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Sci-Fi/Fantasy Artist Jean 'Moebius' Giraud Dies At 73
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."
Regardless, it is pretty clear that many culture and social icons are entering their later years. There isnt two weeks that go by that someone of some significance has passed in the last half year I think.
/me pops in Time Masters and weeps... :(
by last week you mean just over 26 hours ago (or at least the earliest news release that I read)
"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.
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
Kind of old news at this point.
I was growing up when Moebius hit it big, Alien, Heavy Metal, etc. He had a massive impact on scifi art. Sad that the younger generations barely know who he was.
Without you we wouldn't have had the Moebius Strip, the Moebius Function, or the Moebius-Kantor Graph.
Moebius helped make Heavy Metal, his stuff was so great. I used to wish I could draw like that guy while reading the mag in the early 80's.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Perhaps young bloods will be goos substitute!(well, you cant substitute someone who does art, but hei, not every change is bad in this word!)
Though its bad on its own, that talented people are gone away...
I'll always remember his work on Heavy Metal and with Panzer Dragoon. Great stuff, both of those.
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.
Ever since the late 70's when I first saw a copy of "Metal Hurlant" SciFi comic book art has been one of my passions and the name "Moebious" was one of the first I learnt and whose fabulously expressive work I obsessed over. The incredible number of artists he inspired across the world is amazing, from comic/manga artists like Shir Masamune to film makers such as Ridley Scott to authors such as William Gibson. Some years ago I looked across my book cases, upper shelves crammed with works of modern science fiction spanning various genres, lower shelves stacked with western and asian comic art books, and even a couple of shelves of DVDs and I realised a great many of these works are either directly, or with only one degree of separation, influenced by Moebious's work.
I believe his artwork greatly influenced that amazing scifi/fantasy game.
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.)
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.
This is not the funny you're looking for.
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.
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.
I think any fan of european sci-fi comics would agree that the name Moebius is up there with artists like Gimenez, Bilal, etc. as a sure-fire guarantee of the utmost quality and illustration style..
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.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
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.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
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 "year". Ditto for "yesterday" vs "last week" when speaking of the day before today.
Since you asked so nicely, "Wraithlyn" is a combination of "Wraith" and "Raistlin" (from Dragonlance), I used it for an RPG character on a MUD in the mid nineties and ended up using it for Slashdot.
Funny how often "pedantic ass" and "severe social problems" go hand in hand.
Great trolling tho, brah.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
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 . Looks similar if you don't look too closely.
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.soup.io/asset/2278/1541_9fd7.jpeg
A more recent picture like this (Starwatcher) just feels very nice to watchhttp://moebiusribbon1960.blog.nordjob.com/
Blueberry was much more conventional but it evolved into an excellent western. The story was not written by Giraud. This cover image is a remake of a scene with James Garner, but the original doesn't have the odd sense of peace and violence
http://www.designboom.com/cms/images/erica/-----moebius/moebius06.jpg
This is sad. Rest in peace, Giraud.
Here's a one-hour BBC documentary on Moebius.
"Moebius Redux: A Life in Pictures" includes interviews with Stan Lee and Jodorowsky.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
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
you are completely pathetic.