I can’t imagine Damon as Blueberry.
And Charles Bronson? I don’t remember any album in which his looks resemble Bronson. It was obviously Belmondo in the early albums, and in later albums the Belmondo face was slightly altered. Like in above picture.
In the albums " The Lost Dutchman’s Mine" the stories an drawings evolved. I think it was due to the influence of the Spaghetti westerns. Drawings became more detailed an characters were also more according the Spaghetti Western trend.
After the long pause the new westerns were more visible in the series.
In the “spaghetti period” Blueberry evolved towards Bronson but also kept his original look, a bit of a mixture.
Hmm, you think in the above picture (from The Spectre with the Golden Bullets) Blueberry looks like Bronson?
The most famous Disney comic book artist Carl Barks has drawn and written a few western stories such as Donald Duck in Sheriff of Bullet Valley (1948) and Donald Duck in Old California (1951). The first one is a bit more like comic SWs and the second one more like sentimental/moody SWs. I wrote a short peace about this some years ago:
Has Carl Barks something in common with Sergio Leone ?
It occured to me while reading Donald Duck in Old California for the umpteenth time today that maybe you can draw a certain parallel between that story and the earlier Donald Duck in Sheriff of Bullet Valley and on the other hand some spaghetti western movies directed by the well known Italian Sergio Leone. Leone’s “Dollar Trilogy” movies from the mid 1960’s much like Bullet Valley were rather straight forward with a lot of humour and artistic perfection but not with so much depth maybe except for a few final moments.
But with Leone’s 4th and last own IMO true spaghetti western Once Upon a Time in the West he goes deeper in the art of the western movie and with a lot of sentiments. My feeling now is that Barks in Old California deals with the dying west in a similar deeper way and with a griping nostalgic touch.
I think Once Upon a Time in the West and Old California could be interpreted as both creators respectively sentimental goodbye to the old west, even if both of them later on would deal with the dear subject in some newer productions.
But as usual Carl Barks was first, maybe even inspiring other Italians than those who also made creative Disney comics ? 
Yes, unfortunately, we have been waiting for the sixth part of Isaac for 15 years now. 
Gus is wonderful. I also particularly liked La Fille, an album Blain made together with French singer Barbara Carlotti. It isn’t a comic in the strict sense but rather an illustrated short story, accompanied by a CD with the text read by Carlotti and songs she wrote for this project, in other words an audio- and picture-book.
The fact that Giraud made extensive use of photographic and filmic sources for reference is widely known and well established (and may in part account for Blueberry’s metamorphoses). However, only recently, while rewatching Stagecoach, have I noticed the striking resemblance between Hatfield (John Carradine) in Ford’s seminal Western and Duke Stanton in La Longue Marche (Blueberry album 19).
By the way, @stanton, is Duke Stanton the character you borrowed your nick from?
Apropos of berries, blue or black, strawy or raspy: @autephex, @cat_stevens, you both mentioned that you live in Missouri. So I thought I could ask you if a fruit called “sowberry” actually exists or if that name is just Mark Twain’s invention. (Background: Being a freelancer, I [unfortunately] have a lot of free time on my hands these days, and so, after having finished The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, I’m currently (re-)reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for the first time in English or rather American.)
Ha ha no, it is actually from Arch Stanton, the most undervalued character in any film ever, without whom GBU would have been not much more than a pretty mediocre movie.
Sadly we do not even know who the actor was, but his stonefaced acting was marvellous, and he added a new dimension to the expression taciturn, made Trintingant in TGS look like a chatterer.
I’ve never heard of anything being called sowberry before, although that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a thing in the past.
I love Mark Twain! We share a fondness for Old Crow Whisky
I haven’t either, though I’ve only been here since 2013 (I’m originally from North Carolina)! I have a friend who’s a native Missourian and a Mark Twain scholar. I’ll ask him!
I’m about to have a pretty severe emergency surgery, after having suffered a mild heart attack a few nights ago, so it might be a bit before you hear back from me, though. Wish me luck, please!
All the very best to you. Hoping all goes well with the surgery.
Oh, yes, a good tenant, this Arch Stanton, very quiet, not chatty, rather unsociable. Although not as wealthy as his neighbor, he always pays the rent on time.
I had fun reading his two most famous books again. Only the last ten or so chapters in Huckleberry
Finn I found pretty weak compared to the rest. Now I’ve started with Tom Sawyer Abroad. By the way, Twain spent the summer of 1898 in a small town near Vienna called Kaltenleutgeben, one hour by bike from where I live.
Thank you!
Oh no, I’m really, really sorry to read that. Especially now, in such a time of crisis. I wish you all the best for your surgery and a speedy recovery!
I hope everything goes well with your surgery. Sorry you have to go through that during all of this, hope to see you back soon
Thanks everyone for the well-wishing. I wound up having a quintuple bypass on Monday. I’ve been trying to do things to avoid it for a decade, but my genetics won out. I’m only 37, so it’s disappointing. I had a minor heart attack that lead to it, and my heart is healthy now, so hopefully I’ve just bought myself decades more life.
To get back to the conversation, though, my dad sent a gift certificate for Comixology so I have new things to read while I convalesce. I’m getting Bonhomme’s The Man Who Killed Lucky Luke. What else should I be looking at?
I’m glad to read that everything went well and you’re on the road to recovery. As for ComiXology: Maybe Manu Larcenet, Blast, Ordinary Victories or Back to Basics? Zidrou, While the King of Prussia Was Waging War, Who Do You Think Was Darning His Socks?, Bearskin or Glorious Summers? Or Pedrosa’s Portugal? Or a fairly recent French Western comic-book series: Undertaker, which everyone likes at the moment (graphically it’s very nice, but the stories are rather mediocre)?
Blast is superb work.
These look like great recommendations, and aside from the Pedrosa (I’m first in line for all of his stuff), these were all new to me.
My wife is a special education care provider, and so this one resonated really strongly. I hope I can convince her to read it along with me! Thank you for the recs!
