Category: Lucky Luke

By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-007-8 (PB Album/Digital edition)

Doughty, Dashing and Dependable cowboy champion Lucky Luke is a rangy, implacably even-tempered do-gooder able to “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles across the fabulously mythic Old West, enjoying light-hearted adventures on his rather sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. The taciturn nomad regularly interacts with a host of historical and legendary figures as well as even odder folk in tales drawn from key themes of classic cowboy films – as well as some uniquely European ideas…

Over seven decades his unceasing exploits have made him one of the top-ranking comic characters in the world, generating upwards of 85 individual albums with sales totalling in excess of 300 million in 30 languages… thus far. That renown has led to a mountain of spin-off albums and toys, computer games, animated cartoons, a plethora of TV shows and live-action movies and even commemorative exhibitions. No theme park yet, but who knows when…?

The brainchild of Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) and first seen in Le Journal de Spirou‘s seasonal Annual L’Almanach Spirou 1947, Luke sprang to laconic life in 1946, before inevitably ambling into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946.

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow trans-American tourist Rene Goscinny. When Rene became regular wordsmith, Luke attained dizzying, legendary, heights starting with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie) which began serialisation August 25th 1955. In 1967, the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, joining Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with La Diligence (The Stagecoach).

Goscinny co-created 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, from whence Morris soldiered on both singly and with other collaborators. The artist died in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus numerous sidebar sagebrush sagas crafted with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and others, all taking their own shot at the venerable vigilante…

Lucky Luke has history in Britain too, having first pseudonymously amused and enthralled young readers during the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly anthology Film Fun. He later rode back into comics-town in 1967 for comedy paper Giggle, using the nom de plume Buck Bingo.

In each of these venues – as well as many attempts to follow the English-language album successes of Tintin and Asterix – Luke laconically puffed on a trademark roll-up cigarette which hung insouciantly and almost permanently from his lip. However, in 1983 Morris – amidst pained howls and muted mutterings of “political correctness gone mad” – substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, thereby garnering for himself an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organisation.

Strictly for the sake of historical veracity, that tatty dog-end has been assiduously restored for this particular tale and indeed all of Cinebook’s fare – at least on interior pages. They are the most successful in bringing Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves, and it’s clearly no big deal for today’s readership as we’re at 81 translated tomes and still going strong. That’s not even considering the hefty compilations of early pre-Goscinny adventures and the inclusion of spin-offs such as Kid Lucky…

Sur la piste des Dalton was Morris & Goscinny’s 8th collaboration, originally serialised in 1962 before becoming the 17th album release in the same year: a wittily hilarious outing incorporating a little in-story continuity as the dutiful volunteer lawman is called upon to deal with some troublesome old acquaintances. It’s also the story that gave the world a key supporting character: one who ultimately shambled into his own spin-off series…

There’s a penitentiary in Texas that is the regular second home to the appalling Dalton Brothers: the worst and most-feared outlaws in numerous states and territories. Sadly, it is staffed by shiftless idiots, and when once again owlhoot miscreants Averell, Jack, William and devious, slyly psychotic, tyrannical diminutive brother Joe shuck their shackles, the hapless guards trust the facility’s dog to track them down.

Prison guard dog Rin Tin Can is a pathetic pooch with delusions of grandeur: a mutt who is vain, lazy, overly-friendly, exceedingly dim and utterly loyal to absolutely everybody, but the one thing he ain’t is: good at his job…

As Rantanplan – “dumbest dog in the West” and a wicked parody of pioneering cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin – the pestilential pooch became an irregular co-star before eventually landing his own spin-off series.

Here, after encountering the escapees mid-tunnel and running away, the canine sentinel is dragged into a search party that constantly stops searching seconds before catching their quarry quartet. Moreover, more than a little bit fed up with continually having to recapture the bandit brothers, Lucky has told the guards he’s not helping this time…

That determination only lasts until the brothers rob his rancher pal Old Tex and before long the rangy range-rider is back on their trail, hampered by that well-intentioned but inept hound, while aided by Joe’s frustrated determination to maraud across the region and eternally-hungry Averell’s ceaseless pursuit of another meal…

The tide turns at Horse Gulch where the fugitives get guns, ammo, and transportation (of a sort) and finally resume their favourite pastime, indulging in a rampage of robbery and riot. At the height of the campaign of chaos, Lucky captures and jails Joe. While Luke is deterring a lynch-mob, the dog accidentally finds the remaining brothers and successfully distracts our hero, allowing the Daltons to capture him.

