A cowboy in Paris
A Cowboy in Paris ( French Un cowboy à Paris ) is a Lucky Luke album from 2018. The album drawn by Achdé and texted by Jul appeared as number 97 in the German Ehapa series and accompanies the “man who faster moves as his shadow ”to the French capital Paris of the 19th century. Lucky Luke is supposed to make sure that the Statue of Liberty gets safely from France to New York . The volume is full of allusions to famous French and Franco-Belgian authors and artists.
action
Lucky Luke returns to prison with the Daltons again. Suddenly a car appears in front of him on which a large hand with a torch made of copper and steel can be seen. Its owner is being harassed by the Cheyenne and is about to be scalped . After Luke freed the owner of the strange cargo, he introduces himself as Auguste Bartholdi . He is traveling with the top part of the future Statue of Liberty through the USA to raise money for the completion of this monumental work of art and symbol of freedom . Bartholdi's opponent becomes the prison director Abraham Locker, who claims to run the safest prison in the USA. When Luke arrives there, he is upset about the unusual security measures - even his papers are criticized: “The photo is out of date! You've got a cigarette in your mouth! ”[Luke hasn't smoked since Volume 41]. Locker is not satisfied with the security of his current prison despite the high standard and would like to have a maximum security prison built on an island off New York - of all places, on which the Statue of Liberty will once also stand.
After leaving prison, Luke meets Bartholdi - tarred and feathered by Locker's henchmen. Luke then decides to accompany Bartholdi on his tour. The prison director repeatedly sends his henchmen to sabotage the events or steal the money, but to no avail.
At the end of the tour, Luke and Bartholdi are invited to an audience with the Vice President of the USA. He asks Lucky Luke - much to his astonishment - to accompany and guard the delivery of the statue from Paris to New York. Luke doesn’t like the crossing because he suffers from severe seasickness . The captain complains with a loud "Hundred Thousand Howling Hellhounds" in the style of Captain Haddock about Luke's horse in a luxury cabin. Upon arrival in Paris, Luke meets Bartholdi's engineer, Gustave Eiffel , who designed the structure for the statue.
Luke's stay in Paris is characterized by many allusions and great puns, for example Jolly Jumper asks himself what is meant by “the French like horses” when he sees a horse butcher's shop. Or Auguste asks why the students need all the cobblestones on the renewed streets around the university. Drawings of famous buildings in the city are also included. Several times in Paris he is mistaken for a Belgian because his clothes are in the national colors of Belgium . Famous personalities such as Victor Hugo pay their respects to the construction project. And of course the project should be sabotaged again, with moderate success.
Finally the day of embarkation comes. The entire statue is dismantled into individual parts and loaded onto a ship. After a stormy crossing with Luke's renewed seasickness, the heroes await a triumphant reception in New York. While the statue is being erected, Luke, furious, returns to Abraham Locker and reads him the riot act for his attack series. During the opening of the new Statue of Liberty, Bartholdi is already looking for ideas for his next project for the World Exhibition in Paris . A huge statue of Lucky Luke on the Marsfeld would be a bit too much. Instead, Eiffel erected the Paris landmark that was named after him .
Abraham Locker gets to know the safest prison in the USA after all - not on an island off New York, but on an island off San Francisco and not as director, but from within. Luke sings verses by Victor Hugo for once when he leaves.
Web links
- Stuttgarter Zeitung: Presentation of the new volume
literature
- Lucky Luke - A cowboy in Paris ; Drawings Achdé, text Jul after Morris; Egmont Ehapa Publishing House; Berlin 2018; ISBN 978-3-7704-4040-5