For a Few Comic Strips More: Reinterpreting the Spaghetti Western through the Comic Book

In Christopher Frayling's book Spaghetti Westerns (1981), he highlights how the character of the Spaghetti Western has since become subsumed into later Western comic books, evidenced through the Lee Van Cleef-like bounty hunter featured in Morris and Goscinny's bande dessinée (French comic) Lucky Luke: The Bounty Hunter (1972). Drawing upon this relationship, this chapter will take a similar approach to Frayling, who mediates between comic book influences upon the Spaghetti Western and the later reciprocal impact of these Westerns upon the comic book. It begins by demystifying some of the tacit references to the comic-like qualities of the Italian Westerns. This provides context for the exploration of the impact of these films upon the Western comic book, primarily achieved through a case study of the bande dessinée series, Blueberry (1963–2005), by Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean Giraud. In a collection that looks to map the relocation and appropriation of the Spaghetti Western, the chapter reinterprets these Italian productions through the comic book.