Meet Adrenaline, The First Female Heroine In History Of Asterix Comics

Since its inception in 1959, the adventure comic book series Asterix returns with its first female heroine. Asterix, the 'indomitable pint-sized Gaul' who forever is outfoxing the Romans, according to Reuters, is getting his 38th comic book adventure Asterix and the Chieftain’s Daughter featuring a woman heroin — Adrenaline — first in the beloved comic’s 60-year history.

The popular book series have been fun rides for many with multiple movie spinoffs. In the new edition, the action sequences added a new character called Adrenaline, the teenage daughter of famous Gaulish king Vercingetorix.

Key Takeaways:

• Adrenaline, first female heroine included in the adventure comic book of Asterix and the Chieftain’s Daughter in the beloved comic’s 60-year history.
• The popular book series have multiple movie spin-offs, and in the new edition, the action sequences added a new character called Adrenaline, a teenage female hero
• The last three editions of Asterix have been written by Jean-Yves Ferri and drawn by Didier Conrad.
• “We didn’t want to develop a character who would be based on her seductive side as we usually do with female characters in Asterix,” said writer Conrad

Adrenaline, Image credit: The Irish Times

Adrenaline has long red braided hair, and pairs black top and trousers. The last three editions of Asterix have been written by Jean-Yves Ferri and drawn by Didier Conrad. Creation of Adrenaline is a big step forward to an empowered generation of comic books lovers. “We didn’t want to develop a character that would be based on her seductive side as we usually do with female characters in Asterix. Most of the time they are young attractive women who seduce Obelix and their role stops there,” Conrad said.

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“ has just finished growing, but hasn’t fully developed yet, so everything that is feminine is focused on her face. At the beginning of the story she has the silhouette in the form of an ‘S’, so she’s a bit round shouldered and grumpy, as she starts to assert herself, she stands up straight,” he added.

Ferri said it was a challenging task but the time was right. “In terms of the vocabulary it was quite amusing because I had to create a sort of teenage language for the time. We don’t have a lot of documentation about that. So the idea was to use certain expressions like teenagers do,” said Ferri, the scriptwriter.

“Adrenaline provided a solution, to talk about her father while talking about his daughter. That led to an interesting theme which is adolescence, which hadn't been talked about much in previous series,” Ferri said.

Goscinny, the original creator of the Asterix series with Albert Uderzo, died in 1977. Uderzo, now 92, stopped illustrating the books since 2013.

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Asterix has been entertaining fans for years now and its 38th adventure printed in 5 million copies, was released on Thursday. The Asterix books have sold more than 370 million copies worldwide. They have been translated into more than 100 languages, the books have inspired a dozen movies and cartoon series. It's a global sensation.

Feature Image Credit: Reuters

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