Remember reading Asterix and Tintin? I certainly do. And like most people, I go back and re-read them time and again. There’s a certain ageless quality to them that comics today lack. That’s why I was absolutely thrilled to see Lucky Luke series out in the market here. Never heard of him? Well… even though he was translated into English from the original French quite some time back, the books surprisingly never came into India. Why surprising? Because Rene Goscinny co-produced them, and his other famous work, Asterix, is still a bestseller.
Morris, the original creator, took on a several co-authors and the entire series actually consists of a whooping 72 books. Of these, the Goscinny period (a series of 45 books!), is called the Golden Age of Lucky Luke. Each book is a complete story and as our hero roams the prairies, he comes across many colourful characters… some of which actually existed, like Billy the Kid, Calamity Jane, and Jesse James, to name a few. Some stories are themed… like ‘In the Shadow of the Derricks’, which is based on the oil strikes. In addition to Luke, the other recurring characters are his horse, Jolly Jumper – the smartest horse in the world, Rantanplan – the stupidest dog in the universe, and the fumbling criminals, the four Dalton brothers – each being progressively taller and dumber. Most of the comics end with Luke riding off into the horizon singing ‘I’m a poor lonesome cowboy.
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Before you go rushing off to ransack the nearest Crossword for Lucky Luke, here’s an interesting bit of trivia: the early comics have Luke with a cigarette between the lips while the later ones have him chewing on straw. In fact, if you happen to pick up a copy of the first adventure, ‘Billy the Kid’ (published by Cinebook), the cover has him chewing on a piece of straw while the panels inside show a cigarette.
