Albert Uderzo with his creations.

Albert Uderzo, creator of the hugely popular comic character Asterix — more than 325 million copies of the series have been sold around the world, not to mention the numerous films and, er, the theme park — has decided at the age of 81 sell his stake in the company that publishers the comic to mega-publisher Hachette, or at least his 60% of it. He’s also given them permission to continue the series after his death. All of which prompted the woman who owned the other 40% — Uderzo’s daugher, Sylvie Urderzo — to angrily accuse her father of selling out. As an article in the Guardian notes, she says her father’s actions deny “all the values” she was brought up with of “independence, fraternity, conviviality and resistance.”