He is humiliatingly traded for Joe’s release and the robbery rollercoaster ramps up until the hero starts thinking smart. Engineering a showdown at Sinful Gulch, Lucky lays his trap and once again triumphs…

Trigger-fast pacing and sublimely stuffed with classic set-piece slapstick, crafty cinematic caricature and potent puns, On the Daltons’ Trail is a brilliant blend of daft wit and rapid action heavy on absurdity, with plenty of canny twists to keep readers guessing and giggling. Here is another wildly entertaining all-ages confection by unparalleled comics masters, affording an enticing glimpse into a unique genre for today’s readers who might well have missed the romantic allure of an all-pervasive Wild West that never was…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

By Morris, with René Goscinny; translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-455-7 (Album HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Blockbuster Thrills No Movie Could Match… 8/10

On the Continent, the populace has a mature relationship with comics: according them academic and scholarly standing as well as meritorious nostalgic value and the validation of acceptance as an art form. Whilst tracing the lost origins of a true global phenomenon, this hardback and digital compilation celebrates the formulative early triumphs of a fictional hero who is certainly a national treasure for both Belgium and France, and it’s also timely in that this worldwide western wonder celebrates his 75^th Anniversary this year…

As we know him now, Lucky Luke is a rangy, good-natured, lightning-fast cowboy roaming the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his horse Jolly Jumper whilst interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures and icons.

His ongoing exploits have made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (upwards of 80 collected books, plus spin-off series, archival collections and specials, translated into more than 300 million albums in at least 33 languages thus far). He’s also accrued all the usual merchandise spin-offs: toys, computer games, puzzles, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies.

Lucky debuted in 1946, courtesy of Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”). For many years we all believed his first appearance was in a Le Journal de Spirou Christmas Annual – L’Almanach Spirou 1947 – before being catapulted into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7^th 1946.

However, the initial volume in this superb archival series (in hardback album and digital editions) revealed the strip actually premiered earlier that year in the multinational weekly comic, but without a title banner and only in the edition released in France…

This third curated outing exhibits – in strict chronological order – strips created between December 1952 and February 1955, with all the art and pages here restored, rejiggled and remastered to achieve maximum contemporary authenticity with the original weekly serialisation. The stories were subsequently gathered as albums L’Élixir du Docteur DOXEY (November 1955, with successive volumes launching every year in that month), Lucky Luke contre Phil Defer (1956) and Des rails sur la Prairie (1957) and this tome even offers a little something extra at the end…

Previous volumes have detailed Morris’s life, career, and achievements, paying particular attention to his alternate duties as an illustrator and caricaturist for magazine Le Moustique and at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’Actualitiés) cartoon studio, where he met future comics superstars Franquin and Peyo.

Morris was one of “la Bande des quatre” – The Gang of Four – comprising Jijé, Will and Franquin: leading proponents of a new, loosely free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School” which dominated Le Journal de Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style used by Hergé, EP Jacobs and other artists in Le Journal de Tintin.

In 1948 said Gang (all but Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, meeting fellow émigré René Goscinny, scoring work at newly-formed EC sensation Mad and constantly making copious notes and sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West.

His ongoing works are further detailed and  his “American Period” is extensively explored here in another lavishly illustrated essay from researchers Christelle & Bertrand Pissavy-Yvernault, who relate the Morris family’s jaunts and travels, paying particular attention to the movies they saw and how cinematic flourishes were transformed and recycled on the pages of Lucky Luke. Also on view are examples of work done for American consumption, such as children’s book Puffy Plays Baseball.

Crucially, there’s a detailed section on Goscinny, featuring his artwork – like so many, he was originally a cartoonist who realised his true strengths were plots and words – and side gigs in the USA: foreign correspondent, copywriter, business manager and more. At this time he created evergreen kids feature Le Petit Nicolas with Sempé in Le Moustique and his partnership with Morris formally began. What began as casual assistance eventually became a team effort that changed both their lives after they returned to Europe…

Accompanied by published cartoons and covers, contemporary ads, family photos and tons of original art, the in-depth treatise also focuses on the how and why of edited comics pages; reveals the artist’s film memorabilia (from movies that especially influenced his stories in this collection) and also includes both artwork from European and US publications by Goscinny. There’s even an in-depth analysis of how What Morris Saw became What Lucky Did, closely referencing the comics stories that follow…

Working solo (with early script assistance from his brother Louis De Bevere) until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush parody and action before uniting with Goscinny, who became the regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie), in Le Journal de Spirou in August 1955.

