Moving into its second full decade, the Asterix series had settled into not one but two formulas: adventure spoofs and travelogues. Asterix In Switzerland employs the latter as it veers between mild fun and meh.
Goscinny and Uderzo deliver this tale of our favorite Gaulish rebels with a strange twist: instead of frustrating the efforts of their arch-enemy Julius Caesar, Asterix and his buddy Obelix must save Caesar’s auditor Vexatius Sinusistus from poisoning by a corrupt governor.
Getafix the druid needs only one ingredient to complete an antidote to the poison: an edelweiss flower which grows only in the mountains of Helvetia, or Switzerland as it is known today.
Getafix: “Asterix, Obelix, would you mind going to Helvetia?”
Asterix: “Not at all. It’s some time since we took a trip abroad.”
Actually they were just in Spain the year before, and Great Britain a couple of years before that. But this is a trip in the opposite direction, and as the combat-ready Obelix notes, “we may find Romans in better shape on the mountains there…” So he and Asterix make like the von Trapps and head for the hills.
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| Peaceful-minded Swiss find crafty ways to rebel against their Roman overlords in a typical scene from Asterix In Switzerland. Image from https://www.everythingasterix.com/latin-jokes-content/2015/4/11/asterix-in-switzerland-latin-jokes-explained |
After years of clever history-spoofing and world-building, the Asterix team was settling into a groove both comfortable and complacent. The major positives here are engaging art and whimsical storycraft, not to mention gags about Swiss time-keeping, yodeling, and wild orgies that parody Fellini.
Yet Asterix In Switzerland is the series on cruise control, even when that means using Obelix as a human sled.
The book actually begins with Vitalstatistix, the chief of Asterix’s village, recruiting Asterix and Obelix as his new shield-bearers, an incident that sets up a joke about the mammoth Obelix carrying his leader around town like a waiter. After two pages, this is dropped completely as we cut to the Rennes palace of Varius Flavus, in the midst of a decadent orgy.
Since this is a children’s comic book, the orgies involve not sex but lots of eating, drinking, and dancing, as well as “boar’s tripe fried in aurochs dripping,” preferably served with honey. It is an expensive lifestyle, but Varius economizes by cutting back on what he sends on to Rome.
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| Governor Varius Flavus splits up the loot three ways. A lot for himself, a little for his accomplice, and what is left for Caesar. Image from https://www.goffrugbyreport.com/how-usa-rugby-fighting-keep-membership-dues-money |
Asked if this is risky, Varius sneers: “I’ll be far away by the time Rome can act! Far away and rich!” Cue Vexatius the auditor knocking on the door to check the books. Being Roman, Varius has some poison at the ready, but a deathly ill Vexatius manages to put out a call for Getafix to cure him and is meanwhile carted off to Asterix’s village to rest up.
How a Roman found such favor with these indomitably independent Gauls is not explained. Vexatius seems no more charismatic than any other numbers cruncher, and as a Roman, he would seem like a natural enemy. Never mind all that; it is merely an excuse for Asterix and Obelix’s mission of mercy to a unique part of Europe, which finally begins halfway through the book.
The pair check into a Geneva inn.
Innkeeper: This hourglass keeps very good time. Helvetian made! But you have to watch it. Whenever I shout “cuckoo” it’s time for all the hotel guests to turn their hourglasses over.
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| Swiss precision clashes with Swiss hospitality in a sample panel from Asterix In Switzerland. Image from https://thisblogiswhatzup.wordpress.com/tag/asterix-in-switzerland/ |
Meanwhile, the Roman occupiers in Switzerland are alerted by Flavus to the Gauls’s presence; he wants to stop them before they find any life-saving edelweiss. First someone must get the local guard to break off their massive fondue party long enough for a successful search.
