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 MOEBIUS’ TRIP:
THE ART AND INFLUENCE OF JEAN GIRAUD

By Kendall Eddy

Bachelor of Music, Performance – James Madison University

Master of Music, Jazz Performance – New England Conservatory of Music

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Submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Illustra-
tion in the School of Graduate Studies of the Fashion Institute of Technology
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June 2016
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Approved
Chairperson
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Thesis Coordinator Date

Thesis Advisor Date

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 ABSTRACT

Moebius is one of few artists that may seem to have been with-

out limits. His career was long and diverse, and his technical ability and

inventiveness were such that he is still regarded by many fellow artists

with reverence. The goal in writing this paper was to probe the boundar-

ies of a career that spanned decades, and to learn more about the person

whose given names was Jean Gaston Giraud. A number of resources were

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employed in writing this paper, including rare editions of English transla-

tions, interviews and articles from throughout his career, and an excellent
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interview with Giraud’s friend, colleague, and an influential cartoonist in

his own right, Paul Pope. It was a joyful and exciting process, as continued
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research constantly brought new artwork to light, as well as new insights

into the human being behind the work. What grew out of this research

was a sense of Giraud as a relentlessly searching soul in a volatile world.

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Jean Giraud was a prodigy as a youth and enjoyed success for the

majority of his life. He gathered a vast array of techniques over his career,

and by the end of his life was considered a master in his field, and one of
its most influential artists. But Giraud’s virtuosity never defined his work,

remaining most often at the service of inspiration. It was the ever-pres-

ent drive to expand: his knowledge, his skill, and his consciousness, that

defined the life of the man known to many as ‘Moebius’.

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Copyright 2016 Kendall Eddy
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All Rights Reserved
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction....................................................................................III

Jean Giraud (Historical Overview)................................................1

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Moebius (State of the Art).........................................................45

Interviews......................................................................................56
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Conclusion....................................................................................69
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Endnotes.......................................................................................71

Bibliography.................................................................................73
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Acknowledgements....................................................................75

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 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

p. 1. Fragment from “Frank et Jérémie” in Far-West, date unknown.

p. 3. L’Histoire du Civilization, Hachette Publishing.
p. 4. “Blueberry”, publication unknown, date unknown.
p. 6. Illustration of Blueberry, Giraud, & photograph of Jean-Paul Belmondo, date unknown.
p. 7. Assorted pages from Moebius ½, 1963-64.
p. 9. Promotional flyer for Metal Hurlant, date unknown.
p. 11. Page from “The Detour,” 1973.
p. 13. Panels from “The Horny Goof,” 1974.
p. 15. Double page spread from Arzach, 1974
p. 17. Character designs from Dune, date unknown.

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p. 19. Storyboards from Dune, date unknown.
p. 20. Panels from “The Long Tomorrow,” 1975
p. 22. Opening page of The Incal, 1979.
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p. 24. Character design from Tron, 1982.
p. 26. Concept designs from The Abyss, 1989.
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p. 29. Panel from Silver Surfer: Parable, 1988.
p. 30. Panel from Gardens of Aedena, 1989.
p. 31. Panel from Upon a Star, 1989.
p. 33. Panels from The Goddess, 1989.
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p. 34. Panel from The Goddess, 1989.

p. 35. Cover painting, Mister Blueberry, date unknown.
p. 36. Illustrations from Giraud & Miyazaki, dates unknown.
p. 37. Panel from Inside Moebius, date unknown.
pp. 39-41. Series of pages from 40 Days in the Desert, 2009.
p. 44. Front cover, first issue of Metal Hurlant, 1974.
p. 46. Drawing of Tintin and Snowy (Herge, date unknown) and self-portrait by Robert
Crumb (date unknown).
p. 48. Still from Blade Runner, 1982.
p. 49. Production illustration from Alien, 1979.
p. 50. Storyboard panel from Dune, 1974. Still from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope,
1977. Storyboard panel from Dune, 1974. Still from Terminator, 1984.
p. 51. Still from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, 1984.

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 INTRODUCTION

Ask any artist or illustrator today if they know the work of Moebi-

us, and they will most likely respond instantly and enthusiastically. Ask

that same person if they know the work of Jean Giraud, and they may ask

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“who?” Though the two names refer to the same man, they represent

two distinct personae with different agendas but equal resources at their
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command. In the decades since its first appearance in the early 1960s, the

name Moebius has acquired an almost mythic quality among artists. But
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it is likely that the work of Moebius has reached the eyes and minds of

many more people than may even be aware of it.

