René Goscinny (French:[ʁəneɡɔsini], Polish:[ɡɔɕˈt͡ɕinnɨ]ⓘ; 14 August 1926 – 5 November 1977) was a French comic editor and writer, who created the Astérixcomic book series with illustrator Albert Uderzo. He was raised primarily in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he attended French schools, and he lived in the United States for a short period of time. There he met Belgian cartoonist Morris. After his return to France, they collaborated for more than 20 years on the comic series Lucky Luke (in what was considered the series' golden age).[1]
Goscinny was born in Paris in 1926, to Jewish immigrants from Poland.[2] His parents were Stanisław Simkha Gościnny, a chemical engineer from Warsaw, and Anna (Hanna) Bereśniak-Gościnna from Chodorków (modern-day Khodorkiv [uk]), a small village near Kyiv in Ukraine.[3][full citation needed] Goscinny's maternal grandfather, Abraham Lazare Berezniak, founded a printing company.[4] Claude, Goscinny's older brother, was six years older, born on 10 December 1920.
Stanisław and Anna had met in Paris and married in 1919. When René was two, the Gościnnys moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, because his father had been hired as a chemical engineer there. René had a happy childhood in Buenos Aires and studied in French-language schools there. He was often the "class clown", probably to compensate for a natural shyness. He started drawing very early on, inspired by the illustrated stories which he enjoyed reading.
In December 1943, the year after Goscinny graduated from lycée or high school, his father died of a cerebral hemorrhage (stroke). The youth had to go to work. The next year, he got his first job as an assistant accountant in a tyre recovery factory. After being laid off the following year, Goscinny became a junior illustrator in an advertising agency.[5]
Goscinny, along with his mother, emigrated from Argentina and immigrated to New York, United States in 1945 to join her brother, Boris. To avoid service in the United States Armed Forces[citation needed] he travelled to France to join the French Army in 1946. He served at Aubagne in the 141st Alpine Infantry Battalion. Promoted to senior corporal, he became the appointed artist of the regiment and drew illustrations and posters for the army.
First works
The following year, Goscinny worked on an illustrated version of the Balzac novella The Girl with the Golden Eyes.[6] In April of that year he returned to New York.
There he went through the most difficult period of his life. For a while, Goscinny was jobless, alone, and living in poverty. By 1948, though, he had begun working in a small studio, where he became friends with future MAD Magazine contributors Will Elder, Jack Davis, and Harvey Kurtzman.[5] Goscinny became art director at Kunen Publishers, where he wrote four books for children.
Around this time he met two Belgian comic artists, Joseph Gillain, better known as Jijé, and Maurice de Bevere, also known as Morris. Morris lived in the US for six years, having already started his cartoon series Lucky Luke. (He and Goscinny collaborated on this, with Goscinny writing it from 1955 until his death in 1977, a period described as its golden age).[5]
Georges Troisfontaines, chief of the World Press agency, convinced Goscinny to return to France in 1951 in order to work for his agency as the head of the Paris office. There he met Albert Uderzo, with whom he started a longtime collaboration.[5][7] They started out with some work for Bonnes Soirées, a women's magazine for which Goscinny wrote Sylvie. Goscinny and Uderzo also launched the series Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior, in the magazine La Libre Junior.
In 1955, Goscinny, together with Uderzo, Jean-Michel Charlier, and Jean Hébrad, founded the syndicate Edipress/Edifrance. The syndicate launched publications such as Clairon for the factory union and Pistolin for a chocolate company. Goscinny and Uderzo cooperated on the series Bill Blanchart in Jeannot, Pistolet in Pistolin, and Benjamin et Benjamine in the magazine of the same name. Under the pseudonym Agostini, Goscinny wrote Le Petit Nicolas for Jean-Jacques Sempé in Le Moustique. It was later published in Sud-Ouest and Pilote magazines.
In 1959, the Édifrance/Édipresse syndicate started the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote.[9] Goscinny became one of the most productive writers for the magazine. In the magazine's first issue, he launched Astérix, with Uderzo. The series was an instant hit and remains popular worldwide. Goscinny also restarted the series Le Petit Nicolas and Jehan Pistolet, now called Jehan Soupolet. Goscinny also began Jacquot le Mousse and Tromblon et Bottaclou with Godard.
The magazine was bought by Georges Dargaud in 1960, and Goscinny became editor-in-chief. He also began new series like Les Divagations de Monsieur Sait-Tout (with Martial), La Potachologie Illustrée (with Cabu), Les Dingodossiers (with Gotlib) and La Forêt de Chênebeau (with Mic Delinx). With Tabary, he launched Calife Haroun El Poussah in Record, a series that was later continued in Pilote as Iznogoud. With Raymond Macherot he created Pantoufle for Spirou.
Family
Goscinny married Gilberte Pollaro-Millo in 1967. In 1968, their daughter Anne Goscinny was born. She also became an author.
