Jean Giraud - Moebius

Info About Jean Giraud-Moebius:

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud (8 May 1938 – 10 March 2012) was a French comics artist, working in the French tradition of bandes dessinées. Giraud earned worldwide fame, predominantly under the pseudonym Mœbius, and to a lesser extent Gir (used for the Blueberry series), the latter appearing mostly in the form of a boxed signature at the bottom of the artist's paintings. Esteemed by Federico Fellini, Stan Lee and Hayao Miyazaki among others, he received international acclaim.^[2] He has been described as the most influential bandes dessinées artist after Hergé.^[3]
Among his most famous works are the Western comic series Blueberry he co-created with writer Jean-Michel Charlier, one of the first Western anti-heroes to appear in comics. Under the pseudonym Moebius he created a wide range of science fiction and and fantasy comics in a highly imaginative and surreal almost abstract style, the most famous of which are Arzach, the Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius, and The Incal. Blueberry was adapted for the screen in 2004 by French director Jan Kounen. In 1997, Moebius and cocreator Alejandro Jodorowsky sued Luc Besson for using The Incal as inspiration for his movie The Fifth Element, a lawsuit which they lost.^[4]
Moebius contributed storyboards and concept designs to numerous science fiction and fantasy films, including Alien, Willow, Tron (1982), and The Fifth Element.

Personal life

Jean Giraud was born in Nogent-sur-Marne, Val-de-Marne, in the suburbs of Paris, on May 8, 1938.^[5][6] When he was three years old, his parents divorced and he was raised mainly by his grandparents. The rupture between mother and father, city and country, created a lasting trauma that he explained lay at the heart of his choice of separate pen names.^[7] In 1955 at age 16, he began his only technical training at the Arts Appliqués art school, where he started producing Western comics. He became close friends with another comic artist Jean-Claude Mézières. In 1956 he left art school to visit his mother in Mexico and he stayed there eight months, after which he returned to work full time as an artist.^[8] In 1959-1960 he served his military service in Algeria, where he collaborated on the army magazine 5/5 Forces Françaises.^[9]
Giraud died in Paris, on 10 March 2012, aged 73, after a long battle with cancer.^{[10][11][12][13]} Fellow comic artist François Boucq stated that Moebius was a "master of realist drawing with a real talent for humour, which he was still demonstrating with the nurses when I saw him in his hospital bed a fortnight ago".^[14]

Style

Giraud's working methods were various and adaptable ranging from etchings, white and black illustrations, to work in colour of the ligne claire genre and water colours.^[29] Giraud's solo Blueberry works were sometimes criticized by fans of the series because the artist dramatically changed the tone of the series as well as the graphic style.^[30] However, Blueberry's early success was also due to Giraud's innovations, as he did not content himself with following earlier styles, an important aspect of his development as an artist.^[31]
To distinguish between work by Giraud and Moebius, Giraud used a brush for his own work and a pen when he signed his work as Moebius. Giraud drew very quickly.^[32]
His style has been compared to the Nouveaux réalistes, exemplified in his turn from the bowdlerized realism of Hergé's Tintin towards a grittier style depicting sex, violence and moral bankruptcy.^[2]
Throughout his career he experimented with drugs and various New Age type philosophies, such as Guy-Claude Burger's instinctotherapy, which influenced his creation of the comic book series Le Monde d'Edena.^[2][7]

Influence and legacy

Many artists from around the world have cited Giraud as an influence on their work. Giraud was longtime friends with manga author and anime filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Giraud even named his daughter Nausicaä after the character in Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.^[33][34] Asked by Giraud in an interview how he first discovered his work, Miyazaki replied:

Through Arzach, which dates from 1975, I believe. I only read it in 1980, and it was a big shock. Not only for me. All manga authors were shaken by this work. Unfortunately, when I discovered it, I already had a consolidated style so I couldn't use its influence to enrich my drawing. Even today, I think it has an awesome sense of space. I directed Nausicaä under Moebius's influence.^[35][36]

Pioneering cyberpunk author William Gibson said of Giraud's work The Long Tomorrow:

So it's entirely fair to say, and I've said it before, that the way Neuromancer-the-novel "looks" was influenced in large part by some of the artwork I saw in Heavy Metal. I assume that this must also be true of John Carpenter's Escape from New York, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and all other artefacts of the style sometimes dubbed 'cyberpunk'. Those French guys, they got their end in early.^[37]

The Long Tomorrow also came to the attention of Ridley Scott and was a key visual reference for Blade Runner.^[37]
"I consider him more important than Doré," said Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini:

He’s a unique talent endowed with an extraordinary visionary imagination that’s constantly renewed and never vulgar. Moebius disturbs and consoles. He has the ability to transport us into unknown worlds where we encounter unsettling characters. My admiration for him is total. I consider him a great artist, as great as Picasso and Matisse. ^[38]

