Lucky Luke: The Early Years

Lucky Luke; Rodeo, Arizona, and Under Western Skies, all Cinebook £8.99/$15.95

♦ Peter Mann (for it is he) reviews the latest Volumes in Cinebook’s Lucky Luke series

The excellent Cinebook have been publishing the adventures of Lucky Luke for some time now, and these latest books are numbered 54 (Rodeo), 55 (Arizona), and 56 (Under a Western Sky) respectively in the series. Unfortunately, due to no fault on Cinebook’s part, children looking inside them might wonder what’s happened to their usual lantern-jawed hero. Despite the gentleman on the cover being recognisably Luke-esque, the gentleman inside is sadly more round of face, with the usual proportions – short torso, long legs – being reversed. What has happened?

It’s not some sinister plot on the Dalton’s part: in the original run from Dupuis Publishing these books were numbers two, three, and four. So why are they turning up in the late 50s? Cinebook print their titles alongside the European language prints of the books, so, as they were late to the game, most European countries probably already had the early titles in print. I’m guessing Cinebook simply numbered the titles from number one as they started printing alongside other countries. If you think about it, the alternative would be kids looking around for books that would be missing from the sequence for some time.

Once you’re over the differences in appearance, what you have here is three of Morris’s early works. For comic book enthusiasts this is excellent news, as we have the privilege of seeing Morris’s work develop over time. The fact is that all of the key elements of Luke are there from the start. Part parody, part a loving tribute to the Western films of the 1930s onward, Luke is not just funny, but possesses a warmth that cheers all but the dourest nature. The scripts, it must be said, are not as sharp as the work of René Goscinny, who would later take over the writing of the strip. But then again, whose scripts would be better than Goscinny’s?

Due to their origin in an anthology title, the French language comic magazine Spirou, each of these volumes contains two stories. Rodeo contains the title story and Gold Rush. Arizona, the second book here, contains the first ever Lucky Luke story from December 1946, Arizona 1880, as well as

Original Dupuis publication of Arizona

Lucky Luke Versus Cigarette Caesar, and Under a Western Sky contains The Return of Trigger Joe and The Big Fight. Morris’s skill is on show throughout: using a simple 3 x 4 panel grid, he exercises the kind of skill that Carl Barks brought to his work on Western’s Disney titles. Morris is a master of visual humour, and were humour comics as celebrated as the grim ‘n’ gritty nonsense we’ve been stuck with in mainstream comics since the 1980s, he would also be recognised as a master of storytelling. It’s an ironic world where grown-ups will go to a comic shop to buy miserablist superhero nonsense for themselves, but quite possibly buy Lucky Luke for their children. I know who’s getting the better part of that deal.

Peter Mann

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