What remains of Lucky Luke’s Wild West today? An Arte documentary shot by the current comic strip writer, Jul, investigates on site in the United States. “In the Boots of Lucky Luke” is a documentary of three times 52 minutes, broadcast on the Franco-German channel this evening, November 2 at 8:50 p.m., three days before the American presidential election.
“By following the paths of the albums of my childhood, would it be possible for me to find the roots of this dream? So I went to see what was left of Lucky Luke in America,” says this screenwriter, Jul, in the introduction.
This author reprized the character in 2016 and is behind the plot of the next album, “A Cowboy Under Pressure”, which is released on November 15. The design has been entrusted to Achdé since 2003, very faithful to the graphics of the creator, the Belgian Morris. Morris who we hear say, from the first seconds of the documentary: “I think I was always a fan of westerns, when I was a kid.”
Then René Goscinny, its screenwriter, added: “It’s difficult to distinguish reality from legend.” This journey into deep America shows breathtaking landscapes, warm locals and an ever-understood political tension between supporters and opponents of Donald Trump.
“Among all these people, in particular the Indians but not only, we are very well received. At the same time, if we dig deeper, many are psychopathic Trumpists,” said Jul during the presentation to the press.
“We realized that Americans had the same days and the same concerns as in the days of Lucky Luke. God, their gun, their family, their beer. Their job is their cattle, their fences and their hobbies, the rodeo, the difference is that instead of getting on a horse and leaving it in front of a watering hole, they travel by car and go to the gas station,” he added.
The documentary was filmed in Utah and Montana, South Dakota, Louisiana, New Mexico and Arizona.
Jul meets characters who fall into clichés, like a sheriff from a county lost in the Rockies, and others less so, like a female rabbi from New Orleans. Everyone happy to discover the paper cowboy. “I had not anticipated this sesame that is Lucky Luke”, affirmed Jul, in a country where “everyone reads comics”.
