Jean Giraud
Jean Henri Gaston Giraud was a French artist, cartoonist, and writer who worked in the Franco-Belgian bandes dessinées tradition. Giraud garnered worldwide acclaim predominantly under the pseudonym Mœbius for his fantasy/science-fiction work, and to a slightly lesser extent as Gir, which he used for his Western-themed work. Esteemed by Federico Fellini, Stan Lee, and Hayao Miyazaki, among others, he has been described as the most influential bande dessinée artist after Hergé.
His most famous body of work as Gir concerns the Blueberry series, created with writer Jean-Michel Charlier, featuring one of the first antiheroes in Western comics. As Mœbius, he achieved worldwide renown with science-fiction and fantasy comics drawn in a highly imaginative, surreal, almost abstract style. These works include Arzach and the Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius. He also collaborated with avant garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky for an unproduced adaptation of Dune and the comic-book series The Incal.
Mœbius also contributed storyboards and concept designs to several science-fiction and fantasy films, such as Alien, Tron, The Fifth Element, and The Abyss. Blueberry was adapted for the screen in 2004 by French director Jan Kounen.
Early life
Jean Giraud was born in Nogent-sur-Marne, Val-de-Marne, in the suburbs of Paris, on 8 May 1938, the only child to Raymond Giraud, an insurance agent, and Pauline Vinchon, who had worked at the agency. When he was three years old, his parents divorced and he was raised by mainly his grandparents in the neighboring municipality of Fontenay-sous-Bois. Giraud's parents' divorce, which he explained lay at the heart of his choice of separate pen names. A sickly and introverted child, Giraud found solace after World War II in a small theater, located on a corner in the street where his mother lived, which provided an escape from the dreary atmosphere in postwar reconstruction-era France. Playing an abundance of American B-movie Westerns, Giraud, frequenting the theater there as often as he was able to, developed a passion for the genre.Around ages 9–10, Giraud started to draw Western comics while enrolled in the Saint-Nicolas boarding school in Issy-les-Moulineaux. It was here where he became acquainted with the Belgian comic magazines Spirou and Tintin). In 1954, at age 16, he enrolled in the École Supérieure des Arts Appliqués Duperré, where he started drawing Western comics teachers. At college, he befriended future comic artists Jean-Claude Mézières and. With Mézières in particular, in no small part due to their shared passion for science fiction and Westerns, Giraud developed a lifelong friendship, calling him "life's continuing adventure" in later life. In 1956, he left art school without graduating. He lived with his mother in Mexico, who had married a Mexican, for nine months.
Giraud's impression of the Mexican desert, in particular its endless blue skies and flat plains, left a strong impression on him, which he later called "quelque chose qui m'a littéralement craqué l'âme",. After his return to France, he worked as a full-time tenured artist for Catholic publisher, to whom he was introduced by Mézières, who had shortly before found employment at the publisher. In 1959–1960, he was drafted for military service, where he served in the French occupation zone of Germany, and Algeria during the Algerian War. He managed to receive a transfer out of frontline duty due to his graphics background, obtaining an illustrator position on the army magazine 5/5 Forces Françaises. Algeria was Giraud's second acquaintance with more exotic cultures, which inspired many of his future science fiction comics.
Career
Western comics
Fleurus (1956–1958)
At 18, Giraud drew Frank et Jeremie, a series of humorous Morris-inspired Western comic shorts for the magazine Far West, his first freelance commercial sales. Magazine editor Marijac thought Giraud was gifted with a knack for humorous comics, but none whatsoever for realistically drawn comics, and advised him to continue in the vein of "Frank et Jeremie".Giraud continued to produce humorous comics for Fleurus, but concurrently sold realistically drawn Western comics and French historicals for Fripounet et Marisette, Cœurs Vaillants, and &ndash. Among his Westerns from this period are Le roi des bisons ) and Un géant chez lez Hurons. Several of his Western comics featured the protagonist Art Howell, and are considered Giraud's first realistic Western series. For Fleurus, Giraud illustrated his first three books. During this period, his style was heavily influenced by his future mentor, Belgian comic artist Joseph "Jijé" Gillain, who at that time was a major source of inspiration for the generation of young French interested in realistically drawn comics. How major Jijé's influence was on these young artists, was amply demonstrated by the Fleurus publications these youngsters submitted their work to, as their work strongly resembled each other. For example, two of the books Giraud illustrated for Fleurus, were co-illustrated with Guy Mouminoux, another name of some future renown in the Franco-Belgian comic world, and Giraud's work can only be identified, because he signed his work, whereas Mouminoux did not sign his. While not ample, Giraud's earnings at Fleurus were just enough to allow him - disenchanted as he was with the courses, prevalent atmosphere, and academic discipline - to quit his art academy education after only two years, though he came to somewhat regret the decision in later life.
