Obelix and co.

There is an irony that arguably the best Asterix story of all (in my opinion of course) is named after his well-covered if thin-skinned friend Obelix! 

This book is a hilarious satire on capitalism and marketing. Caesar sends his young protege Preposterus to Gaul to corrupt the Indomitable Gauls using the profit motive. He creates a fake demand for menhirs and begins to corrupt Obelix and later other villagers in the pursuit of profit...

This is utterly wonderful stuff, packed full of nonsense and often biting satire. We have the memorable scene where Preposterus (who is said to have been based on a young Jacques Chirac!) tries to explain the concept of marketing to Caesar, the gaudy fashions of the nouvelle rich villagers and the Romans trying to get a piece of the menhir action.

Naturally it all ends happily ever after and our friends return to their simple rustic lifestyle of hunting and eating boar and fighting, uncorrupted by bags of money! Goscinny and Uderzo were at the height of their powers here, it is a shame that this was the last book written by Goscinny to be published before he passed away.