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n 1952 World Press eventually opened an agency at Champs
Elysées and Goscinny and Uderzo started with their first
common productions. The first few years they were depending
on orders from Belgium, whereas own projects (e.g. Oumpah-
Pah) didn't raise interest at Dupuis. Some years later, in 1955,
Morris offered Goscinny to join him for the production of
Lucky Luke. Goscinny contributed to this extremly
successful series with scenarios and texts until
1977. In the same year comic artists working
for the Belgian publishers Dupuis, Casterman
and Lombard passed a charta which
formulated their claims concerning artistic
freedom. Wrongly Goscinny was
taken for being the initiator and
was fired in consequence. Only
Uderzo und Charlier declared
their solidarity and gave notice.
Driven by the need for money the three
joined with Jean Hébrard to found their
own advertising and press agency: Edifrance and
Edipress.
Together with Jean-Jaques Sempé, Goscinny created
the illustrated story of Le Petit Nicolas in 1956, which
was published for the first time in Le
Mystique und from 1958 in Sud Ouest
Dimanche. Finally in 1959 the first edition
of the comic magazine Pilote was published
- but again not without problems:
Goscinny, Uderzo and Charlier were
boycotted by the big publishers and so
well-established authors didn't dare to work
for Pilote being afraid of loosing their
contracts. Thus they had to engage so far
unknown junior drawers and scenarists to
fill the pages. Soon it showed that this was
a lucky move and Pilote gained ground on
Tintin and Spirou more and more.
Now Goscinny hardly could save himself from work. He had not only to care
for the Asterix series - newly created for the start of Pilote together with Uderzo
- but also for Lucky Luke and Le Petit Nicolas. Besides that he wrote glosses,
editorials and small stories for Pilote.
And from 1962 another story came along: Le Grand Vizir Iznogoud, a parody
In 1968 disagreements came up concerning
the way of leadership as practised by
Goscinny, Uderzo and Charlier. Even though
the three bosses and their employees managed
to set up a mutual agreement the gap
became to big, and Goscinny and his
friends withdrew more and more from
the business. Charlier even quit
completely in 1974.
of the Arabian Nights, which he created
in cooperation with the young Jean
Tabary for the Record magazine
(published as albums by Dargaud
from 1966).
The great success of Asterix made
Goscinny as well as Uderzo
almost over night national
heroes. The publication of
the new adventure "Le
combat des chefs" (engl.:
Asterix and the Big
Fight) became a social
event. The creators of
the little gallic warrior
helped comics to public
recognition as art, especially in France.
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