{"id":17378,"date":"2017-10-11T07:00:28","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T07:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=17378"},"modified":"2017-10-10T19:03:58","modified_gmt":"2017-10-10T19:03:58","slug":"lucky-luke-volume-12-the-rivals-of-painful-gulch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2017\/10\/11\/lucky-luke-volume-12-the-rivals-of-painful-gulch\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucky Luke volume 12: The Rivals of Painful Gulch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Morris<\/strong> & Goscinny<\/strong>, translated by Luke<\/strong> Spear<\/strong> (Cinebook)
\nISBN: 978-1-905460-60-1<\/p>\n

Lucky Luke <\/strong>is a rangy, good-natured, cowboy able to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153draw faster than his own shadow\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. He amiably roams the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his sarcastic horse Jolly Jumper<\/em>, whilst interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures.<\/p>\n

His continuing exploits over seventy years have made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (more than 83 individual albums, sales totalling in excess of 300 million in 30 languages\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 so far\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6), with the usual spin-off toys, computer games, animated cartoons and a plethora of TV shows and live-action movies.<\/p>\n

First seen in the 1947 Annual (L’Almanach Spirou<\/em><\/strong> 1947) of Le Journal de Spirou<\/em><\/strong>, Lucky was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de B\u00c3\u00a9v\u00c3\u00a8re (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Morris\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), before ambling into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’<\/em> on December 7th<\/sup> 1946.<\/p>\n

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow trans-American tourist Rene Goscinny, who became regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of legend, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’<\/em> (Rails on the Prairie<\/em>), which began serialisation in Spirou<\/em><\/strong> on August 25th<\/sup> 1955.<\/p>\n

In 1967, the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, joining Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote<\/em><\/strong> with ‘La Diligence’<\/em> (The Stagecoach<\/strong>). Goscinny co-created 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, from whence Morris soldiered on both singly and with fresh collaborators.<\/p>\n

Morris died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus some spin-off sagas crafted with Achd\u00c3\u00a9, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean L\u00c3\u00a9turgie, Jacques Pessis and others, all taking their own shot at the venerable vigilante\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Lucky Luke<\/strong> first amused British readers during the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly anthology Film Fun<\/strong>, and rode back into comics-town again in 1967 in Giggle<\/strong>, where he used the nom de plume Buck Bingo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In all these venues – as well as in numerous attempts to follow the English-language album successes of Tintin<\/strong> and Asterix<\/strong> – Luke sported a trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip. However, in 1983 Morris – amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153political correctness gone mad\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – deftly 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.<\/p>\n

The most recent and successful attempt to bring Lucky Luke<\/strong> 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\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6), and it’s clearly no big deal for today’s readership as we’re well past sixty translated books and still going strong.<\/p>\n

Lucky Luke – Les rivaux de Painful Gulch<\/em> <\/strong>was the Dynamite Duo’s 10th<\/sup> collaboration (available in English on paper and as an e-book as The Rivals of Painful Gulch<\/strong>) and first published in Europe in 1962.<\/p>\n

The outrageous tale draws on the legendary and infamous feud between the Hatfield and McCoy families in West Virginia and Kentucky between 1863 and1891 and opens with our hero and his chatty horse peaceably proceeding until repeatedly stopped by bushwackers demanding the cowboy remove his hat.<\/p>\n

With his patience rapidly evaporating Luke eventually learns the region and township of Painful Gulch is plagued with two warring families who shoot at each other at every opportunity. The O’Haras<\/em> all have enormous red noses whilst huge wingnut ears are the genetic marker of every son of the O’Timmins<\/em> clan\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The rest of the townsfolk live in fear of the ferociously feuding families because the only thing they have in common is a mutual inability to hit anything they aim at. They always miss their targets but the collateral damage to bystanders, building and livestock is appalling\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Ever keen to keep the peace, Lucky attempts to play peacemaker, but even he can’t stop the gun-crazed whackos from blasting way at each other and blowing up any civic amenity that might possibly benefit their hated foes.<\/p>\n

Eventually, even Luke’s cool patience is exhausted and when the rapidly departing Mayor nominates our hero as his successor, the furious newcomer resorts to subterfuge, pandering and chicanery to establish a lasting d\u00c3\u00a9tente.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6And when even that doesn’t work, the lone gunman plays his ultimate trump card and ropes in the weary, long-suffering wimmin-folk of the O’Timmins and O’Haras to settle the issue\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Slick, sly and sassy, The Rivals of Painful Gulch<\/strong> is a fast-paced slapstick romp with plenty of action, lots of laughs and barrel-loads of buffoonery superbly crafted by comics masters, and offers a wonderful 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\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n\u00c2\u00a9 Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. \u00c2\u00a9 Lucky Comics. English translation \u00c2\u00a9 2008 Cinebook Ltd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook) ISBN: 978-1-905460-60-1 Lucky Luke is a rangy, good-natured, cowboy able to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153draw faster than his own shadow\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. He amiably roams the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his sarcastic horse Jolly Jumper, whilst interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures. His continuing … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Lucky Luke volume 12: The Rivals of Painful Gulch”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[113,63,97,192,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","category-european-classics","category-kids-all-ages","category-lucky-luke","category-westerns"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-4wi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}