Before we get there though, there’s all-Morris action to enjoy, starting with Doc Doxey’s Elixir which was originally serialised in Le Journal de Spirou #765-808, from December 11^th 1952 to 8^th October 1953. It relates the predatory journeys of a charlatan physician dispensing disgusting and often lethal liquid cure-alls, aided and abetted by his athletic stooge Scraggy, who gulls the public with his disguises and semi-miraculous instantaneous “recuperations” and fast exits.

Their pernicious peregrinations come to an end after poisoning the frontier town of Green Valley, which puts dogged Lucky on their trail. Packed with classic and episodic chase gags, the hunt concludes with the sneaky snake oil peddler behind bars. Of course, he doesn’t stay there long as sequel saga ‘Manhunt’ details his cunning escape, change of identity – but not modus operandi – and ultimately unsuccessful plot to murder the wandering cowboy…

Follow-up album Lucky Luke contre Phil Defer (or Lucky Luke: Phil Wire in Britain) also comprised two tales, but this time taken from the company’s general entertainment periodical. It introduced deadly gunslinger Phil Wire “The Spider” – based on legendary cinematic bad man Jack Palance – in a strip taken from Le Moustique #1464-1494 (14^thFebruary-12^th September 1954).

Phil Defer “LE FAUCHEUX” sells his lethal talents to sinister saloon owner O’Sullivan who’s looking to remove a rival. Fate – or perhaps the gods of comedy – unfortunately decree that another tall guy good with guns gets to Bottleneck Gulch first and is mistaken for the rather idiosyncratic notoriously superstitious killer…

Lucky and Wire have already clashed once before and – despite all the hero’s efforts to deter O’Sullivan – meet once more after all “the Spider’s” schemes to remove rival barkeep O’Hara are foiled. It comes down to a showdown on main street and only one man walks away…

The album also features a second serial from Le Moustique #1508-1516 (spanning 19^th December 1954 to 13^th February 1955): originally entitled Lucky Luke et Pilule.

As Lucky Luke and The Pill it here details a camp fire story told by the rangy gunman, relating how a short-sighted, diminutive hypochondriac tenderfoot with no discernible fighting ability or action acumen became a true gun-toting town-tamer…

It was back to Le Journal de Spirou for the final album reprinted here: gathering material from #906-929 and spanning 25^th August 1955 to 2^nd February 1956 before launching in November 1957 as ninth album Des rails sur la Prairie. Although uncredited, it was cowritten by Morris and fellow tourist Goscinny: auguring an astounding creative partnership to come…

In 1967 the six-gun star switched publishing teams, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with La Diligence (The Stagecoach). Goscinny produced 45 albums with Morris before his death, from whence Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators.

Morris died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus the spin-off adventures of Rantanplan (“dumbest dog in the West” and a charming spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin), with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac taking over the franchise, producing another five tales to date.

Also in 1967, Lucky Luke appeared in British comic Giggle where he was renamed Buck Bingo. He had previously been seen here in weekly comic Film Fun. Before all that, though, this wild and woolly transitional delight features a far more boisterous and raw hero, offering the lighter side of another mythic western scenario…

When track-laying for the Transcontinental Railroad stalls, outraged train moguls demand action and Dead Ox Gulch, Nebraska becomes the crunch point of confrontation. The construction problems are actually caused by a traitor at home. Although a board-member in good standing Black Wilson is also secretly sabotaging the project to protect his other business: a stage coach company…

He contacts the nefarious Wilson Boys gang to keep up the bad work, just as a tall, laconic stranger rides into town. Before long, he is spearheading the march of progress and civilisation by foiling every dirty trick the gang can conceive…

Once the renewed efforts have moved beyond town and onto the prairie and inching closer to California, a train carries Lucky, passengers and the navvies ever-westward, negotiating and stymying hostile natives, greedy townships and the still-active Wilson boys’ shady tactics and stratagems.

