Signed by Fabcaro and Didier Conrad, the 41st Asterix is released on October 23, 2025 under the Éditions Albert René banner. Asterix in Lusitania, a luminous travel album to Lusitania, the ancestor of Portugal, where saudade infuses gags and excitement. Asterix and Obelix come to the aid of a master garum in a case involving Caesar, amidst calçadas, azulejos, and fado: a trip promising laughter, a change of scenery, and assumed continuity.
Asterix in Lusitania: a travel album under the Lusitanian sun
Fabcaro on the script and Didier Conrad on the drawing close the door of The White Iris to open it on a more southern shore: Lusitania, the ancient matrix of Portugal. On October 23, 2025, the 41st album of Asterix arrives in bookstores under the aegis of Éditions Albert René. It claims the momentum of a travel diary, the enthusiasm of an adventure comedy, and a discreet musical thread: saudade, this delicate art of smiling melancholy. It is felt on every page, like a lingering fragrance, without the story ever sinking into complaint.
A classic plot, oiled with garum and wordplay
At dawn, a messenger from the west crosses the village palisade. He has experienced the power of the magic potion and knows where to seek help. On the horizon, Atlantic cliffs, ports with white cobblestones, ochre roofs battered by the wind. Our Gauls embark and reach Lusitania. Then, they slip into the maze of steep alleys, visible in Lisbon. The plot kicks off with an Empire misunderstanding: saving a garum producer, this fish sauce highly prized in the Roman world, suddenly accused of poisoning Caesar. Fights break out and legionnaires are swept away. Moreover, local specialties are invited to the table. Additionally, the encounter with the august rival unfolds with flair.
The authors play with reversed roles. The humor of repetition arises from joyful sadness, from nostalgia that becomes a gag. The word "saudade" returns, but never as a clichéd overlay: it serves as a spring, a magnet for misunderstandings, an elegant excuse for silence, a sigh, a song. The album doesn’t invent the recipe, it doses it with care: a touch of self-mockery, puns where the sea is pronounced in singing syllables, Romans stumbling on stone calçadas.
Fabcaro and Conrad, continuity without boredom
This is Fabcaro’s second script for the regular series after 2023. His pen, which loves shifts in register, aligns with the Goscinnyan mechanics: advancing lightly, pricking with brief points, leaving the comedic charge to the drawing. Didier Conrad, for his part, continues his nervous clear line and animated crowds. Furthermore, his expressive faces and taste for panoramas invite travel. Their duo does not seek to reinvent the icon; they reactivate it with touches, like reviving an azulejos pattern in the sun.
The bet on Portugal was not obvious. The geography of Asterix has already made stops at all winds, but not here. The team chose a still unexplored destination. The reader finds that thrill of travel albums: promises of discoveries and the liturgy of stereotypes being shaken. Lusitania responds to Gaul: the same resistance to Rome, the same memory of glorious defeats. In the historical dossier provided by the publisher, Viriate facing Caesar is recalled, a discreet echo to Vercingetorix. These parallels, the book leaves them in the background; they infuse without weighing down.
Lisbon in vignettes: cobblestones, guitars, and intense blues
The reader advances as if in the early morning in the smell of salt. The calçadas sparkle, a cat crosses diagonally, a rope creaks on a mast. Around a wide shot, a facade stretched with azulejos unfolds its blue squares. In a tavern, the room calms down. A voice rises, frail and sovereign, it carries everything away. Fado, the breath of the city, a song that tightens the throat and liberates. Obelix is silent, for a second. Asterix listens. The bubble, for once, doesn’t need words.
During the day, the clamor leads to the market. Codfish dry in the wind, a promise of bacalhau served for dinner. The Gauls taste, compare, exaggerate, laugh at their own boldness: the sea crashes onto their plate, but the potion watches over. In the evening, the shadow descends on the hills and the windows light up. Moreover, a guitar tunes while a Roman fighter slips and tumbles down a cobbled street. The next image shows him wedged in a sardine crate. We’ve read this kind of tumble a hundred times, we laugh anyway, because the setting changes the music.
Saudade as a comedic thread, a balanced act
Saudade can do everything, except be reduced. The authors use it as one would invoke a musical theme: returns, variations, counterpoints. Sometimes it envelops a scene with sweetness, sometimes it fuels the pastiche. It brings to mind the old travel albums where clichés were assumed, highlighted, turned against themselves. Here, the intention remains. The album does not claim to be ethnographic. It flips through immediately readable signs, plays with them openly, and shifts them through laughter. The French-speaking reader finds their way without a guide, the Portuguese reader will recognize winks blown out of proportion. The line between benevolence and ease is crossed in a step. Fabcaro manages through metalanguage, those asides that deflate emphasis, and through scenes where emotion takes the lead.