Following his death, Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, paid tribute on Twitter stating:

"The great Moebius died today, but the great Moebius is still alive. Your body died today, your work is more alive than ever."^[14]

Benoit Mouchart, artistic director at France's Angouleme International Comics Festival, made an assesment of his importance to the field of comics:

"France has lost one of its best known artists in the world. In Japan, Italy, in the United States he is an incredible star who influenced world comics. Moebius will remain part of the history of drawing, in the same right as Dürer or Ingres. He was an incredible producer, he said he wanted to show what eyes do not always see".^[14]

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said that by the simultaneous death of Giraud and Moebius, France had lost "two great artists"^[14]

Extracts Taken From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Giraud

Info About Blueberry:

Blueberry is a Franco-Belgian comics western series created by the Belgian scriptwriter Jean-Michel Charlier and French comics artist Jean "Mœbius" Giraud. It chronicles the adventures of Mike Blueberry on his travels through the American Old West. Blueberry is an atypical western hero; he is not a wandering lawman who brings evil-doers to justice, nor a handsome cowboy who "rides into town, saves the ranch, becomes the new sheriff and marries the schoolmarm."^[1]

Synopsis

The story follows Michael Steven Donovan, nicknamed "Blueberry", a name he chose when fleeing from his Southern enemies (which was inspired when he looked at a blueberry bush), starting with his adventures as a lieutenant in the United States Cavalry shortly after the American Civil War. He is accompanied in many tales by his hard-drinking deputy, Jimmy McClure, and later also by Red Woolley, a rugged pioneer.
Donovan is the son of a rich Southern farmer and started as a dedicated racist. He was framed for a murder he did not commit, had to flee and was saved by an African-American. He became an enemy of discrimination of all kinds, fought against the Confederates (although he was a Southerner himself), and tried to protect the rights of Native Americans.

Publication history

Original publications in French

Blueberry has its roots in Giraud's earlier Western-themed works such as Frank et Jeremie, which was drawn for Far West magazine when he was only 18, and his collaboration on Jijé's Jerry Spring in 1961, which appeared in the Belgian comics magazine Spirou. Around 1961-1962 Jean Giraud asked Jean-Michel Charlier, whether he wanted to write scripts for a new western series for Pilote. Charlier refused at first, since he never felt much empathy for the genre. In 1963 the magazine sent Charlier on a reporting assignment to Edwards Airforce Base in the Mojave Desert, California. He took the opportunity to discover the American West, returning to France with a strong urge to write a western. First he asked Jijé to draw the series, but Jijé thought there would be a conflict of interest, since he was a regular artist at Spirou, a competing comic magazine.^[2] Therefore Jijé proposed his protégé Giraud as the artist.^[3] Charlier and Giraud have also collaborated on another Western strip, Jim Cutlass.
Blueberry was first published in the October 31, 1963 issue of the comics magazine Pilote.^[4] Initially titled "Fort Navajo", the story grew into 46 pages over the following issues. In this series Blueberry - whose physical appearance was inspired by French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo^[5][6] - was only one of many protagonists. Charlier came up with the name during his American trip: "When I was traveling throughout the West, I was accompanied by a fellow journalist who was just in love with blueberry jam, so much in love, in fact, that I had nicknamed him "Blueberry". When I began to create the new series, and everything started to fall into place, I decided to reuse my friend's nickname, because I liked it and thought it was funny. [...] I had no idea that he would prove so popular that he would eventually take over the entire series, and later we would be stuck with that silly name!"^[2]
Charlier and Giraud continued to add to the legend of Mike Blueberry in Pilote and other titles even into the 1990s. During that time the artistic style has varied greatly, much as with Giraud's other works. In the same volume, sweeping landscapes will contrast sharply with hard-edged action scenes and the art matches the changing mood of the story quite well. Like much of the Western genre, Blueberry touches on the constant conflict between violence and tranquility, nature and civilization, and the obligation of the strong to protect the weak.
Between 1963 and 1973 Blueberry stories were first published in Pilote or Super Pocket Pilote prior to issuing them in album format.^[7]
After Charlier's death, Giraud wrote and drew five albums, from Mister Blueberry to Dust, until his own death in 2012.