Ultimately, Black Wilson takes personal charge and boards a stagecoach westward to destiny. Despite his every trick, though, the showdown is a foregone conclusion…

Adding extra value here is a short Luke lark that first appeared in Risque-Tout #5 (December 1955). A monochrome vignette, ‘Ruckus in Pancake Valley’ has been redrawn and coloured here and details how Lucky tracks down a miscreant who stole his horse…

Packed with contemporaneous extras, commentary, creator biographies, a special ‘Christmas in the Far West’ feature and more, this is perfect for older kids who have gained a bit of historical perspective and social understanding, although the action and slapstick situations are no more contentious than any Laurel and Hardy film – perfectly understandable as Morris was a huge fan of the duo. These early exploits are a grand old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides Again or Support Your Local Sheriff, superbly executed by a master storyteller, and a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was…

Bon Anniversaire, Lucky!
All pages relating to Doc Doxey’s Elixir, Phil Wire and Ruckus in Pancake Valley are © Morris/Dupuis 2018. 1949 to 1954 for the first publications in Le Journal de Spirou. All pages relating to Rails on the Prairie © Morris/Goscinny/Dupuis 2018. English translation © 2019 Cinebook Ltd.

By Morris, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-455-7 (Album HB)

On the Continent, the populace has a mature relationship with comics: according them academic and scholarly standing as well as meritorious nostalgic value and the validation of acceptance as an art form. This hardback/digital compilation celebrates the formulative early triumphs of a fictional hero who is certainly a national treasure for both Belgium and France, whilst tracing the lost origins of a global phenomenon. It’s also timely in that the worldwide western wonder celebrates his 75^th Anniversary this year…

As we know him now, Lucky Luke is a rangy, good-natured, lightning-fast cowboy roaming the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his horse Jolly Jumper whilst interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures and icons.

His ongoing exploits have made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (81 collected books and more than 300 million albums in at least 33 languages thus far), with all the usual spin-off toys, computer games, puzzles, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies.

This wild and woolly delight – originally released in 2017 as L’Intégrale 2 – features a far more boisterous and raw hero in transition, who hits his stride and struts his stuff after a preliminary text feature fills us in on the tone of the times, Morris’ filmic and comics influences and an eventful US sojourn…

Lucky Luke was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”). For years we believed it was for Le Journal de Spirou Christmas Annual (L’Almanach Spirou 1947), before being launched into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880′ on December 7^th 1946. However, the previous volume in this superb archival series (in hardback album and digital editions) revealed the strip actually debuted in the multinational weekly comic, but without a title banner and only in the edition released in France…

This second outing re-presents – in strict chronological order – strips created between October 1949 and December 1952 before being collected in albums Under a Western Sky (1952), Lucky Luke versus Poker Pat (1953) and Outlaws (1954). Here all the art and pages have been restored, rejiggled and remastered to achieve maximum contemporary authenticity with the original weekly serialisation.

The previous collection covered how the neophyte auteur became a dependable staple of the Euro-comics scene whilst toiling as a caricaturist for magazine Le Moustique and working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’Actualitiés) cartoon studio, where he met future comics superstars Franquin and Peyo. Morris was one of “la Bande des quatre” – The Gang of Four – comprising Jijé, Will and old comrade Franquin: leading proponents of a new, loosely free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School” which dominated Le Journal de Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style used by Hergé, EP Jacobs and other artists in Le Journal de Tintin.

In 1948 said Gang (excluding Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, meeting fellow traveller René Goscinny, scoring work at newly-formed EC sensation Mad and always making copious notes and sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West. Morris stayed for six years, an “American Period” seeing him chase an outsider’s American Dream while winning fame and acclaim in his own country. That glittering sojourn is carefully unpicked and shared by expert researchers Christelle & Bertrand Pissavy-Yvernault.

Their heavily-illustrated essay covers his East-to-West trek, family life and quest to experience the wonderland of his fantasies. The in-depth treatise is packed with intimate photos and his published illustrations of the period, culled from Le Moustique, plus comics pages, film memorabilia (from the movies that so influenced his stories at that time) and also includes both art work from European and US publications by fellow expat and eventual collaborator Rene Goscinny. There’s even an in-depth analysis of how what Morris Saw became what Lucky Did closely referencing the comics stories that follow…

Working solo (with early script assistance from his brother Louis De Bevere) until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush parody and action before formally uniting with Goscinny, who became the regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie), which began in Le Journal de Spirou on August 25^th 1955.

