The Stories
Although always described as a cowboy, Luke generally acts as a righter of wrongs or bodyguard of some sort, where he excels thanks to his resourcefulness and incredible gun prowesses. A recurring task is that of capturing bumbling gangsters the Dalton brothers, Joe, William, Jack and Averell. He rides Jolly Jumper, "the smartest horse in the world" and is often accompanied by Rantanplan, "the stupidest dog in the universe", a spoof of Rin Tin Tin.
Luke meets many historical Western figures like Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid, Judge Roy Bean and Jesse James's gang, and takes part in events such as the guarding of Wells Fargo stagecoaches, the Pony Express, the building of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, the Rush into the Unassigned Lands of Oklahoma, and a tour by French actress Sarah Bernhardt. Some of the books feature a one-page article on the background to the events featured. Goscinny once said that he and Morris tried to base the Lucky Luke adventures on real events whenever possible, but that they would not let the facts get in the way of a funny story.
The chronology of the albums is deliberately murky, and in most albums no particular year is given. The villains and incidental characters based on real persons lived over most of the mid-to-late-19th century. For example, in the album Daily Star, Lucky Luke meets a young Horace Greeley, prior to his moving to New York. Although no year is mentioned in the album, this story must take place c. 1830, since the real Horace Greeley moved to New York in 1831. Judge Roy Bean, who was appointed judge in 1882, appears in another album, taking place some fifty years later – and in another album, Lucky Luke takes part in the 1892 Coffeyville shootout against the Dalton Gang. Lucky Luke himself appears unchanged in all stories.
Except at the very beginning of the saga, Luke is never seen to kill anyone, preferring to disarm people by shooting weapons out of their hands.
At the end of each story, except the earliest, Lucky Luke rides off alone into the sunset on Jolly Jumper, singing (in English) "I'm a poor lonesome cowboy, and a long way from home...".
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Famous quotes containing the word stories:
“I’m the only woman reporter they have, so I get all the meat boycott stories and all the meatless food stories.... Actually, I’ve only cooked three meals in my life. The most uncomfortable place for me in the whole world is in a kitchen.”
—Theresa Brown (b. 1957)
“We make the oldest stories new when we succeed, and we are trapped by the old stories when we fail.”
—Greil Marcus (b. 1945)