Daughter of Asterix Creator “Misunderstood”

One of the more upsetting stories in France over the last week or so has been the troubled ongoing relationship between one of the creators of Astérix and his only offspring

The very public family rift took a nasty turn when Albert Uderzo filed official complaints for “psychological violence” against his daughter Sylvie Uderzo and his son-in-law Bernard Boyer de Choisy.

Sylvie responded in a public interview with online tv station BFMTV by saying “my father didn’t understand my approach” and that she intends to persuade him to see reason in a situation that she sees as something that has all been a bit of a misunderstanding.

It was a somewhat surreal interview by the clearly emotional 57-year-old, who has found herself speaking to her estranged father via the media: “To see your father talking about you on television in those terms… it’s very hurtful,” she said, before explaining that her approach wasn’t understood by her father.

Sylvie Uderzo said that she had assured her parents of “all her love” when she communicated with them. As for the legal drama that began in 2007, she said that she intended to get her father to see reason and that she would continue to “protect him from the vultures.”

86-year-old Albert Uderzo was, along with the late René Goscinny the creator of one of the most successful cartoon series in the world; Goscinny providing most of the story-writing while Uderzo carried out the drawings for the Adventures of Asterix the Gaul.

It was Uderzo himself who took the decision last Monday to sue his daughter, citing constant attack by his daughter and son-in-law “on his psychological integrity, of contributing to his debility with a view to acquiring his literary heritage that they covet.”

After the death in 1977 of Asterix co-creator René Goscinny, Sylvie Uderzo took it upon herself to co-manage the company portfolio with her partner and to leave her father to work on the concept of the cartoon series. Albert Uderzo says that he didn’t understand it that way at all and, in 2007, Sylvie and her husband were cut out of the considerable estate of her father’s publishing business when Uderzo sold his shares in the publishing company to Hachette. The law suit filed by his lawyers Pierre Cornut-Gentille and Jean-Alain Michel before the correctional tribunal of Nanterre last week was upheld and was made in response to Sylvie and her husband’s legal actions against unnamed parties that they claimed had taken advantage of Albert Uderzo’s “fragility” – a claim which Uderzo himself strongly rejects.