Right around Paris VII’s campus, placards in the shape of cartoon speech bubbles have started popping up on road signs and sidewalks. They’re there, as far as I can tell, for no apparent reason other than to give me SO MUCH JOY day after day as I trudge from the metro to Paris VII for my classes.
The signs are quotes from a popular bande dessinée (comic book) called Asterix et Obelix. The BDs are pretty different from the American comic book; they're often bound hardcovers, and since all French children read them they don’t carry quite the same dork stigma as in America. I read lots of them growing up: Asterix, of course, but also Tintin, Yakari, Les Schtroumpfs (you know them as Smurfs), Marsupilamis, etc.
Asterix et Obelix is one of the most popular, partly, I’m convinced, because it features some of the most hysterically awful facial hair you’ll ever see in a comic book. It was even made into a live-action and hilariously campy movie starring (who else?) Gérard Depardieu as Obelix. The movie almost singlehandedly doubled the European audience for French films.
Asterix et Obelix features the inhabitants of the only Gaulish village to resist the Romans. They do so with the help of their druid, who brews a potion that temporarily gives them extreme strength – enough to defeat, story after story, the invading Roman troops. The Romans naturally never learn, prompting Asterix or Obelix to exclaim, Mais ils sont fous ces romains! (“But they’re crazy, those Romans!”)
The signs are quotes from a popular bande dessinée (comic book) called Asterix et Obelix. The BDs are pretty different from the American comic book; they're often bound hardcovers, and since all French children read them they don’t carry quite the same dork stigma as in America. I read lots of them growing up: Asterix, of course, but also Tintin, Yakari, Les Schtroumpfs (you know them as Smurfs), Marsupilamis, etc.
Asterix et Obelix is one of the most popular, partly, I’m convinced, because it features some of the most hysterically awful facial hair you’ll ever see in a comic book. It was even made into a live-action and hilariously campy movie starring (who else?) Gérard Depardieu as Obelix. The movie almost singlehandedly doubled the European audience for French films.
Asterix et Obelix features the inhabitants of the only Gaulish village to resist the Romans. They do so with the help of their druid, who brews a potion that temporarily gives them extreme strength – enough to defeat, story after story, the invading Roman troops. The Romans naturally never learn, prompting Asterix or Obelix to exclaim, Mais ils sont fous ces romains! (“But they’re crazy, those Romans!”)
All the quotes posted around Paris VII are immediately recognizable to anyone who read the BD growing up. It’s a great feeling to be privy to a cultural understanding like this; it makes me feel like a real Parisian!
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