The singing wire
The singing wire ( French original title: Le fil qui chante ) is a comic book from the Lucky Luke series, which was drawn by Morris and written by René Goscinny . According to the Ehapa publishing house count (or at the beginning: the Delta publishing house from Ehapa and Dargaud ), The Singing Wire is the 18th volume in the series. The comic had previously been published as a sequel to Yps .
The story was originally published in 1977 in the French magazine Paris Match , in the same year it was published as the 15th volume by Dargaud (46th volume in total) in France.
This band was filmed for the Lucky Luke cartoon series .
content
The US President Abraham Lincoln commissions Hiram Sibley, the President of the Western Union , to build a telegraph line that connects the two coasts of the USA. For this purpose, the heads of the previous western and eastern ends of the telegraph, James Gamble and Edward Creighton, are commissioned to build their telegraph line to Salt Lake City . Lucky Luke brings this message to Gamble and becomes part of their team. Sibley offers a bonus of $ 100,000 for the team to arrive there first, whereupon Creighton's assistant hires a saboteur for Gamble's troop, who disguises himself as an Indian.
Although Gamble's stock of masts, wagon axles, mules and oxen are sabotaged, both teams start their work on the US national day , July 4th. However, the saboteur continues to be mischievous: He is sent to the Indians, where he makes an opinion against the telegraph without disguise, and he also has the telegraph masts in Austin sawed up without disguise. When he sabotaged the water supplies in the Utah salt flats, he finally noticed that he needed more water than the others, because he had to shave his beard off in order not to attract attention.
With the help of Salt Lake City's Mormons , Gamble's team will be the first to reach the city, but will share the award with the other team.
Remarks
This volume is the last of the Lucky Luke series that Goscinny contributed to. However, since the volumes were published in a different order in Germany, many volumes written by Goscinny follow after this volume.
In terms of content, the story is close to California or Death and The Railway through the Prairie .
The volume takes up many historical personalities and events in particular. The delivery of mail in the United States is already described on page 3, in excerpts: In
1848 the letter would have been shipped with the ships of the US Mail Steamship Company and those of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. - In fact, there was the US Mail Steamship Company and the Pacific Mail Steamship Company , both founded in 1848.
In 1856 Edward Fitzgerald Beale had imported 75 desert ships from Egypt. In fact, Beale only imported camels from Tunisia a year later , initially only 25 or 33 animals.
From 1857 to 1861 stagecoaches took over the transport. - Stagecoaches like the Wells Fargo's were common in the Wild West.
As mentioned in the volume, the Pony Express began in 1860. Buffalo Bill , who was actually a Pony Express rider, is also mentioned in this context .
Furthermore, in this volume , Abraham Lincoln commissions Hiram Sibley of the Western Union, who also existed historically, to build the telegraph, as he was worried by the outbreak of the Civil War (1861–1865). It is also correctly described that James Gamble and Edward Creighton built the transcontinental telegraph line and engaged in a kind of competition. In truth, however, Creighton won the race. In Salt Lake City, both teams are received by Brigham Young , the judge Stephen J. Field sends the first two telegraph messages in this volume, the historical Shoshone chief Washakie briefly threatens the telegraph.