Albert Uderzo, co-creator of France’s most famous comic book character, declares ‘clean slate’ after court throws out case
It was a dispute as bitter and drawn-out as Astérix the Gaul’s campaign against the Romans. On Friday, however, the illustrator Albert Uderzo – co-creator of the plucky French hero – and his daughter ended a family rift that had dragged on for seven years.
The pair buried the hatchet after a court threw out a case brought by Sylvie Uderzo claiming her father had been tricked into selling off part of the family heritage.
Albert, 87, created the cartoon books with René Goscinny, who died in 1977.
A joint statement from Albert and Sylvie sent to AFP said the pair were “determined to reciprocally make a clean slate of the accusations from both sides”.
The statement said all lawsuits had been dropped and “They wish to henceforth enjoy their newly rediscovered happiness in full”.
“This outcome is so happy, what more is there to say,” Sylvie Uderzo told AFP. Her father refused any further comment.
The family row broke out in 2007 when Sylvie Uderzo and her husband, Bernard de Choisy, were removed by the Astérix publishers from their role as managers of the Uderzo estate.
The following year, Sylvie opposed her father’s decision to sell his 60% stake in the publishers to the giant publishing group Hachette, and was also angry that he agreed to allow the company to continue making Astérix books after his death.
She sold her shares in Hachette in 2011 for a reported €13 million, but one month later sued unnamed persons for “abuse of weakness” claiming someone was taking advantage of her father’s advanced age.
In 2013, Uderzo countersued his daughter and son-in-law for “psychological violence”. “It’s a form of harassment. It’s painful … but it’s gone too far,” the artist told French journalists at the time.
The “abuse of weakness” case was thrown out on Friday when the court announced that Uderzo was “lucid … and fully capable of taking decisions”.
There was, unsurprisingly, a lot of money at stake. More than 352m copies of the Astérix books, in 111 languages, have been sold worldwide.
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