The author interprets comics as complex semiotic texts and investigates the extent to which nonverbal elements are involved in the constitution of the sense of the whole text. The article analyses the quality and style in Astérix, limiting the scope of the analysis largely to plays on words and their relation to pictorial depiction. Two types of relation are possible, namely a terminological identity between the literal meaning of an idiom or metaphor and the images depicted, which reciprocally falsify themselves. Adopting a semiotic approach which correlates pictorial and linguistics information at a mutual analytical level, the author emphasizes how pictorial manipulations are central to an integral account of the translation of comics.