Asterix #11
Asterix #11 (Egmont Ehapa, 1972) — 'Asterix und der Arvernerschild' — is the German album edition of the eleventh Asterix adventure, bringing to German readers one of Goscinny and Uderzo's most structurally inventive entries in the series: a genuine detective-story plot layered over the most emotionally charged episode in Gaulish history, the surrender of Vercingetorix at Alesia. The album makes two lasting contributions to the series' mythology: it is the first story in which Chief Majestix's wife Gutemine (Impedimenta in English) is given her name, and it retroactively explains the origin of Majestix's iconic carrying-shield as none other than Vercingetorix's own battle shield — turning a prop that had appeared in every previous album into a punchline with real historical resonance. The story's satirical layering is unusually rich even by Goscinny's standards, weaving together a parody of mid-century French spa culture (centered on a thinly veiled Vichy) with pointed jokes about Roman imperial vanity and Gaulish collective shame over Alesia — a wound in French national memory that had not yet been fully archaeologically resolved when the book first appeared.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The story was written by René Goscinny and drawn by Albert Uderzo at the height of their collaborative confidence, first serialized in the French magazine Pilote from issue 399 (15 June 1967) through issue 421 (16 November 1967), then collected as the eleventh Dargaud album in January 1968. The German-language text was translated by Gudrun Penndorf, Egmont Ehapa's long-serving Asterix translator, and appeared first in serialized form in Ehapa's magazine MV Comix (issues 6–20) in 1972, before Ehapa issued it as standalone album #11 on 3 February 1972 — meaning the Egmont Ehapa #11 album and its MV Comix serialization both fall within the same year.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Title: 'Asterix und der Arvernerschild' (German title); original French title 'Le bouclier arverne'; English title 'Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield'.
- Published by Egmont Ehapa as #11 in their German-language Asterix series; first printing dated February 3, 1972, per GCD records.
- Written by René Goscinny, drawn by Albert Uderzo; German translation by Gudrun Penndorf.
- Original French serialization: Pilote magazine issues #399–421 (June–November 1967); French album published by Dargaud, January 1968.
- German pre-publication: the story ran in Ehapa's MV Comix magazine (issues 6–20) in 1972 before the standalone album edition appeared.
- First named appearance of Gutemine (Impedimenta in English), the wife of Chief Majestix (Vitalstatistix) — a character who had appeared unnamed in prior issues.
- The album establishes the in-universe origin of Majestix's famous carrier-shield as the actual battle shield of Vercingetorix, surrendered at Alesia — a retroactive retcon that recontextualizes the chief's every prior appearance.
- The story is structured as a detective novel — one of the first times the Asterix series adopted a mystery/treasure-hunt format — with Asterix and Obelix tracing the shield through a chain of Roman veterans, merchants, and innkeepers across the Arverne region (modern Auvergne), satirizing French spa culture (Aquae Calidae = Vichy), the 'Bougnat' wine-and-coal shop tradition of Auvergnat immigrants to Paris, and the Michelin tyre factories of Clermont-Ferrand (depicted as a wheel factory in ancient Nemessos).