Cartoon Heroes of the World Unite

You'll remember anarchist Tintin and his old syndicalist pal Comrade Haddock took on the Poll-Tax? Well now Amerika has a new enemy, with comic strip hero Asterix getting in on the action. After years of proving his mettle with the predecessors to the Black Bloc bashing the occupying Roman army, the indomitable Gauls have turned their attentions to the stars in their latest adventure, Asterix And The Falling Sky.

It doesn't take much reading between the lines to realise that the story is actually a full frontal attack on the current US administration and its imperialist intervention in Iraq. In the book, the short-arsed hero and his big-boned side-kick find themselves facing alien invaders from the planet Tadsylwien - an anagram of that propaganda machine Walt Disney.

The ruler of the alien world is called Hubs - I'll leave you to work that one out for yourself - and, according to one invader with more than a passing resemblance to Mickey Mouse, Hubs
has sent them to Earth in a futile search for the Gauls' "stockpile of lethal weapons".

This new-found politicization on the part of of writer/illustrator Albert Uderzo - who has been producing the Asterix stories single-handed since the death of writer René Goscinny in 1977 - certainly seems to be working: The controversy surrounding the new Asterix has helped the book shift more than 200,000 copies a day since its release last month.

Next Up? Oor Wullie and Fat Boab bust past PC Murdoch on a direct-action against new nuclear stations on Tayside?


* Asterix And The Falling Sky is published by Orion, priced £9.99.