Lucky Luke: A Highly Underrated Comic

Lucky Luke is a comic book series by the Belgian cartoonist Morris. He used to write and draw the comics all by himself. Later on he decided to collaborate with Gosciny, the creator of Asterix and Obelix. The incidents take place in the Wild West of America; a land dominated by gunslingers and anarchy. The brutality of the Wild West is captured articulately and hilariously and light-heartedly by the creator.

The titular protagonist of the series, Lucky Luke is the man who can ‘shoot faster than his shadow’. He is accompanied by his friend/companion who is a horse called Jolly Jumper. Jolly is depicted as a much intelligent horse than many other four-legged beasts and even though belongs to a different species, can completely understand Lucky Luke and vice-versa.

Lucky Luke is a drifter and is continuously travelling from one town to another singing his cowboy songs on the way. Lucky Luke is a respectable man. Whenever there is troulbe in any town, the sherrif and the locals urge him to stay and solve the chaos. His mortal enemies are The Daltons, four identical twin brothers with different heights. They are often locked up in prisons, thanks to Luke. Quite often they are finding ways to escape the prison by digging through the ground with their spoons. And almost everytime their plans get foiled by the guard dog of the prison, K9. But if let loose, The Daltons are a sinister force and go from town to town terrorizing the people and robbing and murdering them. Lucky Luke is the only one who is qualified to stop them and quite often he does stop them from creating further troubles.

Native Americans are often portrayed as side villains, antagonists who are despised by each and everyone present. Lucky Luke is scared of the Indians just like any town resident. People do not wander about in the Wild West and stick close to their friends and family. But sometimes Lucky Luke is seen to conspire with them to foil the plans of other ambitious villains.

Lucky Luke is a loner and spends his time alone. His only friend is his horse. He eats baked beans when he camps in the wilderness during his travels. He generally acts as the ‘righter of wrongs’ and is thanked for his resourcefulness and gun-slinging prowess. The only way to survive the simple brutality of the West is to mind your business and Lucky Luke does just that. Yes, he jumps out to kill few bad men every once or twice and it is because somebody had asked him to do.

A spin-off series of Lucky Luke, called Rantanplan was started. It was not received as well as the original series but had some fan-following nonetheless. Another spin-off called Kid Lucky also started. Neither of them were as big a hit as the original but made a significant attempt to take the franchise of Lucky Luke and wester comics further.

This is one of the best comic-book series which people must get their hands on.