Moebius; Comic Book Creater And My Hero

His given name is Jean Giraud, born in 1938 in Paris, France.

The funny thing is I grew up reading his Blueberry series, but never knew about this alter ego.

I discovered the fantasy work late in Junior High through a friend, and have not looked back since.

His fantasy books are definitively my favorite, notably Upon A star, Arzack, and The Airtight Garage, the Goddess and the like.

The Incal series is remarkable in its crazy, alternate reality aspects, though it looses a little of the simplicity and beauty of some of his other, purer line stories.

His books are meant to be enjoyed and studied. His art is extraordinary. Moebius is a genius, that's all there is to it.

I am absolutely fascinated with the way he can use a few lines and evoke so much. Reading through his fantasy work takes the reader back and forth between a game of how pure in line and shape can one get, all the while including an incredible amount of details, to a saturation of texture and ecclectic decors, and then back again. Reading his books is intoxicating.

Jean Giraud was born in May of 1938 in Paris, France. His school books are filled with cartoons of all sorts; a preview of what's to come.

In 1954, at 16, he enrolls into "Art Appliqués," where he stays 2 years. He publishes his first illustrations all the while working in advertising, fashion, decoration, and various publications of the time.

His first comic story: Frank and Jérémie, 1956.

This same year, Giraud travels to Mexico, where he stays for 18 month. Back in France, he soon meets Jijé in 1958 and they work on Jerry Spring, a western character, for about a year, and they publish "The Road to Coronado" in 1960.

It is around this time that the first short story by a new artist is published, one named Moebius.

In 1963 Giraud meets Jean Michel Charlier, Chief Editor for Dargaud and writer looking for an artist. They start what is to become a legendary series, Lt. Blueberry, successfully translated into English editions.

In 1965, Giraud goes back to Mexico and visits the US, and while he continues his western series, more and more his science fiction alter ego comes to front.

Starting in 1973, Moebius comes into his own and is the main artist for the then ground breaking French magazine Metal Hurlant, later to be known as Heavy Metal in its English version.

Giraud is introduced to the movie industry through his meeting of another influencial artist, Alexandro Jodorowsky (see Mebius And The Movies below).

In 1979 he creates a new series with Jean Michel Charlier called Jim Cutlass. He also finishes Airtight Garage, started in 1976, and in 1980 another familiar character appears, by the name of John Difool, with text written by Jodorowsky. Meanwhile, Blueberry is still here and doing well.

Moebius moves to Tahiti in 1983, then to Los Angeles, USA, in 1984.

1985 is a busy year for Giraud. His wife Claudine Giraud starts Starwatchers, specializing in publication of prints, illustrations, and images related to comic books, and whose primary goal is to exlore possibilities in spreading Moebius' work.

He travels to Tokyo, where he works on scripts, background and costume for an animated adaptation of Little Nemo from Windsor McCay.

This same year, Giraud is awarded the "Prix des Art Graphiques" (or Graphic Art Awards) at Angoulême, and he signs the comic adaptation of George Orwell's famous Animal Farm.

A few years later, and at the death of Charlier, he himself takes up the script of Blueberry, now entering a new cycle as Marshal Blueberry.

Let's also mention that in April 1999, Sony opened an Airtight attraction in its Metreon center in San Francisco.

This volume starts the Aedena Cycle with its first main story: Upon A Star. It also includes a short prequel The Repairmen, where we first met Stel and Atan (heros of Upon A Star), who will re-appear in The Gardens of Aedena.

In this volume:
The Repairmen
Upon A Star
Aedena (earlier prototype story)
Celestial Venice

Upon A Star was orginially to be a 7 page story commissioned by the person in charge of advertising at Citroën -the French car maker- as a promotion for their sales force. This person had been a fan of Moebius since childhood and was in a position to take whatever avenue he liked.

Moebius was at first reluctant, then agreed and negociated the story down to 3 pages, just in case he did not feel inspired.

In complete spur of the moment fashion, Moebius grabbed a pen and paper to explain the emerging concept of the story to a friend and took off penciling page after page... by the time he was done, about 40 pages or so had been sketched out!

Citroën was delighted and printed the story as a hardcover, deluxe, limited edition, strickly distributed to its top sales people, to the chagrin of Moebius fans.

Arzach is a silent, pterodactyl-riding warrior, who has risen to stardom with fans of the Moebius universe. He was first created in 1974 with 4 wordless stories, included in this volume.

The Arzach world is completely alien. The mood is generally dark, with a lot of death symbolism and phallic shapes, for those of you into artist analysis.

The remaining 4 stories are stand alone.

In this volume:
Arzach
Harzak
Arzach
Harzakc
The Detour
The Ballade
The White Citadel
Ktulu

Ah yes, The Major! This book took Moebius 4 years to complete. The Major started out as a kind of joke in The Hunt for the Vacationing Frenchman, which turned out to be misunderstood by the readers of "France-soir" magazine, who had commissioned it as a summer out-of-the-ordinary type inclusion.

What started as a one time satire of adventure explorer clichés became a multi-dimensional universe of its own.

In this volume:
Major Fatal (prototype for Airtight Garage)
The Garage Hermetic of Lewis Carnelian
-presented through a collection of episodes and short stories.

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Title: Tetsuo - Akira - Otomo - Moebius
by Moebius
26 x 38 in Art Print

A lot of short stories in this volume, ranging the gammut of grotesque, ridiculous, funny, and plain weird, in typical Moebius serving.

The Long Tomorrow and Is Man Good? are my favorite.

In this volume:
The Long Tomorrow
- part one
- part two
It's A Small Universe
There Is A Prince Charming On Phenixon
Variation No4070 On "The" Theme
Approaching Centauri
Blackbeard And The Pirate Brain
Christmas On Lipponia
Split The Little Space Pioneer
Is Man Good (cover image)

The Gardens of Aedena is the sequel to Upon A Star. Atan and Stel find themselves in this mysterious garden and have to learn to live in a natural world. The style becomes less innocent and more fitting this saga's evolution. This is Stel's story.

In this volume:
The Gardens of Aedena
Journey To The Center Of An Unfaithful Body
Hit Man
- 1st episode
- 2nd episode

These are strange anyway you look at them, falling more into a dream like space. Moebius calls these kind of stories "dream artifacts."

In this volume:
Shore Leave on Pharagonesia
Absoluten Calfeutrail
The Hunt For The Vacationing Frenchman
White Nightmare
The Apple Pie
Double Escape
Rock City

The Goddess is the third chapter of the Aedena Cycle and focuses on Atan's story.

All three of these main stories offer an incredible body of work by Moebius. There is an evolution both in style and story telling, starting with a very innocent approach to a darker, stronger stance on the reality of what is Aedena.

In this volume:
The Goddess
Black Thursday

Do come again soon. You know the way.






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