Moebius Comics! Arzach, Harzak, and Other Stories...

[@willpfeifer3312]

Was lucky enough to meet Moebius at the 1987 Chicago Con right when these Epic graphic novels were getting started, and got him to sign the first volume and do a quick head sketch of Arzach. One of the prizes of my collection!

[@williambahrenfuss4961]

Wow that would be so cool to have met him and sign your volume

[@bannor216]

i believe it

[@ablazeko]

Druillet is an interesting guy. For starters, his parents were devout fascists (which he is not) and they named him Philippe because he was born on the same day the French Resistance assassinated Philippe Henriot, the Secretary of State for Propaganda of the Vichy regime. By the age of 22, he published his first comic,Le Mystère des abîmes, which features a character he would return to called Lone Sloane, a space rogue. If you are familiar with his Métal hurlant style, you might honestly be kind of disappointed by it, because the storytelling is pretty standard (but competent) and the art amateurish (he even said it so himself). That comic made him able to work as a cover artist for Éditions OPTA , crime fiction and science fiction book publisher for which he would do covers and illustrations. Here you can, for instance, see his illustration work for Dracula monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2010/12/philippe-druillet-illustrations-for.html In February od 1970 he finally joined Pilote magazine, where he would do Yragaël, which is where his more recognizable style starts to develop (also a few Lone Sloane stories too). So that's the stuff he would do before 1974 where he, Giraud and Jean-Pierre Dionnet due to editorial disagreements, slip from Pilote and René Goscinny. Hope this helps

[@lucasmartinez2721]

Druillet before heavy metal created these crazy psychedelic space western stories called The Six Voyages of Lone Sloane. Some of the trippiest colorful comics I’ve seen to date

[@timothybarnett1006]

Re his influence and it getting watered down, he's similar to the Beatles - his innovations have become so widespread and 'obvious' you can struggle with the idea that someone actually thought them up in the first place.

[@bangnapi2786]

Last year lucky enough to visited Moebius Production (his Gallery) in Paris, met his son & bought some of Moebius books such as 40 Days in Desert B, Fauna de Mars & Le Major.. hopefully you can make videos of moebius last books.. those are really amazing.

[@carrion_man3700]

Do The Incal sometime soon! It's the Akira of european comics.

[@autodidactpolymath1851]

Oh man, I am SOOOOO glad you guys are covering Moebius - I've been doing a deep dive into his work lately (thank the local library for their free subscriptions to an app that has audiobooks, digital comics, etc!). I've known about Moebius and liked his art since I saw some old 70s back issues of Heavy Metal in the 90s... but never really got into reading full pieces by him until recently. Really enjoying The Incal and Edena, hope you get around to making videos about those as well.

[@GavadonA]

Graphitti Designs still has the Moebius hardcovers for Blueberry. Ordered a set last year and they are stunning.

[@russworks2882]

I have a little bit of data on early Druillet, but European Kayfaybers would have more to offer, I'm sure (Earl Grey, are you out there?) Druillet seems to have come out of French horror fandom; he was part of a mad group that put out movie zines and he was associated with cult director Jean Rollin, for whom he painted some great vampire movie posters. He was also an extra who was killed in some Rollin movies. Druillet's first American appearance seems to be in one of the Warren magazine fan pages where they reprinted in miniature an early Lovecraftian piece "City Without a Name". Somewhere in there he did covers and art for French science fiction paperbacks and magazines. The earliest actual comics I know of was Saga de Xam (1966), assisting Nicholas Devil on the second adult graphic novel published by Eric Loesfeld (after Barbarella). It's commonly said that his first published comic was Lone Sloane and the Mystery of the Abyss, which is pretty crude compared to what he did with the character in Pilote; it's printed in black and white and green. There's some comics that are floating around that seem very underground influenced, I have a collection called Mirages that gathers early stuff including that "City Without a Name". If you search around, you can see some of the illustration work he's done over the years for books and rock albums. He did a fantastic set of drawings for a Lovecraft anthology called Demons et Merveilles. I joined the Moorcock fan club for the sole purpose of getting access to their catalog some years back. They did an English language reprinting of his unauthorized Elric comic from 1973, about the same time the Six Voyages of Lone Sloane showed up in Pilote.