Before we get there though, there’s plenty of solo action to enjoy beginning with ‘The Return of Trigger Joe’ from LJdS #602-618 (October 27^th 1949-February 16^th 1950) and collected in 1952’s Sous le Ciel de l’ouest/Under a Western Sky) album. Here the lonesome wanderer meets another prairie nomad who’s his match in all cowboy disciplines, who becomes a rather ruthless competitor when they sign up for the Nugget Gulch horse race. Of course, “John Smith” believes he’s a shoo-in since he’s riding the stolen Jolly Jumper, but hasn’t counted on Luke’s close relationship with the wonder horse. Once that scheme fails – but not before extended slapstick shenanigans in the race scenes – Smith falls back on his old ways as bank robber Trigger Joe, but his pilfering the prize money only leads to disaster when Lucky trails him deep into the searing desert…

Next up chronologically and also from Under a Western Sky, ‘Round Up Days’ (LJdS #619-629; February 23^rd – May 4^th 1950) sees Lucky actually working as a cowboy, hiring on for a cattle round-up (lots of rodeo style comedy here!) before encountering rustlers and cleaning up cow town Bottleneck City…

Closing the first album, ‘The Big Fight’ (LJdS #630-646; May 11^th – August 31^st 1950) sees Luke briefly adopt a two-fisted simpleton with the strength of Hercules and school him in the arts of pugilism for a prize-fight against infamous Killer Kelly. Things are going well until bookmaker Slats “Slippery” Nelson tries to fix the outcome. Thankfully, Lucky is his match in cunning and a faster gun than the gambler’s hirelings…

The next album release was December 1953’s Contre Pat Poker/ Lucky Luke versus Pat Poker, but its contents – ‘Clean-up in Red City’ and ‘Rough and Tumble in Tumbleweed’ were reprinted out of chronological order so here the former (from LJdS #685-697; May 31^st – August 23^rd 1951) and detailing how Lucky becomes a sheriff after being embarrassingly robbed, and kicks out all the gamblers, shysters and crooked saloon owners led by sinister charlatan Pat Poker – is followed by the eponymous lead adventure from 1954 album Hors-la-loi/Outlaws: a highly significant action romp signalling the debut of Lucky’s greatest foes.

The strip ‘Outlaws’ originally ran in LJdS #701-731 from September 20^th 1951 to April 17^th 1952 with our hero hired by the railroad companies to end the depredations of Emmett Bill, Grat and Bob Dalton – real life badmen who plagued the region during the 1890s, imported into the strip and given a comedic, but still vicious spin. The cat & mouse chase across the west sees Luke constantly frustrated by close calls and narrow escapes in superbly gripping movie set-pieces until, inevitably, justice claims the killers.

Morris ended the gang forever, but they were insanely popular with fans and the ideal foils for Lucky, so eventually they returned in the form of their own cousins, but we’ll tell that tale another time and place…

Here it’s back to ‘Rough and Tumble in Tumbleweed’ (LJdS #735-754; May 15^th – September 25^th 1952) as sheep farmers are harassed and imperilled by cattlemen. Luke’s attempts to broker peace are swiftly derailed after escaped convict Pat Poker slips into town and uses his gift for cheating to take over the local saloon and hire shepherd-hating gunslinger Angelface to remove their mutual enemy. Sadly for them, even this alliance of evil is insufficient to tame the wily western wonder…

By now a certified Christmas must-have item, December 1954’s Lucky Luke album Outlaws also carried the ‘Return of the Dalton Brothers’ as first seen in LJdS #755-764 (October 2^nd – December 4^th 1952). Here, a fraud named Bill Bonney campaigns to become sheriff of a prosperous frontier town by claiming to be the killer of the infamous owlhoots, and seems unstoppable until Lucky orchestrates a brief and equally fraudulent resurrection of the bandit brothers…

Morris died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus spin-off yarns of Rantanplan (“dumbest dog in the West” and a charming spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin), with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac taking over the franchise, producing more tales of the immortal cowboy.

A treasure trove of vintage cartoon material, designs and sketches, contemporaneous extras, commentary, original art, creator biographies and more, this is a delight for older kids who have a gained a bit of perspective and historical understanding, although the action and slapstick situations are no more contentious than most Laurel and Hardy films (perfectly understandable as Morris was a devout fan of the bumbling duo).

These youthful forays of an indomitable hero offer grand joys in the tradition of Destry Rides Again and Support Your Local Sheriff, superbly executed by a master storyteller: a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was…

Bon anniversaire, Lucky!
© Morris/Dupuis, 1949 to 1954 for the first publications in Le Journal de Spirou.
© Morris/Dupuis 2017 for this volume of the collection. All other material © 2017 its respective creators/owners.

