Rene Goscinny was born in Paris in 1926, and spent most of his childhood in Argentina, before eventually moving to Paris in 1951. He died in 1977. Albert Uderzo was born in 1927 in a small village in Marne, France. He met Rene Goscinny in 1951 and on 29 October 1959 their most famous creation, Asterix,made his first appearance on page 20 of PILOTE. ASTERIX THE GAUL, their first album, was published in 1961 and there have now been 35 Asterix albums. Illustrator Didier Conrad was born in Marseille in 1959. He moved to America after his style got him noticed by Disney and Dreamworks, and in 1996 he designed the characters and storyboard for the 2000 animated film THE ROAD TO EL DORADO.Jean-Yves Ferri lives in the Ariege area of south-western France. Before writing the 35th Asterix album, he worked on the famous series Le Retour a la Terre, as well as the adventures of a police officer named Aime Lacapelle. Visit the English-language Asterix website at www.asterix.com