This is a pure western hero: independent, strong, honest and irreverent, always against all odds, even himself, often in serious problems with authorities, in favour of indians (the right ones), a rebel, in a word. The adventures sure have the standard qualities of the theme, but the script is terrific, the action never ends, the rythm sagely timed. The long list of books includes not very many different stories, some with recurrent characters, all very well supported upon historical facts, or imitations of them, and plenty of myths of the far west iconography. Furthermore this Blueberry is a hero that develops in front of the reader, there are changes along the way, doesn’t time fly? At some moment two new subseries were created: The youth of Blueberry, and Marshall Blueberry. These fill gaps in the main character story and backgrounds, and after the untimely death of J.-M. Charlier other authors colaborated in the making. However, everything fits in the whole as the fantastic epopeya of a man that stands by himself. And it goes without saying that the drawings serve well the purpose. As a plus, the reader can track very clearly the evolution and progressive mastering the artist reaches on his work. In fact, Giraud must to be considered one of the best artists today, and just looking at some examples confirms without discussion this opinion!

 

And a good read is the book by D. Pizzoli, Il était une fois Blueberry, Dargaud.