Sunday, August 14, 2011

Remembering René Goscinny

René Goscinny was born into a Jewish-Polish family in Paris, France on July 14, 1926. During World War II the family moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina. After his father’s death from a brain hemorrhage he returned to France and in 1946 joined the French Army. After the war he went to New York where his mother was living with her brother and his family. René found work in an advertising company where he met Harvey Kurtzman the future founder of Mad magazine. Goscinny published his first children’s book Playtime Stories in 1948. He returned to Paris on vacation and met Morris (Maurice de Bevere) who was the creator of Lucky Luke. The two became friends and he became a writer for the comic strip while he continued to release his own children’s books. In 1959 René created his most famous character Asterix. Goscinny has written under several pseudonyms such as René Maldecq, René Macaire, Agostini, and Liliane d'Orsay. In 1967 he married Gilberte Pollaro-Millo and in 1968 his daughter Anne is born, who also became a writer. Goscinny's work on the Lucky Luke comic strip was the basis for 10 Euro-westerns from "Judge Roy Bean" (1971) to "Lucky Luke" (2009). René died from a heart attack on November 5, 1977. Today we remember René Goscinny on what would have been his 85th birthday.

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