The New Adventures of Lucky Luke

Lore & Background

The New Adventures of Lucky Luke was produced about 17 years after the last series of Lucky Luke episodes, with the goal of bridging the gap between older episodes, which had aged, and new ones. The series uses the graphic process Morris employed, which uses colors to differentiate characters based on their value in the foreground or background, their mood state (such as green rage), or to describe a mood (red fire, night blue). Some characters are caricatures of real people, including Garcimore, Roberto Benigni, and Woody Allen.

The series features historical characters such as General Custer, the Lumière brothers, Lola Montez, Buffalo Bill, John Ford, Ulysses S. Grant, and Queen Victoria, as well as literary figures like Sherlock Holmes and Don Quixote. An error in chronology appears in episodes 47 and 48: in episode 47, Lucky Luke states he knows an archaeologist whom he later meets for the first time in the next episode.

Because Morris died in July 2001 and the show was not released until September, apart from a few rushes, he never viewed the series. A theatrical feature-length film directly based on the series, titled Go West! A Lucky Luke Adventure, was later released in 2007.

Reader's Guide

The New Adventures of Lucky Luke represents a significant revival of the classic Franco-Belgian comic character for a new generation of viewers. Produced by Xilam in Paris, the series updated the visual style while retaining Morris's distinctive color-coding system for character moods and depth. The show introduced a mix of historical and literary figures into the Wild West setting, expanding the universe beyond the original comics.

With a budget of 120 million francs (over EUR 18 million) for 52 episodes, the series was a major production that aired in multiple countries, including France, Canada, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Its legacy includes a 2007 theatrical film, Go West! A Lucky Luke Adventure, which was directly based on the series. The show also features a notable voice cast, including Antoine de Caunes as Lucky Luke in French and Marcel Jeannin in English.

Did You Know?

• Morris, the creator of the original comic, died in July 2001 and never viewed the series apart from a few rushes.
• The series uses a graphic process that employs colors to differentiate characters based on mood or depth.
• An error in chronology occurs between episodes 47 and 48, where Lucky Luke mentions knowing an archaeologist before meeting him.

Creative Lineage & Collaborations

The Lucky Luke franchise owes its existence to Belgian cartoonist Maurice De Bevere, who worked under the pen name Morris from Kortrijk, Belgium, where he was born in 1923. For the first several years after launching the series in 1946, Morris handled both the art and the writing himself, though his brother Louis contributed scripts on some early stories until 1955. That year marked the beginning of what many fans regard as the series' golden age: a partnership with French writer René Goscinny, whose first Lucky Luke script, 'Des rails sur la Prairie,' ran in Spirou in August 1955. Their collaboration endured until Goscinny's death in 1977. In the years that followed, Morris cycled through a succession of writers—Raymond 'Vicq' Antoine, Bob de Groot, Jean Léturgie, and Lo Hartog van Banda—until his own passing in 2001. French artist Achdé then assumed the drawing duties, teaming first with Laurent Gerra, Daniel Pennac, and Tonino Benacquista, and since 2016 with writer Jul.

The World & Characters

Set in the American Old West, the series centers on Lucky Luke, a quick-witted gunslinger whose defining trait is shooting faster than his own shadow. He is never without Jolly Jumper, billed as the smartest horse in the world, and is frequently joined by Rin Tin Can, a prison-guard dog described as the stupidest dog in the universe—a deliberate spoof of the famous Rin Tin Tin. His most persistent adversaries are the Dalton Brothers—Joe, William, Jack, and Averell—loosely modeled on the real Dalton Gang of the early 1890s and presented as their cousins. Rather than a traditional cowboy, Luke functions as a righter of wrongs or a hired bodyguard, relying on resourcefulness and extraordinary marksmanship. Notably, after the earliest stories, he never kills; he simply shoots weapons from his opponents' hands. The narratives weave in real historical figures like Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid, Judge Roy Bean, and Jesse James's gang, and stage events ranging from the Pony Express to the construction of the Statue of Liberty, all filtered through affectionate parody of the Western genre and sharp satire of both American and European culture.

Publication History & Global Reach

Lucky Luke's first adventure, Arizona 1880, debuted in the Franco-Belgian magazine Spirou in October 1946. The series remained a Spirou staple through 1967 before migrating to Goscinny's Pilote magazine (1968–1973), a dedicated Lucky Luke magazine (1974–75), the French edition of Tintin (1975–76), and various other periodicals since. On the publishing side, the albums were originally issued by Dupuis, then by Dargaud from 1968 to 1998, followed by Lucky Productions, and since 2000 by Lucky Comics. As of 2024 the catalogue stands at 83 regular albums plus three special homage editions. The series has been translated into thirty languages, spanning Afrikaans, Arabic, Bengali, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Vietnamese, Welsh, and Bulgarian. By 2022 all 82 regular albums were available in English. In 1993 the series received an honorary exhibition at the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

Cultural Legacy & Adaptations

Beyond the printed page, Lucky Luke has spawned a wide array of adaptations, including animated feature films, television series, live-action movies, video games, toys, and board games, cementing the character as a pan-European cultural icon. One of the series' most enduring traditions is its closing panel: in virtually every story since 1949, Luke rides off alone on Jolly Jumper into the sunset, singing the English line 'I'm a poor lonesome cowboy, and a long way from home.' The melody traces back to a genuine cowboy ballad collected by folklorist John Lomax for his book Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. Goscinny once explained that he and Morris aimed to ground each adventure in a real historical event whenever possible, yet they refused to let factual accuracy compromise the comedy. Some albums even include a one-page informational sidebar providing background on the depicted event. The series' internal chronology is deliberately vague, with no specific years given in most stories, allowing Luke to remain perpetually unchanged while encountering figures who historically lived across the mid-to-late nineteenth century.