Anne Goscinny, the daughter of René Goscinny, co-wrote the screenplay for Little Nicholas: Happy As Can Be, 2022 animation film with Michel Fessler and Massoubre.[10]
Death
Goscinny's tombstone in Nice
Goscinny died at 51, in Paris of a heart attack on 5 November 1977, during a routine stress test at his doctor's office.[11][12] He was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Nice. In accordance with his will, most of his money was transferred to the chief rabbinate of France.
Goscinny's death occurred part-way through the writing of Asterix in Belgium (published in 1979, two years after his death). As a homage to Goscinny, Uderzo drew darkened skies and rain into the comic. The last panel on page 32 and all but the last panel on page 33 were drawn with grey skies and rain to mark the point at which Goscinny died. Most of the remaining panels in the book were drawn with leaden grey skies, but none have rain. There is a further tribute at the end of the book: near the lower left corner of the final panel, Uderzo drew a rabbit sadly looking over its shoulders towards Goscinny's signature. Regrettably, as printed (at least in the German edition) the outlines are too thick, even at 10X magnification, to make clear what the rabbit is doing.
After Goscinny's death, Uderzo began to write Asterix himself and continued the series, although at a much slower pace, until passing the series over in 2011 to writer Jean-Yves Ferri and illustrator Didier Conrad.[13] Tabary similarly began to write Iznogoud himself, whereas Morris continued Lucky Luke with various other writers.
As a further tribute to Goscinny, Uderzo gave his late colleague's likeness to the Jewish character Saul ben Ephishul (Saul Nizahle in the German edition) in the 1981 album L'Odyssée d'Astérix ("Asterix and the Black Gold"), which is dedicated to Goscinny's memory.
Awards and honors
1974: Adamson Award for best international comic strip artist, Sweden
On 23 January 2020, a life-sized bronze statue of Goscinny was unveiled near his former home in Paris. It was the first public statue in Paris dedicated to a comic book author.[15]
Studios Idéfix was an animation studio founded on April 1st, 1974 by Goscinny, Uderzo and Morris.
Its logo, designed by Uderzo, is a parody of MGM's logo, with Dogmatix (known in French as Idéfix) instead of Leo and a banner reading "Delirant Isti Romanii", instead of "Arts Gratia Arts".
Prior to Idéfix, the works of the founders were animated and adapted to films by Belvision Studios, based at Brussels in Belgium.
As the founders themselves said,
Goscinny and I were very unhappy watching the previous films, even if the public had followed them. The first two films were not a claim to fame for us. And we had to go through the premieres[dubious – [[Talk:René Goscinny#I guess it's a mistranslation, "premieres" is wrong and what's meant is "the first [2 movies]". See talk-page. |discuss]]] several times… By dint of seeing these flaws again and again, which we felt more and more because we knew them better, they had become enormous! For this one, we can avoid this kind of thing. Goscinny and I are doing the storyboarding and we hope to oversee everything. Because this time the cartoon will be produced in Paris, by a studio that we created ourselves. We will be both authors and directors, we will work really closely with the animators. If we're embarking on this adventure, it's because we've pulled out all the stops!
It’s an old childhood dream that we had with Albert Uderzo, who actually started out in cartoons. It’s the culmination of ten years of work, because we started making cartoons in other studios. It took ten years before we could have our own studios and make the films the way we wanted them. We did it, I must say, thanks to Asterix, who is a miracle character and who is our star, and who allowed us in many ways to realize this dream.
René Goscinny called Henri Gruel to constitute the technical and artistic teams of the Idéfix studios. The latter directed several animated short films and was responsible for the sound effects of Asterix the Gaul and Asterix and Cleopatra, as well as the two productions by Pierre Tchernia scripted by Goscinny, Le Viager and Les Gaspards. Gruel gets Goscinny to share the artistic direction of the studios with Pierre Watrin, whom he considers to be an excellent designer, one of Paul Grimault's best former animators. Over several months, Gruel and Watrin contacted former artists and animators, as well as promising young artists. Most of Paul Grimault's former animators then worked in small cartoon structures, and would be interested in the idea of working again in a real studio. However, the search for Pierre Watrin and Henri Gruel ultimately proved difficult, most of the former employees of the Les Gémeaux studios having converted to illustration and advertising. Talent was lacking and, at Goscinny's request, Henri Gruel sent his friend Serge Caillet, production director on live-action films, to the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry to demand the opening of a animated cinema section to supply the studios with young artists, who thus offer employment to students as soon as they leave school. Eventually, they managed to produce their first feature film, The Twelve Tasks of Asterix, with Halas and Batchelor and Dargaud.[citation needed]
However, in 1977, during the production of their second (and final) production, Goscinny died of a sudden heart attack. So, after the release of their second feature, The Ballad of the Daltons, a Lucky Luke feature, the studio ceased operations and closed shop permanently.[citation needed]
^According to Yeruham Eniss, the village had a soap factory, and many Jews of nearby Chodorków had jobs selling and trading in soap. A census made in the late 1930s counted 3670 Jewish families in Chodorków before World War II (ShtetLinks website: alternate spellings include Chortkow and Khodorkiv)
^UNESCO Statistics. "Index Translationum - "TOP 50" Author". Official website of UNESCO. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Retrieved 12 August 2017.
