Albert Uderzo, born in 1927, became a junior illustrator at a Parisian publishing house in 1941. In 1945, he assisted for the first time in the production of an animated film, and a year later, he created his first comic strips, became a scriptwriter, and soon produced self-contained comic series. During this time, he created works such as "Belloy, Knight Without Armor" (for the magazine OK) and "Crime Doesn't Pay" (for the newspaper France-Soir). Uderzo became an employee of a Belgian agency in Paris, where he met Jean-Michel Charlier and René Goscinny in 1951. With Charlier, Uderzo worked on "Belloy," "Tanguy," and "Laverdure," while his collaboration with Goscinny initially produced "Pitt Pistol" and "The Incredible Corsair," followed by "Luc Junior" (for La Libre Belgique), "Benjamin and Benjamine" (for "Top Magazin"), and "Umpah-Pah" (for "Tintin"). In 1959, Uderzo and Goscinny founded their own magazine called "Pilot." The crowning achievement was the creation of "Asterix the Gaul." Albert Uderzo received the Max and Moritz Prize from the Erlangen Comic Salon in June 2004 for his outstanding lifetime achievement.

In 45 years since the first publication in Germany, Asterix undergoes its first major revision. With careful attention to detail, all 34 Asterix albums have been uniformly colored, and the speech bubbles have been re-lettered. The cover design has been gently modified, with some covers even redrawn personally by Asterix illustrator Albert Uderzo. This ensures that the great success of Asterix is ready for a new century and can look forward to a glorious future.