The nickname refers to a hypothetical construct, conceived by the

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German mathematician August Ferdinand Moebius. The ‘Moebius Loop’

is illustrated using a strip of paper, the ends of which are twisted and

taped together so that the resulting object seems to have only one side.

Jean Giraud chose this name as his style could vary radically from one

piece to the next, but was a product of the same basic personality. The

name would prove to be appropriate in more nuanced ways throughout

his career, but this was his original intention in choosing it.

As both Moebius and ‘Gir’, the artist left behind a vast catalogue

of artwork in a wide variety of media. In his home country, much of Gi-

raud’s work remains in print and continues to garner sales that would be

III enviable to any living artist. The company that manages his estate, Moe-
 bius Productions, continues to operate out of a small storefront in Paris,

selling prints, original artwork, and various memorabilia dedicated to

Moebius.

In the English-speaking world, however, Moebius is still something

of a cult phenomenon. The rarity of English translations of his work has

made obtaining some of them prohibitively expensive for all but the most

dedicated collectors. But the age of the Internet has brought fresh en-

thusiasm for the work of Jean Giraud, as it circulates through blogs curat-

ed by dedicated fans of art, illustration, comics, and science fiction.

Giraud was articulate and reflective about his work, and left behind

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many writings, interviews, and even an autobiography in his own language

that has never been translated into English. During the 1980s, Marvel
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Entertainment Group released a series of graphic novels on its Epic im-

print collecting much of Giraud’s work, both as Moebius and ‘Gir’, on the
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longstanding Blueberry series. These have been important, not only in

bringing his work to American audiences, but also as sources of detailed

insights in the words of Giraud himself. The included writings by Giraud

and his colleagues are an invaluable source in understanding the man, his
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work, and his thoughts and philosophies on art, life and culture.

In 2006 the BBC produced a documentary “In Search of Moebius,”

in which Giraud is interviewed extensively, as are a number of his close

cohorts. His own words on his work and memories of the times in which

they were created are fascinating and entertaining. Giraud also gave a

handful of interviews to Kim Thompson in The Comics Journal (with his

translators and close collaborators in later life, Randy and Jean-Marc

L’Officier), and one to the Los Angeles Times, the daily paper of his sec-

ond home in the United States. These give perhaps the most in-depth

view of Giraud’s thoughts on his own art, and reveal the extent of his
IV thoughtfulness, articulateness, and sensitivity. An interview by his friend
 and colleague Paul Pope gives a sense of the flesh and blood person be-

hind the vast and varied ouvre of Jean Giraud/ Moebius.

Throughout these sources there are occasionally conflicting ac-

counts by different sources. Whenever this was the case, and whenever

possible, I have referred to Giraud himself as the definitive source. Occa-

sionally, Giraud’s own accounts conflict each other. In these cases I have

chosen whichever account seemed to align with the information available

from other sources. Giraud led a prolific artistic life, and it is understand-

able that a few details may have slipped through the cracks from time to
time. To catalogue all of his work would be a Herculean task, especially

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for an Anglophone living in the United States. For this paper I have fo-

cused on the major works and eras that defined his career, and had the

most lasting impact.

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Jean Giraud’s reputation, by and large, is as a writer and primarily
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illustrator of bandes dessinees (literally translated as ‘drawn strips’), the

French term for what we know in the U.S. as comic books. BD, as they are

commonly known, are famously appreciated much more in Europe than in

the U.S. as an art form, rather than children’s fare or a fantastical diver-
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sion from adult life. Throughout the history of comics (which is thought

by some to have begun with the Swiss Rodolph Topffer), Europeans have

seen in them an art form that has as much potential for pathos and depth

of content as the traditional visual or literary arts, with as unique a set of

rewards and challenges to the reader and creator alike. Surely growing

and developing in this environment did much to encourage the young

Jean Giraud to pursue his career in the field of bandes dessinees from a

young age.

∞
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 The first comic strip sold by
the young Jean Giraud was “Frank et
Jérémie,” in Far West magazine.