[@nicholasbielik7156]

Druillet apparently re-purposed some of the Elric work back into his book Yragael-Urm. It always seemed to me like Lone Slaine and Yragael are both very Moorcockian characters anyway (though both are maybe drawing from the deeper well of Gothic hero-villains). Though, according to Moorcock, Druillet didn't have an French translations of Moorcock's stories, so his comic is based on his impressions of what a friend TOLD him about the Elric stories!

[@russworks2882]

@@nicholasbielik7156 That's true, there are entire sequences lifted out of the Elric book in both of those, including the climactic sex scene in Yragael. He also randomly inserted some old poster art and seems to have often reused work in various formats. Considering the amount of work he put into the gigantic panels, it's hard to criticize the practice. Moorcock seems to have really electrified him creativley from what I've read. It's fascinating that his initial inspiration was only second-hand. Thanks for commenting.

[@wetnoodlesdoodles]

Wet Noodles here, not sure if you know about Tac au Tac or not,if you have not I'm here to tell you most of the eoisodes are on KZbin if you wanna see this guy in action at this period of time please watch them all! Nuff said . Love ya 😘

[@wholewurrld]

The one with Kubert and Adams is amazing. Theyre straight up battling

[@brettsalter3300]

Once again your narrative and knowledge is a joy to experience along with the genius of these works. Experiencing Heavy metal in the 70s was a revelation to an aspiring comic artist, no wonder generations, as you say, borrowed (were directly influenced) from Moebius. In all areas of art and design.

[@LoPhoBoi]

classic。It's like a combinition of ᑐ ᑌ ᑎ ᕮ and 风之谷

[@poxyclypse]

3:52 He is also titling this chapter of the comic as OARZAK, with the sun(?) from the previous page with this spread.

[@rudak6718]

Have y’all read The World Of Edena? The Dark Horse edition of that paired with The Art Of Edena are great. Slightly oversized, too.

[@squid667]

I recently saw 3 originals from this book at the Moebius exhibition at the Max Ernst museum. From the story with the guy in the car. They were made with ink and watercolors. And they were roughly the same size as the book. They were incredibly precise and absolutely amazing. They also had two pages from Arzak L'Arpenteur there. They were the same size and just as sharp as the old ones.

[@AlexRazorGame]

If you're into this "dreamy" atmosphere of Harzack and like to read, I strongly recommend you the fiction of Clark Ashton Smith (if you already didn't, being a Lovercaft fan). I'm pretty shure Moebius took some inspiration from him.

[@venvon6433]

You guys are the best! I look forward to every video/ podcast! Keep up the great work!

[@mr.bloodvessel260]

Huge Moebius fan, but let’s not forget he was influenced by the American underground comics of the late 60’s, particularly R,. Crumb...

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

12:50 Do you see anything odd in the lighting in those panels on the right-hand page? Like the light is coming from below?

[@ericnoble5194]

I like the Arzach stories, but I love his story "The Detour". It's got surreal imagery with a dash of absurdist humor. Moebius is one of my favorite artists. I actually forked over the cash to buy the hardback reprints of the Epic Books from Graphitti Designs. Worth every penny as far as I'm concerned.

[@manleycartoonist]

Can we all agree that Moebius is one of those cartoonists that if you meet a cartoonist that doesn't "get the big deal" about Moebius... that cartoonist isn't worth any further conversation.

[@88feji]

So true, well said ... so well said ... Sometimes we can see the lack of taste or lack of maturity with a person with what they "diss" ... of course aesthetic appreciation is a matter of taste, but there is a general indication of maturity and sophistication of a person's mindset from just listening to what they like and dislike ...

[@mrdrfly8336]

regarding Moebius' scale for original art; he drew twice up for his Blueberry pages, often splitting the pages up so he could get in the detail that was expected from those stories. His fantasy content varied in sizes, and yes, some pages were surprising small in scale.

[@randominternetuser2]

Great episode talking about this. His coloring is awesome. I have been scouring the internet trying to find out what he used. Most people think some kind of high quality transparent ink, like a better version of Dr PH martin's that is not really around anymore. High quality paper and printing probably helped too. His actual watercolor works are amazing as well.

[@whereswaldo5740]

Loved this particular strip when it was being released in Heavy Metal.

