Rantanplan

Rantanplan
Rantanplan portrayed on the front cover of L'Héritage de Rantanplan (1973).
Publication information
Publisher	Dargaud, Lucky Comics ()
First appearance	Spirou magazine
Created by	Morris

Rantanplan (alternately spelled Ran-Tan-Plan and Ran Tan Plan) [ʁɑ̃tɑ̃ˈplɑ̃] is a fictional hound dog created by Belgian comics artist Morris and French writer René Goscinny. Originally a supporting character in the Lucky Luke series, Rantanplan later starred in an eponymous series. Rantanplan is a spoof of Rin Tin Tin, as idiotic as Rin Tin Tin is clever. Ironically, in the Turkish translations of the series, he is indeed named Rin Tin Tin.English versions of the books have renamed him "Rin Tin Can" and "Bushwack" in the 1983 Hanna-Barbera animated Lucky Luke television series.

The character first appeared in the earliest panels of the story Sur la piste des Dalton, published on February 4, 1960 in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou, and later as an album in 1962. The character remained a fixture over a long series of Lucky Luke publications, resulting in a series of its own spin-off publications starting in 1987. Ten years after the death of Goscinny, for the production of the Rantanplan series, Morris collaborated with scenarists such as Jean Léturgie, Bob de Groot and Vittorio Leonardo.

Rantanplan is a prison guard dog often tasked with watching over the Dalton brothers or assisting Lucky Luke track them down each time they escape. However, he is unable to understand this and often mistakes Joe Dalton, who hates him psychotically, for a beloved owner. As well as being stupid, Rantanplan is extremely slow and accident-prone. However, he is very good-natured, and will follow Lucky Luke to the ends of the Earth. Like Averell Dalton, he has a huge appetite and will devour literally everything that is put in front of him, whether it is food or not, which has ranged from bars of soap to dishwater.