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EARLY LIFE
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Born May 8, 1938 in Fontenay-sous-Bois, a suburb of Paris, Jean

Giraud was raised in modest circumstances and displayed talent in draw-

ing at a very young age. As his parents had split early in his life, and his
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mother had to work constantly to support the family, Giraud was raised

in large part by his grandparents. He was strongly affected by the art and

literature found in their home, from editions of the BD publication Spirou

to prints of the French engraver Gustave Dore.1 He made his own comic

strips as early as the age of 16, binding his own books and bringing them

to school to show to his classmates and teachers at L’École Superieur des

Arts Appliquées Duperré (School of Applied Arts) in Paris. But after only

two years of schooling, a 17-year-old Giraud embarked on a journey that

would prove transformative, and resonate throughout the rest of his life.

In 1955, Jean Giraud left urban Paris to visit his mother in Mexico,

1 where she lived and had recently remarried. The visit was originally in-
 tended to be brief, but Giraud ended up staying for eight months, and

was transformed by the experience. He describes travelling through the

Mexican desert for the first time:

“Crossing the desert was a sort of initiation. Hours and hours of flat ter-
rain, brilliant sunshine, interminable blue, a white-hot sky. It was magnificent. It
was something that really cracked open my soul.”

Though in his own words he “did nothing for an entire year,” clear-

ly something happened to young Jean Giraud in the Mexican desert that

transformed him. Giraud seems to point to this experience as the origin

of his alter-ego Moebius:

“It was a very jarring initiation. The result of all that was a very strong

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curiosity for the world of the unconscious, and the parallel universe of dreams.
It became the impetus for my work. From that moment on, Moebius became my
way of exploring the unconscious.”2
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Upon his return to Paris, rather than return to formal studies, Gi-

raud immediately began pursuing professional work in the BD market. He

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sold his first strip in 1957, which would lead to work for magazines such as

Far-West (an original strip titled Frank et Jeremie), Sitting Bull, Fripounet

et Marisette, Ames Vaillantes and Coeurs Vaillants.2 Between 1959-60 Gi-

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raud put his budding career on hold to fulfill his military service in Alge-

ria, there providing work for the army magazine 5/5 Forces Francaises.

After his military service, Giraud began what would be one of

the defining relationships of his life, with the illustrator Joseph Gillain.

Known popularly as “Jijé” (an elision of his initials J.G., which may be

confounding to English-speakers as the two letters are pronounced op-

positely in French), the Belgian Gillain was one of the preeminent artists

in Franco-Belgian BD and a master by the time he took the young Giraud

under his wing. Giraud’s first work for Jijé was as an inker and assistant

on a story arc of the western series Jerry Spring, titled “The Road to

Coronado,” which was serialized in Pilote magazine.3 Giraud began draw-

2
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Giraud and his schoolmate Jean-Claude Meziéres illustrated l’Histoire du
Civilization for Hachette Publishing, showcasing the breadth of young Jean Giraud’s talent.
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ing backgrounds, stagecoaches and corrals, before moving on to horses

and crowds of people. It was here he learned his sense of line weight, an

undeniable influence of Jijé. The varied weight of his lines was somewhat
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unusual for the time, as the popular style in the Franco-Belgian world was

the ligne claire, marked by a very static line weight4. The ligne claire was

made famous by the Belgian Hergé, creator of Tintin, an influence that

would assert itself at a later stage in Giraud’s career. Additional work by

Giraud during this period includes advertising comics for Bonux-Bay and

Total-Journal (through the advertising company of Jijé’s son Benoit Gil-

lain), and a collaboration with schoolmate and lifelong friend Jean-Claude

Mèziéres on the collection L’Histoire des Civilizations for the publisher

Hachette. During this period the young Giraud displayed constant im-

provement, as he soaked up as much as possible from his mentor Jijé.

3 ∞
 Giraud favored brush and ink in
rendering the fan-favorite Lieutenant
Blueberry strip, serialized in Pilote maga-
zine and written by Jean=Michel Charlier.

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BLUEBERRY
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In 1963, Giraud began another personal and professional friend-

ship that would last for decades, and be a boon to Giraud for the rest of
his life. The writer Jean-Michel Charlier was well known to Giraud, as the

young artist had read many of his stories in Spirou magazine as a child.

As Charlier relates, Giraud approached him in 1961 or ‘62 to write a new

western series for Pilote that the young artist would draw. Initially, Char-

lier had refused, because he had never had much empathy for the West-

ern genre. But soon later, on an assignment for Pilote at the Edwards

Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, Charlier was taken by the American

West. He describes his visit as “a revelation, an astounding discovery.”

