There are annotations which explain all the name puns, Latin translations etc.
Eg, in Asterix and the Big Fight, the character Cassius Ceramix - Ceramics: baked clay, earthenware. Cassius is a Roman name. Also a play on Cassius Clay, which was Mohammed Ali's given name
After growing up with Astérix and learning half my French from it (the other half from Tintin) there was a pun that I finally got only now, many years later, thanks to a French colleague.
In "Le Domaine des Dieux" (The Manions of the Gods) there is a character called "Oursenplus". This always registered to me as saying "And a bear" ("ours" is "bear" and "en plus" is like "one more" or "on top of that").
Then I asked my colleague: "I don't get this Oursenplus pun from Astérix, can you tell what it means?".
My colleague hadn't read the issue so he didn't immediately catch what I said, but he replied "Comment? Ours en peluche?"
Which, said quickly with a French accent sounds very much like "oursenplush" (with a "shh") and means ... "teddy bear" ("peluche" is "felt"; a plushy).
I have this kind of epiphany regularly with pop songs that I've known since childhood. I hear them again and my English is so much better now than it was back then that I realize I completely misunderstood the lyrics.
