Lucky Luke

French language comic book series. Set in the American Old West, it stars the titular character, Lucky Luke. (His name is perhaps inspired by Italian-born Mafioso Charles "Lucky" Luciano, but his character is heroic, not criminal).

Part parody of, part tribute to the mythic Old West, the albums (as the hardcover comics are called in French) were drawn by the Belgian Morris (1923-2001). The scripts of the earlier (but not the earliest) books were written by Frenchman René Goscinny (1926-1977), best known for Asterix. After Goscinny's death many tried to fill the gap.

Luke, drawing a gun faster than his shadow, fights crime and injustice, most often in the form of the bumbling Dalton brothers, Joe, Jack, William and Averell (each one taller, and dumber, than the last). He rides Jolly Jumper,"the smartest horse in the world." He is often seen with Rantanplan, "the stupidest dog in the universe." A cigarette was constantly at his lips in the early albums, but this was replaced with a stick of straw in later stories, possibly due to P.C. umbrage.

In the albums, Luke meets many factual Western heroes like Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid, Judge Roy Bean and Jesse James' gang.

At the end of each story Lucky Luke rides off alone into the sunset, singing (in English) that he is a poor lonesome cowboy.

Animation

There was also an animated Lucky Luke television series: In 1983, Hanna-Barbera studios and Morris released 26 episodes, and in 1991, 26 more episodes were released. In 2001,