A cultural industry at the time of the big print run
5 million copies announced worldwide, 19 languages and about 25 countries, with 2 million destined for the French-speaking market: the Asterix machine keeps its athlete’s shoulders. Each release replays the same ballet: well-kept secrets, precise communication, video capsules where Asterix and Obelix mime the embargo, first pages revealed drop by drop. The publisher orchestrates a smiling impatience. There are feigned interviews, fake confidences as appetizers. The comic strip knows how to speak the language of the present, between nostalgia and event strategy.
Behind the scenes, the publisher has sharpened a "making-of" under embargo: capsules where Fabcaro and Didier Conrad drop coded clues, silent excerpts of pages, access schedule for editorial offices, shipments under supervision to key booksellers. The staging counts almost as much as the announcement: it installs, week after week, the idea of a travel album to ancient Portugal.
In this setup, the Fabcaro–Conrad duo plays along. They talk about the light they wanted, the warmth, the desire for a sunny album. They also talk about the freedom gained: signing the most famous series in France is an obligation, but it allows for the audacity of side paths. Lusitania then becomes the support of a story that respects the invariants and takes some liberties with rhythm. Indeed, it’s like a walk that slows down to better hear a song.
Echoes and loyalties
Readers will recognize silhouettes already encountered. A former slave seen in The Domain of the Gods returns as a pivotal figure. Continuity is not proclaimed, it sows traces. Enthusiasts enjoy the subtle engineering of these bridges drawn from one album to another. In the crowd, the Romans all look alike and each has their own mimicry. Tavern keepers have authoritative mustaches. Sailors are talkative at departure and silent upon arrival. Idefix, who understands music, perches near the guitars when the voice rises.
On the table, garum occupies its documentary side. No need to spread dissertations to recall that it was, in the Roman world, a condiment as widespread as it was disputed. The vignettes suffice: amphorae, warehouses, rising smells, faces shared between pleasure and recoil. The reader wishing to delve deeper into this gourmet aspect of the album can consult scholarly sources. Thus, they will understand the making of this fish sauce with a long rest.
What the journey really tells
The book does not just change scenery. It questions sadness and desire, this way of holding together lack and promise. Saudade bridges a fantasized Gaul and a dreamed Lusitania. It questions memory and the quickly passing time. Moreover, it explores attachment to places one leaves and chooses. In the bubbles, the word returns like a refrain. Each receives a version intimately personal. Asterix hears it as a reminder of duties. Obelix detects the promise of a meal. Caesar, for his part, only has the Empire in mind; the rest eludes him.
These pages allow reconnecting with the vein of exotic albums. Indeed, these albums have grown the series. Far from any cynicism, Asterix in Lusitania embraces the pleasure of tender caricature. The line does not aim, it welcomes. Laughter remains a politeness. The music of fado is not distorted, it is quoted, a small paper reverence. The azulejos not only adorn the walls, they tile the reader’s memory, reminding them of the blue patterns of their own travels.
A reception already under friendly tension
Barely the first copies out of the boxes, the views clash with courtesy. Enthusiasts praise the flow of gags, the frankness of the sun, the joy of a travel album that claims nothing more than hospitality. Reservations are expressed elsewhere, fearing a collection of clichés. The debate is old, it will still be lively tomorrow. The truth lies in the measure: the series lives from its codes and their occasional destabilization. Here, the balance seems held, often at the closest, sometimes in familiar territory.
The very first bookstore feedback shows the pleasure of recognition and the appetite for novelty. Indeed, the typography of laughter, known, finds a more musical tempo. Moreover, the Lisbon scenes give flair to the classic Roman slaps. Conversely, some readers regret a caution on the sensitive side; they would have liked the saudade, so central, to take an even more melancholic turn. The book chooses the light.
The sun and memory
Asterix in Lusitania does not disrupt the architecture of the Asterix house. However, it opens it wide to a wind from the west. It makes you want to take to the sea again and listen to a voice around a sloping neighborhood. Moreover, it invites letting saudade place its hand on the shoulder without holding it back. The series gains a breath of travel, a more intense blue, a tenderness in the line. We know the Gauls are quick to brawl. Here, we remember they also know how to listen. In this travel album to ancient Portugal, Fabcaro and Didier Conrad sign an episode that prefers brilliance to manifesto and song to demonstration: a beautiful paper adventure.
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