It was in 1959 that Astérix and the rest of the village of unyielding Gauls, who resisted Roman occupation thanks to a magic potion, first appeared in the French magazine Pilote.

Since then, Astérix, always accompanied by his faithful friend Obelix and his dog Ideiafix, have travelled to every part of the Roman Empire and beyond... all of it? Until this year, Portuguese fans of the series lamented the fact that Lusitania, the territory that corresponds to what is now Portugal, had not yet been visited by these heroes who have enamoured and amused several generations of readers.

That omission has finally been addressed with the release of Astérix in Lusitania, the 41st album in the series, the seventh drawn by Didier Conrad (who received the testimony of Albert Uderzo, creator of the characters) and the second scripted by Fabrice Caro(Fabcaro), after The White Lily.

So far, it's been a resounding success, according to David Lopes, general director of the Leya group who told Euronews it's broken a Portuguese book publishing record for the most sales in the first four days.

That revelation was doubly confirmed by the series' editor in Portugal, Vítor Silva Mota and also by the enormous number of people who packed into the sold-out screening at one of the largest rooms in the El Corte Inglés cinema complex in Lisbon.

Sin