René Goscinny

René Goscinny (French: [ʁəne ɡosini]; 14 August 1926 – 5 November 1977) was a French comics editor and writer of Polish descent, 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.[1] 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 Anna (Hanna) Bereśniak-Gościnna from Chodorków, a small village near Żytomierz in the Second Polish Republic (now part of Ukraine).[2] 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. 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.[3] 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. Goscinny died at 51, in Paris of cardiac arrest on 5 November 1977, during a routine stress test at his doctor's office.[7] 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. After Goscinny's death, Uderzo began to write Asterix himself and continued the series, although at a much slower pace, until passing the series over in 2011 to Jean-Yves Ferri (script) and Didier Conrad (art).[8] Tabary similarly began to write Iznogoud himself, whereas Morris continued Lucky Luke with various other writers. In a tribute to Goscinny, Uderzo gave his likeness to one of the characters in L'Odyssée d'Astérix