Presentation

Name : Uderzo First name : Albert Date of birth : April 25, 1927 Occupation : Scenario writer-draughtsman Main work : Asterix

Biography

Born on April 25, 1927 in Italy, quickly arrived in France, Albert Uderzo was quickly cut out for drawing. Of course, he carried out at the nursery school a noticed illustration of " the Wolf, the goat and the kid. " When he was seven, he read Guy the Flash and Popeye and devoured the first copy of the Mickey Newspaper. He started to draw his first stories. Using his first box of paints, he painted strangely coloured landscapes : the grass was red and the tree trunks green. Uderzo was colour blind. But that didn't prevent him from drawing, only from painting. At 13, he was taken for a test at the Parisian Company of Edition. He remained one year. In the buildings of the Company, he became acquainted with Alain Saint-Ogan and large Clavo. This last was interested in his drawings and thus decided to help him. Thus began the dream, ended his training: Uderzo was an autodidact.

Uderzo worked first as an assistant-machinist with a violin maker of Ménilmontant then he learnt welding behind the mills in Puppet. But he dreamt to become a draughtsman of cartoons because he saw the first films of Walt Disney. He passed a contest to the Editions of the Oak. He invented Clopinard there: an old unijambist who sees thanks to gunpowder that he absorbs abundantly. Uderzo was hired in a studio of cartoons but drawing assembly line (he was paid by the board) was not his cup of tea, he decided to draw comics.

He created Arys Buck, Prince Rollin and Belloy for OK newspaper. Once his military service carried out, he had to work as defer-draughtsman in France Dimanche; he illustrated the various facts. After having carried out a serie entitled " the crime does not pay " for France Soir, he was hired by World Press. He met there Hubinon and Charlier with whom he took again Belloy. But Uderzo was bored by his work at his drawing table...
He met Rene Goscinny at this time. Together they carried out the heading " Savoir-vivre " in Bonnes Soirées, Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior for la Libre Junior. In 1951, Uderzo and Goscinny created Oumpah-pah which would be published only in 1958 in Tintin. In 1959, they gave birth to Asterix for the output of Pilot. At the beginning, Goscinny and Uderzo wanted to create Gallic with the athletic breadth. But Asterix was all the same when he made his first appearance, with the look (not very imposing) that we know well. As for Obelix, he became bigger as the years went by.

Consequently, Uderzo worked at the rate of 5 boards per week : 3 for Pilot (Asterix and Michel Tanguy) and 2 for Tintin (Oumpah-pah). But as Asterix became more and more successful , he entrusted Tanguy to Jijé. In 1974, Uderzo, Dargaud and Goscinny created the Idefix studios. But in 1977, Goscinny died. Uderzo then decided to continue the saga and created for them The " Albert Rene " Editons. He was both an author and a draughtsman: 3 months for the scenario, 6 for the illustrations.
250 millions specimens of the 30 albums of Asterix have been sold throughout the world, including more than 14 000 drawings, all carried out by Albert Uderzo.