Most comics nowadays bore me, as soon as someone draws with a computer tablet, it's half dead.
It's that free but sure stroke that also allows for coincidences. I also adore Claire Bretecher for similar reasons.
I didn't understand it when I was a kid, but this loose, scribbled line by Morris, that's what still fascinates me about drawings today. I always thought Lucky Luke was the best. There weren't many comics when I grew up in Germany except Donald Duck, Asterix, and Lucky Luke. Ralf König was kind enough to take the time to answer my questions via email about the creation of this unique chapter in the life of our beloved Wild West hero.Īug Stone: Did you grow up reading Lucky Luke? But of course life never goes that smoothly, especially when Calamity Jane, The Daltons, and a host of other colorful characters get involved. Just as Lucky Luke believes in being left alone to do his thing, he extends this same non-judgmental courtesy to the cowboys in question. In particular, this is directed at two young men who are being ostracized for getting ‘closely acquainted’ during a job on Bareback Mountain. Lucky Luke, seen now for the first time with nipples and a bulge in his pants, wanders into the backwater town of Straight Gulch and proves himself to be an ally as he confronts the homophobia and hostility of its residents. And, like so much of König’s work, really funny too, packed with puns and hilarious innuendo.
There’s nothing contentious about it, though. Nevertheless, when I got the email to write about his Lucky Luke, it was presented to me as possibly being controversial due to the appearance of LGBTQ elements in Morris’ long-running kids’ series. And why shouldn’t it be? His stories pulse with much life, offering humorous and moving looks at relationships in general, the universal complications of all types of love.
In 2012, König was the subject of Rosa von Praunheim’s König des Comics (‘King Of Comics’) documentary.įrom short stories to epic length books, with serial characters such as Konrad and Paul, or revitalizing the classics such as Aristophanes and Shakespeare, König’s range is wide. Kondom des Grauens (The Killer Condom), Wie die Karnickel (Like Rabbits), and his adaptation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata all also received favorable reviews, Wie die Karnickel winning the Prix Alph’Art for Best Scenario at the 2005 Angoulême Festival. Four movies have been made from König’s work, with 1994’s Der Bewegte Mann (published in English as Pretty Baby) becoming the second most successful film in German history with its 6.5 million viewers grossing $43 million at the box office and earning a Federal Film Prize. In 2009 his Prototype won Best Comic Of The Year at the Frankfurt Book Fair. In 1990 he won Best German Comic Artist at the Grenoble BD Festival and Best International Comics Artist at the Barcelona International Comic Fair in 1992. His books have been translated into fourteen languages and sold upwards of seven million copies. König came out as a gay man in the late 70’s and has been publishing comics teeming with sexuality for the past 40 years, to great success. On November 25th, Europe Comics published Ralf König’s Swiss Bliss, the German artist’s take on Lucky Luke. When using a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo check the safe search settings where you can exclude adult content sites from your search results Īsk your internet service provider if they offer additional filters īe responsible, know what your children are doing online.Features “This Town Is Big Enough For All Of Us”: Ralf König On Lucky Luke Use family filters of your operating systems and/or browsers Other steps you can take to protect your children are:
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