Hail the Great * !

Most Frenchmen seem a little bored with the grandeur of De Gaulle. These days, they find glory enough in a little Gallic warrior who has a droopy yellow mustache and wears a winged beanie, whose force de frappe is not a nuclear bomb but a magic potion that contains--as a bow to the French palate--lobster. The whole nation has come to adore a comic-book hero whose name suggests a mere footnote to history. He is Asterix Le Gaulois, leader of a hilarious village of "unsubdued and irksome" Gauls still holding out against Caesar's legions in 50 B.C.

Chuckles While Sipping. Asterix appears in a syndicated strip in 15 magazines, but his influence is vastly wider. The first French satellite launched into orbit was nicknamed Asterix. This year, French children are asking Pere Noel for the Asterix costumes, dolls and masks that are being sold all over the country. Huge papier-mache models of the little warrior and his blimpish, pigtailed companion Obelix stare down from Christmas displays in department stores. More than 3,600,000 copies of eight hard-cover Asterix comic books have been sold, and several American publishers have proposed an English-language translation for the U.S. Cafes even stock the books for adults who want to chuckle while sipping their aperitifs.

A sawed-off version of Vercingetorix, Caesar's ancient nemesis, Asterix is the creation of Rene Goscinny, 40 (Albert Uderzo, 39, does the drawing). His secret potion, mixed by the druid Panoramix, is to Asterix what spinach is to Popeye. He and Obelix uppercut their foes with such equivalents of "Socko!" as "Tchad" and "Patchoc!" Every page has a brawl, and the puns fly as fast as the fists, whether Asterix and Obelix are smuggling a barrel of the potion into Britannia to aid an ally besieged by the Romans or rescuing Panoramix from the cabbage-eating, goose-stepping Goths.

De Gaulle's Nose. Is Asterix meant to be De Gaulle? "I cannot stop people from seeing political analogies where I merely intended to be funny," says Goscinny. Yet a recent cartoon in the French weekly Le Canard Enchaine pictured Asterix with De Gaulle's nose; he and Premier Georges "Pompidouix" are shouting "Amerix go home!"--not to Romans and their "S.P.Q.R." but to foreign troops with "U.S." on their helmets. Le Monde Columnist Robert Escarpit explains the Asterix cult this way: "These invincible Gauls, barricaded in their little corner of the universe, like us French in France today, have grandeur, generosity, wit and courage."

So far, there is no evidence that the funnies are read in the Elysee Palace, though France's other national hero could hardly help noticing his pint-sized rival. Goscinny, a sergeant in the army reserve, has decided against sending a complimentary copy of Asterix to the general. "It would be a provocation," he said, "especially if I dedicated it to 'my dear fellow reservist.' "

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