Author text
Albert Uderzo, born in 1927, became an assistant draughtsman in a Paris publishing house in 1941. In 1945 he helped for the first time with the production of an animated film, one year later he drew his first comic-strips, became a screenwriter and soon made self-contained drawing series. During this time he wrote, among others, "Belloy, Knight without Armor" (for the magazine OK) and "Crime is not worth it" (for the newspaper France-Soir). Uderzo became an employee of a Belgian agency in Paris, where he met Jean-Michel Charlier and Rene Goscinny in 1951. With Charlier, Uderzo made "Belloy", "Tanguy" and "Laverdure" and with Goscinny he first made "Pitt Pistol" and "The Incredible Corsair", among others, followed by "Luc Junior" (for La Libre Belgique), "Benjamin and Benjamine" (for "Top Magazine") and "Umpah-Pah" (for "Tintin"). In 1959, Uderzo and Goscinny founded their own magazine called "Pilot". The crowning glory was "Asterix the Gaul".
In June 2004 Albert Uderzo received the Max-und-Moritz-Prize of the Comic-Salon Erlangen for his outstanding life's work.

Flap text
In the year 45 after the first release in Germany, Asterix experiences its first major revision! In careful detail work all 34 Asterix albums were coloured uniformly and the balloons were relined. The cover design was carefully modified, some covers were even redrawn by Asterix artist Albert Uderzo himself! So the great success Asterix is fit for a new century and can look forward to a glorious future!