The fastest gun in comics once won a health award for quitting cigarettes
For decades Lucky Luke rolled cigarettes between shootouts. Then, in a 1983 story, his Belgian creator swapped the smoke for a stalk of straw. Five years later the World Health Organization gave the cartoonist an award. The cowboy who outdraws his own shadow had kicked the habit on the page.
Morris, the pen name of Maurice De Bevere from Kortrijk, launched the series in 1946 in the Franco-Belgian magazine Spirou. His hero is a quick-thinking gunslinger who rides Jolly Jumper, billed as the smartest horse in the world, often trailed by a prison dog billed as the stupidest in the universe, a send-up of Rin Tin Tin. The stories are affectionate parody, poking fun at Western clichés and at American and European habits alike.
The golden age began in 1955, when the French writer René Goscinny took over the scripts, a partnership that lasted until his death in 1977. He said they grounded adventures in real history whenever they could but never let facts spoil a joke. So Luke crosses paths with Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid and Judge Roy Bean, rides alongside the Pony Express and helps string the first transcontinental telegraph. His most persistent foes are the four bumbling Dalton brothers, supposedly cousins of the real Dalton Gang of the 1890s.
The cigarette had long drawn criticism. Morris defended it as part of the silhouette, like Popeye's pipe, though commercial pressure to reach American readers reportedly played a part in dropping it. The change stuck, mostly: a later animated film shows Luke wearing what looks like a nicotine patch, and he occasionally rolls one again when bored or annoyed. Luke also gave up killing early on. After the first few stories he disarms opponents by shooting weapons out of their hands.
Morris drew the series until his death in 2001, after which the French artist Achdé took over. There are now more than 80 albums in 30 languages, from Afrikaans to Welsh. Nearly every story still closes the same way, a tradition begun in 1949: Luke riding alone into the sunset, singing in English that he is a poor lonesome cowboy, a long way from home.
Source: Lucky Luke
