Sci-Fi/Fantasy Artist Jean 'Moebius' Giraud Dies At 73 64
Dr Herbert West writes:
"According to io9, 'Today is an incredibly sad day for fans of comic books, concept art, and downright anything science fiction. Artist Jean 'Moebius' Giraud, who provided some of the most stunning scifi and fantasy art ever to grace a page, has succumbed to illness at the age of 73.' It's pretty hard to overstate the impact he had on film, comic books, and illustration in general. You can name most any fantasy or science fiction related piece of culture from the last 30 or 40 years, and chances are he provided concept art for it or was involved in some way. Alien, Dune, Heavy Metal, Tron (original AND the new one), The Abyss, Masters of the Universe, The Fifth Element, Willow... the list goes on. With the recent passing of Ralph McQuarrie, it's been a tough week for scifi and fantasy artists."
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Re:today?? as in last week? (Score:4, Funny)
Don't worry, he also heckles the Gettysburg Address to point out that four score and seven years ago was in fact more like 11 score and 16 years ago.
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Who fucking cares if it crosses the boundary between Saturday and Sunday? It was still only 26 hours.
It's like calling 11:59pm Dec 31 "last year" on 12:01am Jan 1. While, it's technically true, you're just being a pedantic ass.
Have a nice day.
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Yes, "today" means "today". The summary is directly quoting the original article, which was published on Saturday. Mindblowing, I know.
Is this too complicated for you? That news aggregation sites sometimes (often, in the case of Slashdot) post to articles from days that have already passed?
I would say "it happened a few days ago", because "day" is a more appropriate unit of measure in this context than "ye
HIJACK PATHETIC THREAD! MOEBIUS DOCUMENTARY on BBC (Score:2)
Here's a one-hour BBC documentary on Moebius.
"Moebius Redux: A Life in Pictures" [forbiddenplanet.co.uk] includes interviews with Stan Lee and Jodorowsky.
End of an era (Score:3)
Re:End of an era (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless, it is pretty clear that many culture and social icons are entering their later years.
Or maybe we're just getting older and the people we've come to know over the years are dying off. Damn mortality.
"Sur l'etoile", a poetic sci-fi masterpiece (Score:5, Interesting)
"Sur l'etoile" was a sci-fi comic book he wrote for Citroen in 1983, but more than just a branding operation and a little gift meant for Citroen employees, it was a very beautiful and poetic piece of work.
Wasn't there also supposed to be a Dune movie with his participation and Jodorowsky's?
He was also famous for Lieutenant Blueberry, his western series he signed under his real name, Jean Giraud.
Re:"Sur l'etoile", a poetic sci-fi masterpiece (Score:5, Informative)
"Sur L'etoile" started out as a book for Citroen cars but grew into a series of 6 books in all(the world of Edena), and those were not publicity related in any way.
There was supposed to be a Dune movie and some work happened on it but it was abandoned.
The moebius site: http://www.moebius.fr/ [moebius.fr]
The blueberry site: http://www.blueberry-lesite.com/ [blueberry-lesite.com]
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The Star, by Moebius [youtube.com]
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>> People who smoke "Gitanes"... You need to brush up your French studies, smoking "gitanes" was mostly done during my father youth and I am 56 years old ;-)
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indeed, it's Gauloises now
Oh, no! Mr. Blueberry :( (Score:2)
This is sad. Rest in peace, Giraud.
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Ferdinand Moebius has been dead since 1868.
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2nd Artist in 48 hours?? (Score:3)
Giraud on Dan O'Bannon/Ridley Scott ALIEN (Score:3, Informative)
Moebius was also very much responsible for the look and atmosphere of the original ALIEN film. Of course, everybody remembers H.R. Geiger's contribution of the Alien and it's discovery. But the whole human world was Moebius and Ron Cobb. Cobb is a genius in his own right, but it's clear how much O'Bannon plied him with work Giraud had done for the pre-production of the geat, unmade DUNE.
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Given the comic that's displayed on the front of his website, I'd dare to say that he is not *directly* in Moebius's footsteps.
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I Will Kill Him! (Score:2)
I think that's supposed to be the Lady Jessica in the sketch of "Feyd from Dune." Feyd was the Sting character; Moebius drew a leggy Veronica Lake-ish blond gal seated on a throne, holding a huge sword. Don't recall Feyd wearing anything gossamer in the film.
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The reference is incorrect. He did not have involvement with the produced Dune films. Credit where it's due, he did a lot of great stuff. Just not Dune.
he did work for _A_ Dune film. Sadly just not one that ever got shot.
the drawing referred to above is this one:
http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/ourdailyred.cgi?f=2008-11-17-190227-01378882 [bigredandshiny.com]
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Nephew?
