The Romans are utterly worn out and depressed … They just can't keep up with Gaulish organisation, which has always been famous (n'est-ce pas?) and is now INEXORABLY getting into gear for "LA RENTRÉE GAULOISE" (The start of the new Gaulish school year)! After the cinemas in 2002, it's now the bookshops' turn to celebrate the return of Asterix. From Hyper-Stalls to travelling carts, everything - or almost everything - has been planned to give a worthy welcome to a new publishing phenomenon that will liven things up at the beginning of term. Even Obelix has temporarily taken up a career in cardboard packaging, leaving his menhir delivery job for the duration of the summer. Almost 10,000 display shelves (or POSs, a Briton abbreviation for "pleasing optical stalls") are ready to hold the weight of the albums (1.5 million copies on show in Gaul and Belgium)! For special intelligence reasons, Dubbelosix is on a mission, and so we will let you know later about other territories soon to be invaded by Gaulish resistance (there's talk, for instance, of "Het pretpakket" coming to tribes in the north). In a fortified warehouse located at the outermost bounds of Lutetia, the women of Gaul and their husbands, who are responsible for the consignments, are preparing to resist a new type of imperialism - boredom. Asterix's side-splitting ideas are sure to shake up the beginning of term!
This highly coveted document is tantalising everyone. From the big-catch experts on the banks of the Seine specialised in VUP fishing to buyers from a Hyper-Stall tribe, not to mention Albert Uderzo himself, or even my dog, who's trying to pull the draft off me - hey, let go, you horrible dog - everyone is just crazy about it! Collectors are already trying to bribe incorruptible journalists for a copy! The big day is planned for the end of June. The project is in fact quite historical: we've found the school report for Asterix (first name), The Gaul (family name) when he was at Getafix School! A real scoop! And, just to be really nice, we're keeping 3 (three, trois, tres) copies for you. The first three people to send me an email marked "A press kit to die for" (the date and time of the email will serve as a postmark) will be asked for their address so that this true collector's item can be forwarded to them. How's that? 