It stars the titular Lucky Luke, a street-smart gunslinger known as the "man who shoots faster than his shadow", and his intelligent horse Jolly Jumper.

Simultaneously a tribute to the mythic Old West and an affectionate parody, the comics were created by Belgian artist Morris, who drew Lucky Luke from 1946 until his death in 2001.

The first Lucky Luke adventure, Arizona 1880, appeared in the French version of the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou in October 1946.

He was the series writer during what is considered its golden age, starting with the story "Des rails sur la Prairie", published on 25 August 1955 in Spirou, until his death in 1977 (with the exception of "Alerte aux Pieds Bleus").

[6] Ending a long run of serial publications in Spirou, the series was shifted to Goscinny's Pilote magazine in 1967 with the story "La Diligence".

After the death of Goscinny in 1977, several writers succeeded him: including Raymond "Vicq" Antoine, Bob de Groot, Jean Léturgie and Lo Hartog van Banda.

[7] After Morris' death in 2001, French artist Achdé continued drawing new Lucky Luke stories in collaboration with writers Laurent Gerra, Daniel Pennac and Tonino Benacquista.

Lucky Luke comics have been translated into: 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.

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 on-hand resourcefulness and incredible gun prowess.

Luke meets many historical Western figures such as Calamity Jane,[8] 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, the building of the Statue of liberty, and a tour by French actress Sarah Bernhardt.

For example, in the album Daily Star, Lucky Luke meets a young Horace Greeley, prior to his moving to New York in 1831.

In the final panel of each story, except the earliest, Lucky Luke rides off alone on Jolly Jumper into the sunset, singing (in English) "I'm a poor lonesome cowboy, and a long way from home...".

[12][13][14] Morris received an award from the World Health Organization in 1988 for replacing Luke's omnipresent cigarette with a wisp of straw in the story Fingers (1983).

Two albums starring this version of the character were released as part of the main series: Kid Lucky and Oklahoma Jim.

These were credited to veteran writer Jean Léturgie and unknown artist Pearce, who was later revealed to be a joint pen name for Yann Lepennetier and Didier Conrad.

The series was however re-launched in 2011 as Les aventures de Kid Lucky d'après Morris, with Achdé now solely in charge of it.

To date, Achdé has written four Kid Lucky albums, L'apprenti Cow-boy, Lasso périlleux, Statue Squaw and Suivez la flèche, released in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017, respectively.

Europe Comics There are a number of feature adaptations from various countries, including: In 1983, Hanna-Barbera Productions, France 3, Gaumont Film Company, Extrafilm Berlin and Morris collaborated to produce the animated TV series Lucky Luke, which ran for 26 episodes and was based on original album stories.

In 2013, French publishers Dupuis and Anuman Interactive announced the development of a new Time Management game: Lucky Luke: Transcontinental Railroad (set in the 1860s) for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.

In 2000, statues of Lucky Luke, Ratanplan and Joe Dalton were erected in the Jules Van den Heuvelstraat, Middelkerke, Belgium.

[41] In 1993, French rapper MC Solaar released his song "Nouveau Western" with references to Lucky Luke and the Daltons.

It features a blank silhouette of Luke and Jolly Jumper in Monument Valley, with the full detail of the characters being revealed under UV light.