Center De Branding, Populierlaan 35, 8430 Middelkerke - inaugurated on November 16, 2016

Lucky Luke celebrated his 70th birthday in 2016 and that was also celebrated in Middelkerke, the strip municipality of the coast. Thanks to the excellent collaboration with publishing house Ballon Media we managed to have a beautiful drawing with Lucky Luke and Jolly Jumper painted on a facade of the De Branding center. The artists of Art Mural vzw provided practical implementation.

The drawing on the façade of the Branding center was still signed by Father Morris and originally appeared on the cover of comic book Spirou (Spirou), which came out on January 4, 1968. This also explains why Lucky Luke still smokes in the drawing. Only in 1983 Lucky Luke stopped smoking and Morris replaced the cigarette with a straw. The drawing on the wall of the Branding is however a correct copy in all its details of the cover of Spirou from 1968, so also with a cigarette. Morris died in 2001.

Lucky Luke first appeared in 1946. The stories take place in the United States in the nineteenth century. Often the clichés of the western genre are parodied and well-known colorful historical characters such as Billy The Kid and Calimity Jane are performed. Lucky Luke, together with the adventures of Tintin and Asterix, is one of the most successful European comic series ever. More than 300 million albums have already been sold worldwide.

Alexis Dragonetti, managing director of publishing company Ballon Media