he began a successful career as a cartoonist in Paris, with characters like Clopinard, a one-legged little man who always triumphs against all odds. Already united with Goscinny  he invented Jehan Pistolet and Oumpah-Pah. In 1959 both became editor and artistic director, respectively, of the newly created magazine “Pilote”, aimed at adolescents. In the first issue, Asterix already appeared, which would become a great success from the beginning. Two years later, his first album, “Astérix el Gaul”, was published.

From that moment on, the authors dedicated themselves exclusively to this character, creating two adventures a year. After Goscinny ‘s death  in 1977, Albert Uderzo  also took over the script, slowing the pace to one album every four years. In 2013, after 34 titles, the cartoonist authorized two new authors to take over. After an exhaustive selection, he chose Didier Conrad and Jean-Yves Ferri as replacements, responsible for “Asterix and the Picts”, the first installment without the parents of the protagonists.