The outlaws
The Outlaws (Original title: Hors-la-loi ) is a Lucky Luke comic that was drawn and written by Morris in 1951 . The comic first appeared in German in 1979/80. In 1994 it was published as the sixth volume in the Ehapa series Lucky Luke Classics and in 2007 as volume 81 in the Lucky Luke series by Ehapa.
action
The four Dalton brothers Bob, Grat, Bill and Emmett terrorize the Wild West. Although mainly specialized in robbing banks, stagecoaches and trains are not safe from the bandits either. Lucky Luke can put them in prison in La Mesa, but the four manage to break out and continue to commit deeds. In a bank robbery in Coffeyville / Kansas they are finally found by Lucky Luke and the sheriff. The Daltons lose their lives in the process.
censorship
The last page of the comic has been censored. Once shown how Bob Dalton was shot in the head, he is only caught in a barrel instead. The original version was previously only shown in German as part of the Lucky Luke Complete Edition 1951-1954 .
Historical
The four Daltons really existed. Grat was killed in the Coffeyville bank robbery, and Bob immediately afterwards. Contrary to what the comic from 1951 suggests, Emmett survived - this fact is discussed in "Les Tontons Dalton" from 2014 - and wrote his memoirs in prison.
After the Daltons
After Hors-La-Loi was published, many letters to the editor made Morris realize that he had sent the Daltons underground too early. First he let the gangsters appear again in a short story entitled "The Return of the Dalton Brothers" (original title: Le retour des freres Dalton ) in the form of flashbacks and four men in disguise (including Lucky Luke); he only found the final solution, however, together with René Goscinny when they invented the fictional cousins of the Daltons, namely Joe, William, Jack and Averell. While in "The Outlaws" the smallest of the Daltons, namely Bob, was already the leader like later, the greatest, Emmett, was just as competent and dangerous as the others, unlike Averell. With the fictional Daltons, Morris and Goscinny had more freedom for the stories and didn't have to stick too much to historical facts. In the words of Morris: “The fictional Daltons became a real milestone in comic history. The real Daltons have remained rather unknown. "
Series production
The comic was implemented as an episode for the cartoon series . Instead of the classic Daltons, their fictional cousins were used there. Also, in contrast to their cousins in the comic, they did not have their faces re-operated, but simply put on headscarves to camouflage themselves.