"Feyd" by name "Fey" by nature (in a sort of Black Widow/Prey Mantis way)
farewell Mobious (Score:5, Interesting)
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FTFY
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FTFY
na sorry I was under post dental surgery painkiller when I first posted that - spillen and gramhar kin gogh rit out the windoz undr that hsit.
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You spelled it wrong, but differently, in the title. But I can sympathize.
I was on painkillers for an abscess and they did fuck all. You know what did work? Extract[1] of Szechuan pepper, extract of cloves[2] and copious quantities of strong lager.
[1] Extracted by crushing them & soaking in gin [2],
[2] Until the gin ran out. Then tequila.
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and damn slashdot for not allowing you to edit your own posts (though I understand the reason)
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He drew the Japanese cover.
Airtight Garage (Score:4, Interesting)
His "Airtight Garage" was the basis for the fantastic architecture of the San Francisco Sony Metreon's original game arcade. (Unfortunately, after years of deterioration and changes in ownership, the Metreon has been torn out and replaced with a Target store.)
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San Francisco Target Store? Ain't no such thing, yet. Apparently development is to be completed by fall of this year [sfgate.com] after having been originally projected for this winter [sfgate.com].
Not dead. Off hunting with the Major ;-) (Score:5, Interesting)
Jean Giraud was a major reason I stayed with science fiction through my teen years, instead of sacrificing it to peer pressure. The french scifi artists (Moebius, Forrest, Druillet et al) raised so many more posibilities - an alternative view of science fiction. It kept me going when all I was finding was mundane empowerment fare (let's face it - Heinlein was recreating Lot's lot at the time with Lazarus Long).
Then the elder brother of a mate showed me this magazine called 'Heavy Metal'... Oh dear... Through Arzarch and The Incal and the Gardens of Aedena, falling off a horse with Lieutenant Blueberry and of course travelling on a train with Jerry Cornelius, he has delighted me with his simplified style. I applaud him and express gratitude at his effort! Merci beaucoup monsieur Gir. I expect this to be a Bakelite trick.
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I didn't know he was that well known in the US. We'll certainly miss him.
Re:Not dead. Off hunting with the Major ;-) (Score:4, Interesting)
Tragically, very little of his comics work is in print in the US and/or in English. But that hasn't stopped people here (especially artists) from learning of his brilliance.
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Ahhh, but the Incal is probabaly one of his dullest work. There is so many more stuff !
Forrest? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who's Forrest? Do you mean Jean-Claude Forest? Now that's a hidden treasure. I always had the impression he was completely forgotton apart from Barbarella - which again was known only because of the movie.
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Heh. I read "Les Naufragés du Temps" in a german edition when I was ten. I wonder what a child psychologist would have to say about that :)
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I wonder what a child psychologist would have to say about that :) Possibly that your parents should pay more attention to what books they leave lying about. The graphics were by Gillon, which could explain the darkish atmosphere of the book. Masterful artist though. He also draws on a very large format. I've seen originals of his and an original page is about 1m high.
Forest is(was) usually more frivolous in style. Liked to put in a lot of conversation too. Wordy son of a bitch :) Most of it is only availab
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I've always thought French science fiction had a peculiar visual aesthetic, but I'm not an expert on it. I mean, I may be basing that idea mainly on The Fifth Element and Another World [wikipedia.org], but... nice to see I'm not the only person to have thought so.
small sample (Score:2)
I wouldn't call Moebius representative of french SF comics but maybe it's easier to see the common elements from a distance. There could be a strong sense of visual esthetic in french comics. Or spanish. Italian. Belgian.
Here's Silvio Cadelo in Italy ? http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L8xXmJGGy_U/TZALHN0GziI/AAAAAAAAiw8/JdKZ1qydi-k/s1600/015_Silvio-Cadelo_The-Jealous-God.jpg [blogspot.com] . Looks similar if you don't look too closely.
Introduction in 3 representative images (Score:2)
To me Moebius feels rather unique. I'm no fan of mysticism but I appreciate Moebius's spirituality, in an ambiguous way:
It feels good, and that is valuable, even though I don't take the philosophy behind it seriously from an intellectual point of view.
Moebius started with Major Fatal(Le Garage Hermetique). It was an experiment in freewheeling on intuition.
There's no coherent story or style, just playing around and making things that look like a story. Sometimes funny, sometimes just beautiful.
http://5.asset [asset.soup.io]
1-hour documentary on Jean Giraud/Mobius (Score:1)
Here's a 1-hour documentary on Vimeo; I've watched most of about half of it so far - even multi-tasking while doing so, it's pretty interesting. So many remembered images from my collection of Heavy Metal magazines!
http://vimeo.com/38272217 [vimeo.com]