Whilst i agree that the various
translators of the Asterix books have produced some excellent work, there are limits to the translatability of puns - but there is also usually scope for the introduction of new ones (the Italian version of the much repeated line "Ils sont fous, ces romains"/"These Romans are crazy" is naturally "
Sono Pazzi, Quei Romani").
For one book at least, the entire cultural basis of the French edition was deemed to be too obscure for an anglophone audience: "Asterix and the Banquet" is the English version of "Le Tour de Gaule d'Asterix" which is of course based on the Tour de France; about half the jokes in the original are based on aspects of that race/cultural phenomenon.