As a kid I loved the Lucky Luke series and I read nearly all of them (more than 70). Now my kids read them and they love them as well. Lucky Luke is a Franco-Belgian cartoon series, which is written by René Goscinny, a French comic book author, and illustrated by Maurice De Bevere, a Belgian cartoonist, who is better known as Morris. René Goscinny might be the world’s most famous comic book author. However, this Lucky Luke book is not written by René Goscinny but by Bob De Groot. It is still illustrated by Maurice De Bevere.

These comic books have been sold in tens of millions of copies around the world and they have been translated into hundreds of languages. However, they are not as well known in North America. Recently many of the Lucky Luke comic books have been translated into English, which I certainly appreciate.

Lucky Luke is about a Texas Cowboy who protects the people of the Wild West from criminals, wars, and the abuse of the powerful. He can draw faster than his own shadow and he is as accurate as he is fast. For example, in this book he demonstrates his abilities by shooting a dollar bill drifting in the air in half from the side. He is an astounding fist fighter as well and his white horse, Jolly Jumper, is more intelligent than most Cowboys and speaks English and plays Poker. As you can see from the picture, Jolly Jumper can also walk on ropes. Above all Lucky Luke has a good heart and a strong sense of duty. Despite all of this Lucky Luke has not been inducted into the Texas Cowboys Hall of Fame, because ironically Texas are among the few places in the world where Lucky Luke is virtually unknown.


The One Armed Bandit

Two mechanically inclined brothers from East Saginaw Michigan, Adolph and Arthur Caille, have invented a gaming machine, the first slot machine, or the first one armed bandit if you will. Senator Pinball is mighty impressed by the machine and arrangements are being made for selling the machine to various towns and establishments around the nation. Lucky Luke is asked to escort the brothers to the various dangerous Wild West towns including Yellow City, Poker Gulch and Gambling Town. He accepts the mission even though he is not fond of games of chance.

Along the way they encounter various dangers including righteous ladies who hate gambling, Indians, robbers, criminals, as well as professional poker players and con artists who fear that the new machine will put them out of business. Wherever they go people love their machine but danger always lurks in the shadows. The question is; will the brothers survive their dangerous journey through the Wild West?


Thoughts and Opinions on the One Armed Bandit

The humor in the book is clean innocent situational comedy mixed with puns and funny caricatures, and it is not childish or silly. There is also some parody in the book. This makes the humor great for kids but also enjoyable for adults. An example is Senator S. Windle who enjoys gambling. He greets Lucky Luke and his group as he is being carried out of town right after being rolled in tar and feathers by his constituents. Now that’s no way of treating dishonest politicians, or is it? In another example, one criminal (the boss) tells another to shoot at anything that moves, and then when he walks away he gets shot at because he moved. Yeah his subordinate took that too literally. 

The story takes the form of an odyssey and along the journey all kinds of unexpected and crazy things happen. It is a pretty unpredictable and creative story sprinkled with humor. The illustrations are colorful, action packed, and comical, and they typically add a lot to the story itself. The illustrations are not realistic but they don’t intend to be. However, they are artistic and inspiring.

This is a good Lucky Luke book and I am glad it finally was translated into English. However, it is not one the best Lucky Luke books. I still give it a five star rating because it is around average (perhaps better) among the Lucky Luke books and the Lucky Luke books are in general great comic books. Other Lucky Luke books that I can highly recommend are “The Oklahoma Land Rush”, “Tortillas for the Daltons”, “Billy the Kid”, “Calamity Jane”, “Daltons in a Blizzard”, “Dalton City”, “The Stage Coach”, “The Wagon Train”, “Barbed Wire on the Prairie”, “a Cure for the Daltons”, and “Apache Canyon”.


I hoping to enter this review into Elvisdo's 2012 Funny Pages Write-Off since it is a comic book.

Finally I would like to thank Christal Calderon for adding this comic book to the epinions data base.


Recommended: Yes