THE LEWSYN LWCUS AUTHORS

MORRIS (MAURICE DE BÉVÈRE)

Maurice de Bévère – or Morris – was born on 1 December 1923 in Courtrai in Belgium. In time he was to become one of the founders of the Franco-Belgian bande dessinée genre. Morris could speak some 8 languages and studied law at university, before following a course in animation. He then joined the Companige Belge d’Actualités animation studio where he met André Franquin, Eddy Paape and Peyo, a trio who would also become shining stars of the bande dessinée.

In 1945 he beganm illustrating covers for the satirical magazine Le Moustique, working under his new nom de plume, Morris. It was at this time he also created Lucky Luke/Lewsyn Lwcus, who made his first appearance in Spirou magazine in December 1946 in his first adventure Arizona 1880… Lewsyn Lwcus along with his wise and faithful horse Jolly Jumper/Llamri Llon, the Wild West’s stupidest dog Rantanplan/Rhun-tun-tun, and a cast well-known names from the world of cowboys, including the four sibling villains, the Dalton Brothers.

Lucky Luke/Lewsyn Lwcus soon proved to be an international success thanks to Morris’ clear line and expressive illustrations. From 1948 and 1955 he was a regular visitor to the USA, and was heavily influenced by the satirical comedy of Mad magazine. It was in New York where he met the prolific writer René Goscinny, with whom he was to collaborate closely until Goscinny’s untimely death in 1977.

In a long career, Morris was given numerous awards, including a World Health Organization award in 1988 in recognition of his stance against smoking after extingushing Lewsyn Lwcus’ last ever cigarette. In 1992 the Académie des Grands Prix awarded him the Special 20th Anniversary Award of the Angoulême Salon International de la Bande Dessinée, and in 1998 Morris was made an Officier of France’s Order of Arts and Letters.

Morris passed away on 17 July 2001 aged 77 years.

GOSCINNY (RENÉ GOSCINNY)

René Goscinny was born in Paris on 14 August 1926 to a family originally from Poland, but spent his youth in Buenos Aires, Argentina, because of his father’s work there. He lost his father when he was 17 years old, and found work as an accountant in a tyre recycling factory, and then as an apprentice designer at an advertising agency. By the age of 19, Goscinny and his family had moved to America where he had his sights on working for Walt Disney. Although he never realised that particular dream, he did cross paths with the brilliantly comic minds of Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder and Jack Davis, who later went on to establish the inimitable Mad magazine. Goscinny soon realised that their Anglo-Americal sense of humour reflected his own style of comedy.

Goscinny met Morris in New York, and then, in Parisin 1951, with Albert Uderzo. This is when he decided he perferred writing comic strips rather than illustrating them, and proceeded to create a myriad of characters including the Red Indian Oumpah-pah, the taxi driver Strapontin, and the young news reporter Luc Junior.  In 1955, Goscinny began working with Morris on Lucky Luke/Lewsyn Lwcus.

By 1959 Goscinny had created Asterix with Albert Uderzo, and in 1962 was working with illustrator Jean Tabaray on Iznogoud, a series about an evil chamberlain in the caliph’s court in Baghdad.

Throughout the 60s and 70s, Goscinny was involved with tens of different projects in the world of books, magazines, newspapers, television, film and animation, including establishing Studios Idéfix in 1974, home to several  Asterix and Lucky Luke/Lewsyn Lwcus animated films. But suddenly on 5 November 1977, during a routine visit to his doctor, Goscinny suffered a fatal heart attack. He was just 52 years old.