English translations

The first English translations of Blueberry comics were published in Europe during the late seventies by Egmont/Methuen. Since then English translations were published by many other companies (Epic Comics, Comcat, Mojo Press, Dark Horse Comics) resulting into all kinds of formats and quality—from b/w, American comic book sized budget collections to full color European style albums with many extras. Since 1993 no Blueberry comics have been published in English. Moebius painted new covers for the Epic line of Blueberry. Actually this was the first time Blueberry was published under Giraud's pseudonym, Moebius. As R.J.M. Lofficier, the translator of the books wrote: "This is quite ironic because Giraud first coined the 'Moebius' pseudonym precisely because he wanted to keep his two bodies of work separate. Yet, the artist recognizes the fact that he has now become better known in this country under his 'nom-de-plume,' and this is his way of making it official!"^[1]

Table of English translations in the order of original French titles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueberry_(comics)#English_translations

• In the case of some Epic versions (Chihuahua Pearl, Ballad for a Coffin, Angel Face, The Ghost Tribe, and The End of the Trail), Titan Books has issued the identically same albums for the UK market, with a few months delay.
• Mojo Press published a black and white, American comic book sized budget collection: The Blueberry Saga #1: The Confederate Gold in 1996. It contains the following stories: Chihuahua Pearl, "The Half-A-Million Dollar Man", Ballad for a Coffin, The Outlaw, Angel Face. It also contains a 14 page non Blueberry comic.
• Some issues of Graphitti Design's series presenting Moebius dealt with Blueberry. Moebius #9 contains the The Lost Dutchman's Mine and The Ghost with the Golden Bullets, along with non-Blueberry westerns (King of the Buffalo, Jim Cutlass: Mississippi River).

Non-English translations

Since its inception, the series has slowly gained a large following in Europe, and has been extensively translated into several languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, Finnish, Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian and Turkish. Apart from Europe, in India it has been translated in Mizoby Cydit communications, Aizawl, Tamil by Prakash Publishers in their "Muthu" comics, and also in Indonesian.

Prequels and sequels

A "prequel" series, La Jeunesse de Blueberry (Young Blueberry), as well as the sequels Marshal Blueberry and Mister Blueberry have been published as well, with other artists and writers, most famously William Vance.

The Young Blueberry (La Jeunesse de Blueberry)

A prequel dealing with Blueberry's early years, during the American Civil War—how the racist son of a wealthy plantation owner turned into a Yankee bugler and all the adventures after that. The material for the first few albums were first seen in digest size Super Pocket Pilote during the late sixties. Later these were blown up, rearranged, colored, to fit the album format. Some panels were omitted in the process. The 1990 English language edition of these stories, by Catalan Communications under their "Comcat" line, give track of the changes and present the left out panels. Only the first three stories were published in English, although the company planned to publish The Missouri Demons and Terror over Kansas, as can be seen on the back covers of the ones published. The three albums were also published in a single hardcover version.
Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean Giraud

• 1: La jeunesse de Blueberry (1975)—Blueberry's Secret (ComCat comics, September 1989)
• 2: Un Yankee nommé Blueberry (1978)—A Yankee Named Blueberry (ComCat comics, march 1990)
• 3: Cavalier bleu (1979)—The Blue Coats (ComCat comics, July 1990)

Jean-Michel Charlier and Colin Wilson

• 4: Les démons du Missouri (1985)—The Missouri Demons
• 5: Terreur sur le Kansas (1987)—Terror Over Kansas
• 6: Le raid infernal (1987)—The Train from Hell

François Corteggiani and Colin Wilson

• 7: La pousuite impitoyable (1992)—The Merciless Pursuit
• 8: Trois hommes pour Atlanta (1993)—The Three Men from Atlanta
• 9: Le prix du sang (1994)—The Price of Blood

François Corteggiani and Michel Blanc-Dumont

• 10: La solution Pinkerton (1998)
• 11: La piste des maudits (2000)
• 12: Dernier train pour Washington (2001)
• 13: Il faut tuer Lincoln (2003)
• 14: Le boucher de Cincinnati (2005)
• 15: La sirene de Vera-Cruz (2006)
• 16: 100 dollars pour mourir (2007)
• 17: Le Sentier des larmes (2008)
• 18: 1276 âmes (2009)
• 19: Redemption (2010)
• 20: Gettysburg (2012) To be released

Marshal Blueberry

Jean Giraud and William Vance, page layout by René Follet

• 1: Sur ordre de Washington (1991)
• 2: Mission Shermann (1993)

Jean Giraud and Michel Rouge

• 3: Frontière sanglante (2000)

Legacy and Awards

The series has received wide recognition in the comics community, and the chief factor when Giraud received the Swedish Adamson Award for Best International Comic Series in 1979.^[9]
The Blueberry saga published by Epic was nominated for Best American Edition of Foreign Material for the 1992 Harvey Awards.^[10]
The Blueberry Saga #1: The Confederate Gold published by Mojo Press was nominated for Best Archival Collection for the 1997 Eisner Awards.^[11]

Extracts Taken From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueberry_(comics)