By Morris
Publisher: Cinebook
ISBN: 9781849181792
Another early outing for Lucky Luke in this pre-Goscinny collection of two tales involving the despicable Pat Poker, a card sharp and all-round dirty cheater. Luke first stumbles upon him after taking a job as a town’s sheriff, but having been robbed of his clothes, guns and Jolly Jumper before he arrives in town, Luke is rescued by a well-meaning woman who dresses him in her young son’s outfit. This means that when Luke does finally arrive, he looks the very opposite of a hardened lawman and every bit the greenhorn buffoon the town’s people paint him as.
Fortunately, looks can be deceiving, and Luke plays this to his advantage, eventually catching them on the hoof and bringing Pat Poker to justice.
By the second tale Luke arrives in a shady little town of whittlers and bumps into a rough character dead-set on hanging a shepherd (they don’t like sheep in these parts) to which Luke naturally steps in and saves. Unbeknownst to all, though, Pat Poker has card-sharped his way out of prison and stumbles into the very same town. The rough and the cheat then realise their destinies are intwined in the despatching of Lucky Luke and so team up to do just that, which makes for a rather neat little play in the Pat Poker’s room over the saloon where he’s invited Luke to play cards.
This is a slightly different Luke to the his later books. He still smokes, he swigs whiskey rather than milk, and he shoots villain’s dead rather than the ol’ shoot their weapon’s from the palm of their hands. He even doesn’t mind a bit of animal cruelty, having enlisted the aid of a skunk to scatter a crowd set on a hanging he later shoots dead the same skunk to show off what a good shot he is. But this was written for a different audience at a different time, and it would be foolish to tamper with it to take into account modern sensibilities. Both stories successfully evoke the spirit of the western adventures of cinema and TV with tongue firmly planted in cheek.
So all-in-all two solid little stories, displaying all the hallmarks of fun, humour and adventure that has made this character and this series so successful and long-lived.
And if you liked that: Volume 55 is out now too
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