By Morris with Louis De Bevere, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-454-0 (Album HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Immaculate All Ages Western Wonderment… 9/10

On the Continent, the populace has a mature relationship with comics: according them academic and scholarly standing as well as nostalgic value and the validation of acceptance as an art form. This hardback/digital compilation celebrates the early triumphs of a fictional hero who is certainly a national treasure for both Belgium and France, whilst tracing the lost origins of a global phenomenon.

As we know him now, Lucky Luke is a rangy, good-natured, lightning-fast cowboy roaming the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his horse Jolly Jumper and interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures of the genre.

His continued exploits over seven decades have made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (81 collected books and more than 300 million albums in at least 33 languages thus far), with spin-off toys, computer games, animated cartoons and a plethora of TV shows and live-action movies.

He was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”). For years we believed it was for Le Journal de Spirou Christmas Annual (L’Almanach Spirou 1947), before being launched into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880′ on December 7^th 1946. However, this wonderful hardback album (and digital delight) reveals we’ve been inadvertently lying to you all these years…

As revealed in the copious and fascinating-photo-filled essay accompanying the reprinting of the first three collected Lucky Luke Album compilations, the strip actually debuted in the multinational weekly comic, but without a title banner and only in the edition released in France…

Morris’ life is carefully unpicked and shared by Christelle & Bertrand Pissavy-Yvernault, whose text deftly covers the precocious, westerns-&-art-mad kid’s transition to comics idol with plenty of early art and family photos. This includes his education at the hands of Jesuits, his pre-comics cartooning career and forays into film animation before settling into his true vocation.

While working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’Actualitiés) cartoon studio, Morris met future comics superstars Franquin and Peyo, and worked for weekly magazine Le Moustique as a caricaturist. Those days are extensively covered as Morris quickly became one of “la Bande des quatre” – The Gang of Four – comprising Jijé, Will and old comrade Franquin: the leading proponents of the loose and free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School” which dominated Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style used by Hergé, EP Jacobs and other artists in Le Journal de Tintin.

In 1948 said Gang (all but Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, meeting fellow traveller René Goscinny, scoring some work from newly-formed EC sensation Mad and making copious notes and sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West.

That research would resonate on every page of his life’s work.

Working solo (with script assistance from his brother Louis De Bevere) until 1955, Morris produced another nine albums worth of affectionate sagebrush parody before reuniting with Goscinny, who became the regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie), which began in Le Journal de Spirou on August 25^th 1955.

In 1967 the six-gun straight-shooter switched teams, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with ‘La Diligence’(The Stagecoach). Goscinny produced 45 albums with Morris before his death, from whence Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators.

Morris died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus the spin-off adventures of Rantanplan (“dumbest dog in the West” and a charming spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin), with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac taking over the franchise, producing another five tales to date.

Lucky Luke first appeared in Britain syndicated to weekly comic Film Fun and again in 1967 in Giggle where he was renamed Buck Bingo. In all these venues – as well as the numerous attempts to follow the English-language successes of Tintin and Asterix albums from Brockhampton and Knight Books – Luke had a trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip, but in 1983 Morris, no doubt amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of “political correctness gone mad”, substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization.

The most recent successful attempt to bring Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves comes from Cinebook (who have rightly restored the foul weed to his lips on the interior pages if not the covers…)

Before all that, though, this wild and woolly delight features a far more boisterous and raw hero in transition, who begins strutting his stuff after the essay concludes by filling us in on the tone of the times, Morris’ filmic and comics influences and that eventful US sojourn…

Originally released as L’Intégrale 1, this scholarly collection re-presents the contents of the first three albums (Dick Digger’s Gold Mine, Rodeo and Arizona -1952) and abruptly switches from elucidation to all action mode for debut tale Arizona (LJdS #443-462) wherein a wandering cowboy tenaciously tracks down stagecoach bandits. He returned in Spirou #478-502) for the serial La Mine D’or de Dick Digger, wherein a map to a lost payload causes great grief until our hero returns it to the true owner.

As well as a treasure trove of vintage cartoon material, original art, designs and sketches, this tome also restores the many serial pages that were edited out of the first albums for brevity.