[@JohnMoseley]

The Lovecraft story was from a Lovecraft special issue from HM and, presumably before that, MH, some time around '78 I think, so various other artists took on the challenge too. None of their efforts really stick in my mind, it must be said. Surprised to hear one of you say you don't find Moebius's writing engaging. I've only read him in English translation, but I love his wit, especially in Airtight Garage, but also lots of other shorter stories like Shore Leave or the one-page The Game of the Gods (EDIT which I realise from your HM mystery box episode was actually two pages and called something totally different like 'Black Tuesday'), and almost all of the stories seem to me to be narratively satisfying. Airtight Garage has great jokes, like 'Break down that door' 'I can't do that, it would create a serious breach in reality.' 'I don't care, just do it.' 'Ah, the old conflict between human orders and natural order.' Or there's the epically long speech bubble of nonsensical exposition near the end. But it's also throughout just got the sheer knowing fun of an improvisation, full of sci-fi, fantasy and other pastiches, and never quite adding up. EDIT: Yes! You're right, the best Moebius is not being reprinted in these big new editions. And actually, come to think of it, a lot of it does back up your lack of interest in his writing. I actually gave up on reading The Gardens of Aedena because, after a few early pages that were worthy of vintage Moebius, the story became so uninteresting and badly written - and I don't think the problems were with the translation. Moebius himself effectively stated all this was after his golden age. He lists the great works, Arzak, Airtight Garage, the Horny Goof and short stories like Shore Leave and Is Man Good? and says, in typical Moebiusian fashion, 'This was my ejaculation.'

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

6:44 Apparently that Moebius _Silver Surfer_ was not well received. Basically, the US rejected the European graphic novel and went back to superhero comics, and Moebius went back to Europe.

[@colmlawton910]

This is some fantastic content, people.

[@yojimbo8735]

Page with car really reminded me of Frank quietly. Amazing book. Off to eBay to track it down.

[@elrodimusflash9331]

Moebius used water color and gouache

[@TheBeird]

I'd always heard Moebius was an influence on the Panzer Dragoon games, and now I see why

[@CartoonistKayfabe]

For sure. He ended up doing some promo and box art for the Saturn game.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

5:11 How much do you think you would want to be paid to do that maintenance engineer’s job?

[@therealVintonTHeuck]

One of the best! Back when Epic was at it's height.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

15:25 What would Lovecraft have thought of his fearsome and terrifying Old Ones becoming an endangered species, being hunted nearly to extinction?

[@keithwentzell5167]

Stuart Ng has a lot of great Meobius books, check out the 30x40 books they have, beautiful & huge.

[@thebladespawn]

Nice!

[@LukeKorolowiczArt]

i just bought the art of edena and la faune de mars. a one man oasis of mind expanding comics.

[@EasyCartoonDrawingTutorials]

Master artist and storyteller.

[@azimovist]

He used guache on these early moebius works.

[@MrLOKWORD]

Woooooooow that printing is waaaaaaaay better than the modern spanish editions

[@strong8705]

Yellow is sand under the blue sky.

[@zinccomics]

As far as I know Drulette first appeared, fully formed with those early Lone Sloane strips albeit I cannot say with complete certitude.

[@zinccomics]

NOTE The early "Cheval Noir:" books reprint some of those by the way.

[@graft2011]

Moebius is Moebius! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[@DocCivil]

Y'know, it hit me just now that Frank Quietly looks like he was heavily influenced by Moebius.

[@edward2962]

Awesome!!

[@JafuetTheSame]

Waiting when the world discoveres Kája Saudek...

[@kaptainwombat]

Check out the Arzak animated shorts directed by the man himself!

[@gabrielpinto2092]

If you guys make a read more bande dessinee shirt, I'm buying one!

[@CartoonistKayfabe]

teespring.com/read-more?tsmac=store&tsmic=cartoonist-kayfabe&pid=211&cid=5292

[@carlosdeandrade4919]

Merci pour ce partage . "La bande dessinée est faite pour être vue" ( jean Giraud) . Donnez plus de temps et de qualité aux dessins et laissez le silence faire le reste .

[@CraftDutch]

That's a really cool quote, when did Jean giraud said this?

[@ES_Glenn]

oh hell yeah