Asterix Omnibus #1: Collects Asterix the Gaul, Asterix and the Golden Sickle, and Asterix and the Goths

If you are an Asterix fan from the 70's and 80's you'll soon realize the translation is different. Getafix is Panoramix and the conversation text is not the same - not as funny as the original. Papercutz (publisher) has revised the script and now sounds more familiar to Millenials.

I very much liked that the 3 books were placed together at a reasonable price. I have also ordered omnibus 2 and omnibus 3 so far off amazon, and unlike omnibus 1, numbers 2 and 3 were full sized comics. This book came about 1/3 smaller than original size, so even with reading glasses on it was difficult to read.

These were the first graphic novels I ever owned (so many decades ago). The collection is long-overdue and it's clear that the graphic novels have been compiled and produced by people who are fans who know how to publish quality material.

Kids love itT.

J'aime beaucoup cette nouvelle édition d'Astérix en anglais américain

Let me preface by saying that I'm a little sentimental about Asterix & Obelix so I'm probably not being completely objective about this newly translated edition. Despite this I did try to give it a fair shot because I don’t like critiquing someone's hard work for no reason. I compared this with a copy of 'Asterix and the Gaul' that I already had.*I really like the original Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge translations. I do respect that perhaps a few things didn’t translate perfectly from French to English, but this never bothered me as I always thought that their translation was fun and witty, and I don't know or care very much about French.I was not expecting Papercutz to change so much! The text on nearly every square of every page is completely different- its entirely new writing. I'm sure there are a small number of changes that match the original author's intent in the French version more, but most of the changes seem unnecessary. I think part of the goal with this new edition is to appeal to an American audience- That's fine, but this seemed to translate into “dumbing down” rather than changing what was strictly necessary. The text of the American version is much simpler and more childlike than the Bell/Hockridge version, and has very casual language. I had hoped that this new edition would be mostly the old translation, with changes when necessary or if it didn't match well with the French version. Instead, it was pretty much a different book.If I had to pick one edition to read to my kids, it would be the original Bell/Hockridge translation. Even though there is a lot I like about the new edition, (like the addition of footnoted translations of the latin phrases) I don’t like this one's simpler reading level. It's simply not as funny or clever as the previous translation, the overall quality of the writing is worse, and I think it doesn’t read quite as “smoothly.”