COVER N. 550 - FRANCE

Postmark: Philatelie 39 Dole 28.12.2024

Posted on the 28th October; Received on the 3rd January 2025

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Par Toutatis.... No, I´m not afraid that the sky might fall over my head but a nice cover with the likes of two of my preferred heroes did fall onto my letterbox. Un grand Merci, Eric, pour cette jolie lettre.

I first met the hyperfamous Astérix and Obélix when I was 10 or 11 years old. 

A friend just about my age, the son of a French naval or air force officer that would spend the summer holidays in Santa Maria, Azores, where I lived, lent me some French comics books including one called "Le Bouclier Arverne", which would be my introduction to the famous pair of heroes.

I should here say that learning French was mandatory from the 5th grade on, when I was a kid and so, at the time, I was also getting my first notions of Baudelaire's mother tongue. As such, even though I could not read and understand everything in the books, the fact that they were graphic novels helped to put the captions in context and with the assistance of my father and an occasional foray into the dictionary I would understand if not the words the sense of most the plots.

But, this one was tough... "Bouclier", what the hell was that?....and "Arverne"?

This particular connection  would only become clear to me some years later, when I was introduced in school to the Roman empire and to historic figures like Vercingétorix and Julio Cesar.

Still the amazing quality of the drawings, the immensely funny names of the characters as well as their personal characterization, the tremendously creative foundations to the stories, like Panoramix’s magic potion, the continuous feud between Cétautomatix and Assurancetourix, the everlasting love between Monsieur et Madame Agecanonix, Obélix's crunch for beautiful Falbala, hooked me from the very beginning, as they have hooked millions of other kid and adults all over the world, the saga having been fully or partially translated into 112 languages, so far.

Astérix and Obélix, written by René Gosciny (1926-1977) and illustrated by Albert Uderzo (1927-2020), first saw the light of day in Journal Pilote, a weekly comics magazine which began to be published in 1959. 

The series which now numbers 40 volumes, was continued by Uderzo, acting both as writer and illustrator, after Gosciny's death, in 1977. After Uderzo's retirement in 2009, the series was taken over by a new writer/illustrator team made up of Jean-Yves Ferri  and Didier Conrad, but the last book published, dated of 2023, features the artwork of another illustrator: Fabcaro (Fabrice caro)

Celebrating the 65th anniversary of these true French Ambassadors, la Poste issued on 15OCT2024 a collector's series minisheet comprising 4 lettre verte (domestic up to 20g)  stamps illustrated with the three more important characters of the series: Astérix (who gets the honour of being featured on 2 stamps), Obélix and Panoramix, the Druid.

Two of these stamps were used on this cover which features a very nice postmark of the Philatelie Bureau of the city of Dole. On it, the coat of arms of the city is shown side by side with the bust of someone whom I think is Louis Pasteur, who was born in this city. 

On the back of the envelope, Eric included part of the backing frame  of the collector's sheet, and from looking at it, I realised that Astérix is only slighter older than my own self, for I too will be turning 65 this year...

Unfortunately, as usual, the French Post office chose to obliterate the stamps again with a totally unnecessary mechanical postmark....