Brand New... ASTERIX AND THE LAUREL WREATH

BRAND NEW...PAPERBACK...48 PAGES

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ASTERIX AND THE LAUREL WREATH:

This is by far the most adult-oriented of all the Asterix stories. It includes drunkenness, human slavery, debauchery, particular graphic violence, nudity, androgyny, as well as instances of humour requiring (for Asterix) an unusually sophisticated knowledge of art and history to fully understand it. There is an implicit acknowledgement of this in that Dogmatix (a favourite with younger readers) makes only a token (2 panel) appearance, and the lettering of this album uses a style which is more cursive and difficult to read than usual, again discouraging younger readers.

At Typhus's store (page 16), the musclebound male slave who wears little clothing makes poses based on famous statues; Auguste Rodin's The Thinker, Apollo of Olympia, the Laocoon and the Discobolus.

The lawyers in Asterix and Obelix' trial intend to make the use of the phrase Delenda Carthago for dramatic effect. This sentence ("Carthage must be destroyed") was a favorite finishing sentence of Cato the Elder in each of his senate speeches.

The Circus Maximus jailer makes a cameo appearance in The Twelve Tasks of Asterix. He is the only one-shot background character to do so.

The trainer standing next to the lion on page 40 is a caricature of Jean Richard, a French actor who ran a zoo and a circus outside Paris.

Caesar's campaign against the pirates (here the ones Asterix and Obelix frequently encounter) was inspired by a real incident. Early in his career Caesar was captured by pirates who demanded a ransom for his return — and which he himself subsequently increased on the grounds that he was worth a lot more. The ransom was paid and Caesar released, but he then went after the pirates, captured and executed them.