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| René Goscinny |
René Goscinny (14 August 1926-5 November 1977) was a French comics editor and writer, who is best known internationally for the comic book Astérix, which he created with illustrator Albert Uderzo, and for his work on the comic series Lucky Luke with Morris, considered the series' golden age, and Iznogoud with Jean Tabary.
Goscinny was born in Paris in 1926, to a family of Jewish immigrants from Poland.
His parents were Stanisław Simkha Gościnny, the surname means hospitable in Polish; Simkha is his Jewish name meaning happiness, a chemical engineer from Warsaw, Poland, and Hanna Bereśniak-Gościnna from Chodorków, a small village near Żytomierz in the Second Polish Republic, now part of Ukraine.
More information: The Official Astérix Website
Claude, René's older brother was born six years earlier, on 10 December 1920. Stanisław and Anna had met in Paris and married in 1919. The Gościnnys moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, two years after René's birth, because of a chemical engineer post Stanisław had obtained there. He spent a happy childhood in Buenos Aires, and studied in the French schools there. He had a habit of being the class clown, probably to compensate for a natural shyness. He started drawing very early on, inspired by the illustrated stories which he enjoyed reading.
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| Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny |
In December 1943, the year after he graduated from school, 17-year-old Goscinny lost his father to a cerebral hemorrhage, forcing him to find a job. The next year, he got his first job, as an assistant accountant in a tire recovery factory, and when he was laid off the following year, he became a junior illustrator in an advertising agency.
Goscinny, along with his mother, left Argentina and went to New York in 1945, to join her brother Boris. To avoid service in the US military, he travelled to France to join the French Army in 1946. He served at Aubagne, in the 141st Alpine Infantry Battalion. Promoted to senior corporal, he became the appointed artist of the regiment and drew illustrations and posters for the army.
More information: Lucky Luke
In 1955, Goscinny, together with Uderzo, Jean-Michel Charlier, and Jean Hébrad, founded the syndicate Edipress/Edifrance. The syndicate launched publications like Clairon for the factory union and Pistolin for a chocolate company.
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| Astérix and Obélix |
Goscinny and Uderzo cooperated on the series Bill Blanchart in Jeannot, Pistolet in Pistolin and Benjamin et Benjamine in the magazine of the same name. Under the pseudonym Agostini, Goscinny wrote Le Petit Nicolas for Jean-Jacques Sempé in Le Moustique and later Sud-Ouest and Pilote magazines.
In 1959, the Édifrance/Édipresse syndicate started the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote. Goscinny became one of the most productive writers for the magazine. In the magazine's first issue, he launched his most famous creation, Astérix, with Uderzo.
Goscinny died at 51, in Paris of cardiac arrest on 5 November 1977, during a routine stress test at his doctor's office. He was buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Nice. In accordance with his will, most of his money was transferred to the chief rabbinate of France.
I would never do anything other than comics because, first of all, I like it, and I think that's what I'm best endowed with. I am neither a moralist nor a philosopher.
René Goscinny
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