Albert Uderzo, the artist that together with Renè Goscinny created Asterix in 1959, is an 84 year old gentleman who (so the story goes) recently bought a real military fighter plane and a Pharaoh-like mansion, following the advice from his “plumber” (heck, who’s this guy, SuperMario?). Due to these and similar facts, Asterix’s sister, that is Uderzo’s daughter Sylvie, went to court to have her father declared mentally incompetent and to accuse the plumber to abuse of his influence on Uderzo. That’s what I read on Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. If this were all the story, it would be a tragic or comic family fight, of little actual interest for everybody else.