Morris

(Maurice de Bevere / December I, 1923, Kortrijk, Belgium-July 17, 2001, Brussels, Belgium)

   He was one of the greatest European comic strip drawers and dedicated his professional life to the character he created in 1946, Lucky Luke the lone­some cowboy, who shoots faster than his shadow (the first album, La Mine d'Or de Dick Digger, was published in 1947 by the Belgian company Dupuis). In 1950, he went to the USA, where he befriended Jack Davis and Harvey Kurtzman, who were founding MAD magazine, and René Goscinny, who became the screenwriter of Lucky Luke in 1955. His film credits as creator of original comics notably include 1971 Le Juge / All'ovest di Sacramento / USA: Judge Roy Bean / Trouble in Sacramento (Richard Owens = Jean Girault, France / Italy), 1974 Atini seven kovboy / Red kit dal-toniara karsi (Aram Gulyuz, Turkey), 1991 Lucky Luke (Terence Hill, USA / Italy), 1993 Lucky Luke (8 X 60', Terence Hill, Ted Nicolaou, Italy), 2001 Lucky Luke / Les Nouvelles Aventures de Lucky Luke (animated TV series, Olivier Jean Marie), 2004 Rantanplan / Los Dalton con­tra Lucky Luke (Philippe Haïm, France / Spain), 2006 Rantanplan (animated TV series, Hugo Gittard), 2007 Tous à l'Ouest / USA: Une Aventure de Lucky Luke / USA: Go West: A Lucky Luke Adventure (Olivier Jean Marie), and 2009 Lucky Luke (James Huth, France / Argentina). He died after an accidental fall.

 Filmography

1971 ◘ Lucky Luke / Daisy Town (animation; co-director with René Goscinny; France / Belgium)

1978 ◘ La Ballade des Dalton (animation; co-director with René Goscinny, Henri Gruel, Pierre Watrin; also co-screenwriter)

1983 ◘ Lucky Luke, les Dalton en Cavale / Les Dalton en Cavale / Lucky Luke—Das grosse Abenteuer (animation; co-director with William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, Ray Patterson; France / USA / West Germany)

 Television Filmography

1990 ◘ Lucky Luke (animation TV series; co-director with Philippe Landrot; France / Belgium)