Jean Giraud

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Jean Giraud
Birth name	Jean Henri Gaston Giraud
Born	May 8, 1938 (1938-05-08) (age 70) Nogent-sur-Marne, Paris
Nationality	French
Area(s)	penciller, inker, writer
Pseudonym(s)	Moebius, Gir
Notable works	Blueberry Arzach John Difool The Incal
Awards	full list

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud (born May 8, 1938) is a French comics artist. Giraud has earned worldwide fame, not only under his own name but also under the pseudonym Moebius, and to a lesser extent Gir, the latter appearing mostly in the form of a boxed signature at the bottom of the artist's paintings, for instance the volumes' covers.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Works 2.1 As Jean Giraud 2.2 As Moebius 2.3 Collections 3 Film work 4 Video game work 5 Awards 6 Further reading 7 Sources 8 External links

[edit] Biography

Jean Giraud was born in Nogent-sur-Marne, in the suburbs of Paris. At age 16, he began his only technical training at the Arts Appliqués.^[1] At 18, he was drawing his own comic strip, "Frank et Jeremie" for the magazine Far West. In 1961, Giraud became an apprentice of Jijé, one of the leading comic artists in Europe of the time, and collaborated on an album of Jerry Spring.^[1] In 1962 Giraud and writer Jean-Michel Charlier started the comic strip Fort Navajo for Pilote. It was a great hit and continued uninterrupted until 1974. The Lieutenant Blueberry character, created by Giraud and Charlier for Fort Navajo, quickly became its most popular character, and his adventures as told in the spin-off Western serial Blueberry, are possibly Giraud's best known work in his native France. Giraud's prestige in France – where comics are held in high artistic regard – is enormous; France has even issued postage stamps to commemorate him. Under the names Giraud and Gir, he also wrote numerous comics for other comic artists like Auclair and Tardi.

The Moebius pseudonym, which Giraud came to use for his science fiction and fantasy work, was born in 1963.^[1] In a satire magazine called Hara-Kiri, Moebius did 21 strips in 1963–64 and then disappeared for almost a decade. In 1975 Métal Hurlant (a magazine which he co-created) brought it back and in 1981 he started his famous L'Incal series in collaboration with Alejandro Jodorowsky. Moebius' famous serial The Airtight Garage and his groundbreaking Arzach also began in Métal Hurlant.

Moebius has contributed storyboards and concept designs to numerous science fiction films. In 1982 he collaborated with director René Laloux to create the science fiction feature-length animated movie Les Maîtres du temps (released in English as Time Masters) based on a novel by Stefan Wul. In 1988 Moebius worked on the American comic character The Silver Surfer with Stan Lee for a special two-part limited series. Moebius' take on the character was unfavourably alluded to in the film Crimson Tide by Lt. Commander Ron Hunter (played by Denzel Washington) in deference to that of Silver Surfer co-creator Jack Kirby (in a scene written by an uncredited Quentin Tarantino). Moebius/Giraud is also known to be a friend of filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. From December 2004 to March 2005, the two of them shared an exhibition at La Monnaie in Paris which showcased work by both artists. He even named his daughter Nausicaä from Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.^[2][3]

Jean Giraud drew the first of the two-part last volume of the XIII series titled La Version Irlandaise (The Irish Version) from a script by Jean Van Hamme, to accompany the second part by the regular team Jean Van Hamme-William Vance, Le dernier round (The Last Round). Both parts were published on the same date (13 November 2007).^[4]

[edit] Works

Jean Giraud has been active in the comics scene since the 1960s. Those works for which English translations have been published are noted as such; their respective pages describe this further.

[edit] As Jean Giraud

• Blueberry (29 volumes, English translation, 1965 - ), artist
• Jim Cutlass (7 volumes, 1979 - 1999), artist
• XIII (volume 18, La Version irlandaise in 2007), artist
• Marshall Blueberry (3 volumes, 2000), writer

[edit] As Moebius

• Le Bandard fou (English translation, 1975), writer & artist
• Arzach (English translation, 1976), writer & artist
• L'Homme est-il bon? (English translation, 1977), writer & artist
• Le Garage Hermétique (The Airtight Garage, English translation, 1976-1980), writer & artist
• Les Yeux du Chat (1978), artist
• Tueur de monde (1979), writer & artist
• l'Incal (The Incal, 6 volumes, English translation, 1981-1988), artist
• Les Maîtres du temps (1982), artist
• Venise céleste (1984), writer & artist
• Le Monde d'Edena (1985-2001), artist
• Altor (7 volumes, 1986 - ), writer
• Silver Surfer: Parable (Originally in English, 1988-1989), artist
• Escale sur Pharagonescia (1989), writer & artist
• The Long Tomorrow (Originally in English, 1989), artist
• Les Vacances du Major (1992), writer & artist
• Le Coeur couronné (The Crowned Heart, English translation, 1992), artist
• Les Histoires de Monsieur Mouche (1994), artist
• Griffes d'Ange (1994), artist
• Little Nemo (1994), writer
• Ballades (1 volume, 1995), artist
• Après l'Incal (2000 - ), artist
• Icare (2005), writer
• Halo Graphic Novel (Originally in English, 2006), artist