4 He returned to Paris with the overwhelming urge to write a Western.

 Charlier initially approached Jije to illustrate his new series, but

the elder illustrator declined, as he was already working on Jerry Spring

for the competing magazine Spirou. Charlier immediately remembered

Jean Giraud, who he knew already to be a highly promising talent. The

strip would initially be titled Fort Navajo, with the Blueberry character

intended only as one character among many. The name came from an ac-

quaintance from his time in the States, an eccentric character who Char-

lier had nicknamed “Blueberry” because of his love of blueberry jam. The

character of Mike “Blueberry” Donovan was so popular, however, that he

soon became the focal point of the series, and the name stuck. The saga

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of Lieutenant Blueberry had begun.

The main character’s appearance was modeled after Jean-Paul

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Belmondo, a French actor who was popular at the time. His appearance

would change as the series progressed, an evolution that both Charlier

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and Giraud considered natural. The writer wanted to avoid the stereotyp-

ical “fearless lawman” persona of the Western hero, thinking that already

well-trodden territory. Blueberry was an ex-Civil War soldier, but a dis-

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obedient one; a gambler, a drinker and a fighter, and wary of authority.

His personality would evolve over the course of the entire series, in a way

that few serialized characters do.

The slowly but steadily growing success of Blueberry would make

the young Giraud a rising star in French comics. Giraud signed his Blue-

berry strips with the name “Gir”, which over the decades would evolve

into a persona of its own. Blueberry would see Giraud experiment with

his graphic approach from story to story over the course of the series,

though the style of the series was initially heavily influenced by Jijé. In

fact, Giraud’s Blueberry style remained so similar to that of his mentor

that Jijé would be called in to complete a handful of pages on the series

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 In
his earliest
appearanc-
es, Mike
“Blueberry”
Donovan bore
a striking
resemblance
to actor
Jean-Paul
Belmondo

when Giraud was overseas and could not be reached.

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The primary series, Lieutenant Blueberry, was created between

1963-1986, comprising 22 volumes. Story arcs would continue through

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several volumes at a time, making the totality of the series one of the

most substantial Western epics in comics history, on either side of the

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Atlantic. Giraud and Charlier would also create a spin-off series, Young

Blueberry, that chronicled the character’s experience as a soldier and the

series of events that would lead to him becoming the character beloved
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by so many in Franco-Belgian comics. Giraud would eventually relinquish

illustrating duties on Young Blueberry to artist Colin Davis, and even took
a couple of brief hiatuses from the series proper. In 1979, due to a con-

flict between the publisher Pilote and Giraud and Charlier, the two would

create a one-off Western series called Jim Cutlass, published in Metal

Hurlant. The Jim Cutlass series would be revisited, but not always with the

same creative team at the helm.

In the early 1960s, as Blueberry was making its first impression on

the European comics market, Giraud was experiencing the first tremors

of his own personal artistic upheaval. In the BBC documentary In Search

of Moebius, he describes himself at the time:

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 “I did a good job. I met my deadlines. I was presentable and got to
the meetings at Pilote on time. But deep down I was in turmoil. I
felt different. My mind was teeming with bizarre science fiction,
avant-garde ideas, surrealism, sexuality. I was like a subversive se-
cret agent infiltrating Pilote.”5

Clearly the young artist, though composed and functional in the

‘real’ world, was living a potent inner life as well. Between 1963-64 Gi-

raud produced a number of black-and-white strips intermittently for the

humor magazine Hara-Kiri, bearing the mysterious signature “Moebius.”

Fans of Blueberry may have been hard-pressed to recognize the work of

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“Gir.” His reasons for choosing the new nom de plume were as much pro-

fessional as artistic, as these strips were much more dark, humorous, and
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overtly sexual. At this early point in his career, the pseudonym was also a

way of protecting his reputation (and employment) as a mainstream BD

artist, as the material would have been considered too risqué for publica-
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tion by a popular magazine such as Pilote.

But the light-hearted and subversive nature of these early ‘Moebi-

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us’ strips belies a very high level of artistic achievement. At a glance, the

varied styles exhibited in just these early Hara-Kiri pieces hardly seem

to have come from the pen of a single cartoonist, showing a staggering

breadth of rendering techniques (all in ink, with brush and pen), stylistic

accents and approaches to storytelling and page layout. Most evident

in this early Moebius work is the influence of the artists featured in Mad

Magazine, including Harvey Kurtzman, Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, and Don

Martin. By the late 1960’s, however, the popularity of Blueberry gained

Giraud near celebrity status, and demands on his time increased, causing

the ‘Moebius’ moniker to disappear from public view, at least for a time.

7
∞