Jijé apprenticeship (1961–1962)
Shortly before he entered military service, Giraud visited Jijé at his home for the first time with Mézières and Mallet, followed by a few visits on his own. When Giraud left military servies, he was uninterested in continuing work at Fleurus, and became an apprentice of Jijé on his invitation. Jijé was then one of the leading comic artists in Europe and known for his tendency to act as a mentor for young artists, going as far as welcoming them into his family home in Champrosay. In this, Jijé resembled Belgian comic master Hergé, but unlike Jijé, Hergé only did so on a commercial basis.For Jijé, Giraud created several other shorts and illustrations for the short-lived magazine Bonux-Boy, his first comic work after military service, and his penultimate one before embarking on Blueberry. Jijé used Giraud as an inker on his Western series Jerry Spring, which Giraud had used as a model for his "Art Howell" character. Actually, Jijé had intended his promising pupil for the entirety of the story art, but the still-inexperienced Giraud, who was used to working under the relaxed conditions at Fleurus, found himself overwhelmed by the strict time schedules that production for a periodical demanded. Conceding that he had been a bit too cocky and ambitious, Giraud stated, "I started the story all by myself, but after a week, I had only finished half a plate, and aside from being soaked with my sweat, it was a complete disaster. So Joseph went on to do the penciling, whereas I did the inks." Even though Giraud lost touch with his mentor, he never forgot what "his master" had provided him with, both "aesthetically and professionally", the fatherless Giraud gratefully stating in later life, "It was as if he had asked me «Do you want me to be your father?», and if by a miracle, I was provided with one, a artist no less!".
Hachette (1962–1963)
After his stint at Jijé's, Giraud was again approached by friend Mézières to see if he was interested to work alongside him as an illustrator on Hachette's ambitious multivolume L'histoire des civilisations reference work. Spurred on by Jijé, who considered the opportunity a wonderful one for his pupil, Giraud accepted. He considered the assignment a daunting one, having to create in oil paints historical objects and imagery. It was, besides being the best-paying job he had ever had, a seminal appointment. At Hachette, Giraud discovered that he had a knack for creating art in gouaches, something that served him well later when creating Blueberry magazine/album cover art, as well as for his 1968 side project "Buffalo Bill: le roi des éclaireurs" history book written by, for whom Giraud provided two-thirds of the illustrations in gouache, including the cover. The assignment at Hachette was cut short because of his invitation to embark on Fort Navajo, meant he only participated on the first three to four volumes of the book series, leaving the completion to Mézières. In the Pilote era, Giraud provided art in gouache for two Western-themed LP covers, as well as the covers for the first seven volumes of the French-language edition of the Morgan Kane Western novel series, written by Louis Masterson. Much of his Western-themed gouache artwork of this era, including that of Blueberry, has been collected in the 1983 artbook Le tireur solitaire.Aside from its professional importance, Giraud's stint at Hachette was also of personal importance, as he met Claudine Conin, an editorial researcher at Hachette, and who described her future husband as being at the time "funny, uncomplicated, friendly, a nice boy next-door", but also "mysterious, dark, intellectual", recognizing that he had all the makings of a "visionary" long before others did. Married in 1967, the couple had two children, and Julien. Hélène has worked as a graphics artist in the animation industry, earning her a 2014 French civilian knighthood, the [|same] her father had received in 1985. Besides raising their children, Claudine managed the business aspects of her husband's art work, and made occasional contributions as a colorist. The 1976 feminist fantasy short story, "La tarte aux pommes", was written by her under her maiden name. A character in Giraud's Blueberry series, Chihuahua Pearl, was in part based on Claudine's looks. The Mœbiusienne 1973 fantasy road trip short story "La déviation", created as "Gir" before the artist fully embarked on his Mœbius career, featured the Giraud family as the protagonists, save Julien.