The Astérix stories have been published in 72 languages, 18 dialects and 5 regional languages. Germany also had nationalist symbols from the ancient past, such as Herman (Arminius), which were important as a foil for French propaganda, and as a catalyst for change in the perception of France's own national origins and symbolism. In addition to internal history, a vital factor was the threat of war, specifically war with Germany on three occasions – the Franco-Prussian War, World War I and World War II. The other ingredient in the consideration of French nationalism and its symbols is modern French history, with its rapidly shifting political climate and succession of Empires and Republics. We shall be dealing with three peoples – the Gauls, the Romans and the Franks – together with their respective leaders (according to popular mythology) – Vercingetorix, Julius Caesar and Clovis. Why is the former, in effect, a right-wing nationalist symbol, but the latter, to generalize a little, a left-wing version? To answer this, we go back to the period of the French revolution, and trace the way in which the ancient Gauls have been expropriated by different political groups for patriotic ends. Two well-known icons of modern French culture: the Gauloise cigarette packet and the Asterix strip cartoon. The attention is focused on the work of English translators of Asterix, initially drawing a brief history of Asterix’s introduction into the United Kingdom and the USA and of its rendition into the language of Shakespeare, then highlighting the major difficulties with which translators are confronted in this specific case and the solutions they have found. After some preliminary remarks on the characteristics of comics as a paraliterary kind of fiction, which integrates in one system of communication both a visual and a verbal code, the attention briefly focuses on puns, a linguistic feature that constitutes a fundamental element of humour in comic books in general, and particularly in Asterix, therefore being the main problem faced by translators in their task of transferring the original message not only into a new language, but also into a new cultural system. The aim of Enrico Martines’ work is to point out some specific problems in the translation of the French-Belgian comic series of Asterix. In his paper, Enrico Martines analyses the strategies adopted in the British, American and Italian versions of Asterix, offering an in-depth application of the theories approached in the remaining of the book. “S.P.Q.T.! (Those Translators Are Fool!)” figures as the Appendix of Michela Canepari’s book An Introduction to Discourse Analysis and Translation Studies.
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