Every Swiss trope you know and others you may not get trotted out, some to better effect than others. Asterix and Obelix hide out in a massive underground safe, where the cheese they nosh on leaves Obelix feeling cheated at all the holes. The city is also the site of an international conference of barbarian chiefs, who are taken aback by their hosts’s pathological commitment to cleanliness.
The Swiss themselves are put off by Asterix and Obelix’s habitual rule-breaking. “It’s enough to make you want to become neutral,” one sighs.
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| Another source of typical Asterix humor are anachronisms, such as this moment of Asterix and Obelix getting the Michelin Man to help fix their chariot wheel en route to Geneva. Image from https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=488487 |
Goscinny is clearly having fun working for easy laughs, though it is hard to tell from the English edition how many of these puns and japes are his and how many are the translators’s work. Whichever is the case, it isn’t top-shelf material for either, going by past performance:
Zurix the Banker: “How ghastly, having to mix with all those foreigners. My horn runneth over…”
I expected Goscinny to play up that international conference idea, especially when Asterix and Obelix sneak into one trying to elude some Romans. Switzerland is famous for hosting such idealistic yet useless events. But the premise is abandoned before it begins.
Uderzo’s illustrations reflect more commitment, capitalizing splendidly on the scenic qualities of Lake Geneva and the snow-covered Alps. His spoofing on Fellini Satyricon, a successful arthouse film released in 1969, deliver some fun if tonally out of place gags involving fat women with sickly faces pleasing aged men who seem ready for coronaries.
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| A Roman orgy as depicted in Asterix In Switzerland (above) and Fellini Satyricon (below). One partier in Asterix In Switzerland complains her make-up is not ugly enough, an allusion to the strikingly sickly complexions that abound in the Fellini movie. Images from https://twitter.com/henriettari/status/950638362427318273 and https://cheaperdrugsnow.blogspot.com/2012/02/satyricon-1969-federico-fellini.html |
Reviewing the book for Pipeline Comics.com, Augie de Blieck Jr. notes the orgy sequences are not only visually jarring and unpleasant but a poor fit for what is after all still a comic drawn for an audience that, being adolescent in the aggregate, won’t get the nudgy humor. I enjoyed the cinematic digs, but see his point.
My stomach was turned more by the Swiss fondue parties that appear later on. Entire pages are drenched in melted cheese, as the Romans abandon themselves to an extremely lactose-tolerant free-for-all. It being the dawn of the 1970s, this is a sign how fondue parties were becoming a fad around the world. One lowly partygoer is singled out for abuse whenever he loses a piece of bread in the fondue pot, which he doesn’t seem to mind at all despite the resulting corporal punishment.
The complexity of Uderzo’s art comes across in the deep-dish backgrounds and the clever caricatures of minor characters, as well as the spacious outdoor vistas which had by now become his trademark. There is a lot of angle and depth work at play, too, especially during the conclusion where Asterix, Obelix, and their Swiss allies power across a mountain range while Roman soldiers give futile chase.
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| The big climax of Asterix In Switzerland involves Asterix making use of a drunk Obelix in the only way he can, and plays on Switzerland's reputation for winter sports, although downhill toboggining is still not an Olympic event. Image from https://www.pipelinecomics.com/asterix-v16-asterix-in-switzerland/ |
The Swiss, fueled by Getafix’s elixir, make quick work of the Romans, first beating them up, then bandaging them, being that Geneva is the home of the International Red Cross. Also, more yodeling.
Roman: Hit us, yes, but you might let us do the shouting!
The gags may be forced, but the joy is still there, enough for something that, like Obelix’s giant wedge of Swiss cheese, makes for an enjoyable diversion even if it doesn’t quite hit the spot.
Asterix In Switzerland was a favorite of mine when I first picked these books up as a young teen, because of its goofy flow and how it commits to its titular location. It is hard to imagine so many jokes being made about how straitlaced a people are or how clean an environment is, but that is what you get here. Even when it gets tired, as it inevitably does halfway in, it gives familiar series a different look, which counts for something.
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