Le Journal de Spirou #505 (18^th December 1947) began the third adventure, by which time the Lonesome Cowboy was clearly here to stay. Running until #527 (May 20^th 1948) ‘Lucky Luke’s Double’ was the second feature half of first album Dick Digger’s Gold Mine in 1949: another riotous slapstick chase and comedy of errors as our hero is constantly mistaken for deadly desperado Mad Jim, much to the profit of minor crooks Stan Strand and Tiny Charley Chick. Big mistake…

‘Rodeo’ ran in #528-545, ending in September 1948 and becoming the title tale of the second album in 1950. The art took a major upturn towards the style we are familiar with today as Lucky competes in a legendary competition and uncovers both skulduggery and poor sportsmanship. Without a pause, new escapade ‘Lucky Luke in Desperado City’ followed (LJdS #546-566, ending 17^th February 1949), wherein Lucky becomes sheriff of an embattled frontier town to defeat tyrannical owlhoots The Pistol Brothers.

‘The Buffalo Creek Goldrush’ (LJdS #567-584, ending 23^rd June 1949), filled out that second album with a delicious satire on greed as a simple mistake turns a barren wasteland into an ephemeral metropolis of miners – until the penny finally drops…

It was back to outright villains for ‘Lucky Luke versus Cigarette Cesar’ (#585-601, ending October 20^th 1949 and included in third album Arizona in November 1951), as Lucky trails a deadly and devious escaped convict south of the border (and indulges in the kind of animal cruelty gags we just don’t tolerate these days where bullfighting is largely discredited – so be warned…) to conclude this initial vintage voyage to the Wild West Neverlands.

Packed with contemporaneous extras, commentary, creator biographies and more, this is a delight for older kids who have a gained a bit of perspective and historical understanding, although the action and slapstick situations are no more contentious than any Laurel and Hardy film (perfectly understandable as Morris was a devout fan of the bumbling duo).

The first forays of an indomitable hero: this grand old hoot sits in the tradition of Destry Rides Again and Support Your Local Sheriff, superbly executed by a master storyteller, and is a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was…

Bon anniversaire, Lucky!

© Morris/Dupuis, 1946 to 1949 for the first publications in Le Journal de Spirou.

© Morris/Dupuis 2016 for this collected edition. All other material © 2016 its respective creators/owners.

By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Frederick W. Nolan (CineBook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-13-7 (Album PB)

Lucky Luke is a rangy, good-natured, lightning-fast cowboy who roams the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his horse Jolly Jumper and interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures of the genre.

His continued exploits over nearly seventy years have made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (81 collected books and more than 300 million albums in 30 languages thus far), with spin-off toys, computer games, animated cartoons and even a plethora of TV shows and live-action movies.

He was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) for the 1947 Annual (L’Almanach Spirou 1947) of Le Journal de Spirou, before launching into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880′ on December 7^th 1946.

Prior to that, while working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’Actualitiés) cartoon studio, Morris met future comics super-stars Franquin and Peyo, and worked for weekly magazine Le Moustique as a caricaturist – which is probably why (to my eyes at least) his lone star hero looks uncannily like the young Robert Mitchum who graced so many memorable mid-1940s B-movie Westerns.

Morris quickly became one of “la Bande des quatre” – The Gang of Four – which comprised creators Jijé, Will and his old comrade Franquin: the leading proponents of the loose and free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School” which dominated Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style used by Hergé, EP Jacobs and other artists in Le Journal de Tintin.

In 1948 said Gang (all but Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, meeting fellow traveller René Goscinny, scoring some work from newly-formed EC sensation Mad and making copious notes and sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West.

That research would resonate on every page of his life’s work.

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced another nine albums worth of affectionate sagebrush parody before reuniting with Goscinny, who became the regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie), which began in Spirou on August 25^th 1955.

In 1967 the six-gun straight-shooter switched teams, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with ‘La Diligence’ (The Stagecoach). Goscinny produced 45 albums with Morris before his death, from whence Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators.

Morris died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus the spin-off adventures of Rantanplan (“dumbest dog in the West” and a charming spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin), with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac taking over the franchise, producing another five tales to date.

Moreover, apart from that very first adventure, Lucky (to appropriate a quote applied to the thematically simpatico Alias Smith and Jones) “in all that time… never shot or killed anyone”…

Lucky Luke first appeared in Britain syndicated to weekly comic Film Fun and again in 1967 in Giggle where he was renamed Buck Bingo. In all these venues – as well as the numerous attempts to follow the English-language successes of Tintin and Asterix albums from Brockhampton and Knight Books – Luke had a trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip, but in 1983 Morris, no doubt amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of “political correctness gone mad”, substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization.

