Albert Uderzo, illustrator and co-creator of the popular Asterix comic book series, died on Tuesday, his family said.

The 92-year-old French artist, who created Asterix in 1959 with fellow writer Rene Goscinny, "died in his sleep at his home in Neuilly, after a heart attack that was not linked to the coronavirus," his son-in-law Bernard de Choisy said. "He had been extremely tired for the past several weeks."

Uderzo and Goscinny brought Asterix and his best friend Obelix to life in the French-Belgian comics magazine Pilote, delighting generations of children and adults over the past six decades.

The many adventures of Asterix the indomitable Gaul in the Roman Empire were a huge hit and were translated into dozens of languages and dialects, including Latin and Ancient Greek.

The series has extended into 38 books, the most recent being Asterix and the Chieftain's Daughter, published last year.

Uderzo, however, had stopped illustrating the series in 2011, having carried the comics on his shoulders after Goscinny's death in 1977.

Born on 25 April 1927 in Fismes, a village in northeast France near Reims, to Italian immigrants, Uderzo was color blind but went on to learn drawing after joining a Parisian publishing house post-World War II.

He met Goscinny in 1951 and the first book of the series hit the shelves in 1961 and became an overnight sensation.

Asterix's adventures have also hit the silver screen in both animated and live-action movies. While there is also a theme park based on the series just outside Paris.