[edit] Collections

• The Collected Fantasies of Jean Giraud (1987-1994):
• Moebius 0 - The Horny Goof & Other Underground Stories (Dark Horse, 1990)
• Moebius ½ - The Early Moebius & Other Humorous Stories (Graphitti Designs, 1991)
• Moebius 1 - Upon A Star (Marvel/Epic, 1987)
• Moebius 2 – Arzach & Other Fantasy Stories (Marvel/Epic, 1987)
• Moebius 3 - The Airtight Garage (Marvel/Epic, 1987)
• Moebius 4 - The Long Tomorrow & Other Stories (Marvel/Epic, 1987)
• Moebius 5 - The Gardens of Aedena (Marvel/Epic, 1988)
• Moebius 6 - Pharagonesia & Other Strange Stories (Marvel/Epic, 1988)
• Moebius 7 - The Goddess (Marvel/Epic, 1990)
• Moebius 8 - Mississippi River (Epic, 1991)
• Moebius 9 - Stel (Marvel/Epic, 1994)

[edit] Film work

• Alien (film) (1979)
• The Time Masters (1982)
• Tron (1982)
• Masters of the Universe (1987)
• Willow (1988)
• The Abyss (1989)
• Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland
• The Fifth Element (1997)
• Mister Gir & Mike S. Blueberry (1999) - A documentary portrait by Canadian filmmaker Damian Pettigrew produced by the Centre National de la Bande Dessinée in Angoulême, France. Giraud does numerous sketches and watercolors of his most famous creation, Blueberry, travels to Saint Malo for the celebrated comic-book festival, visits his Paris editor Dargaud, and in the film's last sequence, does a spontaneous life-size portrait in real time of Geronimo on a huge sheet of glass using a felt-tipped pen.

• Fellini: I'm a Born Liar (2002) Giraud conceived the poster for the documentary's 2003 North American release and appears in the DVD bonus extras of the French version.

• Blueberry (2004) - On the DVD extras Giraud talks about the comic, the film etc, dressed in period costume, apparently having done a cameo role in the film. In IMDB, Giraud is credited as a writer and uncredited actor in the film.

• Thru the Moebius Strip (2005)
• Giraud worked on Alejandro Jodorowsky's film adaptation of Dune which was never completed.

• Giraud's artwork for the Dan O'Bannon short story comic "The Long Tomorrow" was a key visual reference for Blade Runner.

• Giraud represented the jury of the Paris Storyboard Contest 2005 (Concours SOPADIN - Société Parisienne des Images Nouvelles) and awarded the two young artists and filmmakers Kahyan Parandi (K.Parandi) & Jean François Guillon for their work on the independent film "Minuit 14". Jean Giraud was assisted on this by the notorious French director Gerard Krawczyk (Taxi, Fanfan la tulipe).

• George Lucas used one of Giraud's designs for the Imperial Probe Droid in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Lucas' later Star Wars films also share many visual characteristics with Giraud's work, particularly the depiction of the city-planet Coruscant.

• Giraud also shared "Story by" credit on the animated film Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland.
• Strange frame (2009)

[edit] Video game work

• Fade to Black cover art (1995)
• Panzer Dragoon (1995)
• Pilgrim: Faith as a Weapon (1998)
• An arcade and bar based on Giraud's work, called The Airtight Garage, was one of the original main attractions at the Metreon in San Francisco when the complex opened in 1999. It included three original games: Quaternia, a first-person shooter networked between terminals and based on the concept of "junctors" from Major Fatal and The Airtight Garage; a virtual reality bumper cars game about mining asteroids; and Hyperbowl, an obstacle course bowling game incorporating very little overtly Moebius imagery. The arcade was closed and reopened as "Portal One", retaining much of the Moebius-based decor and Hyperbowl but eliminating the other originals in favor of more common arcade games.

[edit] Awards

• 1973: Shazam Award, Best Foreign Comic Series, for Lieutenant Blueberry
• 1975: Yellow Kid Award, Lucca, Italy, Best Foreign Artist ^[5]
• 1977: Angoulême International Comics Festival Best French Artist
• 1979: Adamson Award, for Lieutenant Blueberry etc.
• 1980: Yellow Kid Award, Lucca, Italy, Best Foreign Author ^[6]
• 1980: Grand Prix de la Science Fiction Française, Special Prize, for Major Fatal ^[7]
• 1981: Angoulême International Comics Festival Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême
• 1985: Angoulême International Comics Festival Grand Prix for the graphic arts
• 1986: Inkpot Award
• 1988: Harvey Award, Best American Edition of Foreign Material, for Moebius album series
• 1989: Eisner Award, Best Finite Series, for Silver Surfer
• 1989: Harvey Award, Best American Edition of Foreign Material, for Incal
• 1991: Eisner Award, Best Single Issue, for Concrete
• 1991: Harvey Award, Best American Edition of Foreign Material, for Lieutenant Blueberry
• 1997: Designated finalist for induction into the Harvey Award Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1989, inducted in 1997
• 1997: World Fantasy Award: Artist category
• 1998: Included in the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame
• 2000: Max & Moritz Prizes, Special Prize for outstanding life’s work
• 2001: Haxtur Award Best Long Comic Strip, for The Crowned Heart

[edit] Further reading

• Erik Svane, Martin Surmann, Alain Ledoux, Martin Jurgeit, Gerhard Förster, Horst Berner: "Blueberry und der europäische Western-Comic" (2003, Zack-Dossier 1; Berlin: Mosaik, ISBN 3-932667-59-X)

[edit] Sources

Footnotes

[edit] External links

• Jean Giraud/Moebius biography on Lambiek Comiclopedia
• Jean Giraud profile on Artfacts
• Moebius IMDb profile