The most recent attempt to bring Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves comes from Cinebook (who have rightly restored the foul weed to his lips on the interior pages if not the covers…) and Dalton City was the third of 76 albums (and counting), available both on paper and as e-book editions.

It was the 34^th comic cowboy chronicle and Goscinny’s 25^th collaboration with Morris, originally appearing in 1969 and featuring the first appearance of that most stupid of do-gooding doggy sidekicks Rantanplan. You have been warned…

The saga commences in Fenton Town, a city of utter depravity and villainy run by and for crooks, badmen and owlhoots by the cunning mastermind Dean Fenton; a mean man with the unsavoury hobby of collecting Sheriff’s stars… from their bullet-riddled bodies…

The night a lean, laconic lone rider ambled into town the murderous gambler’s fortunes changed forever, and when Luke spectacularly delivered the gang boss to justice, Fenton got 1223 years hard labour at Texas penitentiary, an imposing edifice already crammed with dozens of other varmints who failed to take Lucky Luke seriously.

And that’s where the trouble really starts…

Amongst the inmates are stupid sandbagging scallywags Averell, Jack and William Dalton and their smart, psychotic, bossy and short brother Joe, who had made things hot for our hero in the past. As they all crack rocks together the Dalton Gang are particularly influenced by Fenton’s tales of his little kingdom.

Contentedly ambling away from the prison, Luke and Jolly Jumper have no idea that an idiotic, incompetent telegraph operator is about to make their lives impossibly difficult. Handed a mis-transcribed message from the Governor to free inmate Joe Milton for Good Behaviour, the baffled Warden forcibly ejects the furiously insulted Dalton head honcho. Eventually calming down – at least as much as Joe Dalton ever can – the wily skunk promptly blows up an outer wall to liberate his scurrilous simpleton siblings and they all make tracks for the now-deserted Fenton Town.

Search parties of course trail them, but when vain, friendly and exceedingly dim prison hound Rin Tin Can absently-mindedly forgets himself and joins his quarry, the shame-faced guards have to return empty-handed…

Regretfully, the Warden sends a telegram to Lucky Luke – again appallingly garbled – and the normally unflappable gunhawk is less than amused. It takes the pleadings of the Governor of Texas himself to convince him to go after his old enemies…

In the renamed Dalton City, Joe and the boys have big plans. They’re going to operate a Mecca for all the criminals in the state: a safe place for badmen to hide and spend their stolen loot. Joe will be in charge, Jack will operate the hotel, William the stables and Averell will run the restaurant. He even has faithful, omnivorous Rin Tin Can to test all his recipes on…

After much unlikely and unfamiliar hard work the place is starting to come together when they get an even bigger boost by capturing their nemesis Lucky Luke spying on them. The hero had forgotten how stupid Rin Tin Can could be…

The hapless prisoner is then put to work testing their wares: surely if the service is good enough for Luke it will be perfect for the scum of the West? However the boys make the foolish mistake of listening to his suggestions for improvement…

The beginning of the end comes when Joe writes off to hire a singer and troupe of dancing girls. When the bombastic virago Lulu Breechloader and her associates Belle, Sugar Linda and Pearl arrive Lucky has all he needs to drive an amorous wedge into the solidarity of the felonious fellowship and, as an army of bandits and killers steadily roll into town looking for sanctuary and entertainment, they are invited to the wedding of the century…

The only persons unaware of the impending – and hard-fought for – nuptials of Joe Dalton and Lulu are the bride herself and her blithely unaware piano-playing husband…

In the ensuing chaos and explosive gunplay it isn’t hard for a smart cowboy crusader to make the biggest capture of wanted criminals in Texas’ history and ride off into the sunset with a new four-footed canine companion…

Once again the masterful wit and wicked deviousness of the indomitable hero triumphs in a splendidly intoxicating blend of all-ages action, seductive slapstick and wry cynical humour.

This grand old hoot sits in the tradition of Destry Rides again and Support Your Local Sheriff (or perhaps Paint Your Wagon, Evil Roy Slade or Cat Ballou are more your style?), superbly executed by master storytellers, and a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was…

And in case you’re worried, even though the interior art still has our hero chawin’ on that ol’ nicotine stick, trust me, there’s very little chance of anyone craving a quick snout, but quite a high probability that they’ll be addicted to Lucky Luke Albums…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1969 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2006 Cinebook Ltd.