Asterix and the Mansions of Gods was published in 1971.
By reading all of these Asterix books over again, I have a much greater of appreciation of A. Uderzo’s drawing skills. It’s incredible how much detail he draws and with such clarity.
On the first page of the story, we have a bird’s eye view of Asterix’s village in the first box. In the second box below we have the village completely surrounded by Roman style building. Among the buildings, there seems to be a senate, an amphitheatre, a coliseum and other buildings.
This is Julius Caesar’s plan to take care of those rebellious Gauls that resist the Roman empire. By changing the landscape around the village, the Gauls will be forced to adapt to the ways of the Romans.
One of Rome’s finest architects by the name of Squareonthehypotenus is sent to Gaul to plan everything. He’s a demanding type and doesn’t want to fail Caesar.
The Gauls resist the construction and destruction of the trees at first but the Romans persevere. Eventually some Romans move in and at first the village is pleased about these new residents because they can profit financially from them. But in the end, the Gauls realize what’s best for the village. There’s a big fight and we have the usual happy ending.
I’m starting to think that the writer of Asterix books had started to write more for an older audience at this point. In the middle of the story the slaves revolt and ask for certain conditions. Adults who belong to unions at their companies may be able to laugh at this situation. Pages 28 has a two page spread of an advertisement and there’s a bit of black humor on it. Page six has a sign that says, “ORGY EQUIPMENT.” Mmm... well, at least the adults can enjoy these stories.
This story has its moments and like I mentioned in the last paragraph, a lot of the content is aimed at adults.
I’m sure children can understand that workers rights are important from reading this story and that some people prefer not to have the surroundings of where they live destroyed.
