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".) and
Un géant chez lez Hurons("A Giant among the 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.
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 (1960/61), 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. 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[n] [comic] artist no less!". 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. 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, (b:1970) and Julien (b:1972). 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.
Pilote (1963–1974) In October 1963, Giraud and writer
Jean-Michel Charlier started the comic strip
Fort Navajo for the Charlier-co-founded
Pilote magazine, in issue 210. At this time the similarity between the styles of Giraud and Jijé (who in effect had been Charlier's first choice for the series, but who was reverted to Giraud by Jijé) was so close that Jijé penciled several pages for the series when Giraud went
AWOL. When "Fort Navajo" started its run,
Pilote received angry letters accusing Giraud of
plagiarism. Jijé encouraged his former pupil to stay the course, propping up his self-confidence. A year later, during the production of "Mission to Mexico (The Lost Rider)", Giraud unexpectedly packed up and left to travel the United States, and Mexico. Jijé came to the rescue by penciling plates 17–38. While the art style of both artists had been nearly indistinguishable from each other in "Thunder in the West", after Giraud resumed work on plate 39 of "Mission to Mexico", a clearly noticeable style change was observable, indicating that Giraud was now well on his way to develop his own signature style, eventually surpassing that of his former teacher Jijé, who, impressed by his former pupil's achievements, has later coined him the "
Rimbaud de la BD". While the
Fort Navajo series had originally been intended as an ensemble narrative, it quickly focused on having Blueberry as its central figure. The
Blueberry series may be Giraud's best known work in native France and the rest of Europe, before later collaborations with
Alejandro Jodorowsky. The early Blueberry comics used a simple line drawing style similar to that of Jijé, and standard Western themes and imagery (specifically, those of
John Ford and
Howard Hawk. Gradually Giraud developed a darker and grittier style inspired by the 1970 Westerns
Soldier Blue and
Little Big Man (for the "Iron Horse" story-arc), and the
Spaghetti Westerns of
Sergio Leone and the dark realism of
Sam Peckinpah (in particular (for the "Lost Goldmine" story-arc and beyond). With the fifth album, "The Trail of the Navajos", Giraud established his own style. After the
May 1968 social upheaval in France, Giraud and other key comics artists staged a protest in the editorial offices of
Dargaud, the publisher of
Pilote, demanding and ultimately receiving more creative freedom from editor-in-chief
René Goscinny – the strip became more explicitly adult, and also adopted a thematically wider range. Giraud admitted that it also had caused a severe breach in his hitherto warm relationship with the conservative Goscinny, which never fully mended. Giraud left Darguad in 1974, partly because he was tired of the publication pressure he was under in order to produce the series, partly because of an emerging royalties conflict, but mostly because he wanted to explore and develop his "Mœbius" alter ego. Jodorowsky, who was impressed by the graphic qualities of
Blueberry, had already invited Giraud to Los Angeles to start production design on his
Dune movie project, and which constituted the first Jodorowsky/Mœbius collaboration. Giraud was so eager to return to the project during a stopover from the United States while the project was in hiatus, that he accelerated work on the
Blueberry serial "Angel Face", cutting off weeks from its originally intended completion. The
Dune project fell through, and after he had returned definitely to France later that year, Giraud begain producing comic work under the "Mœbius" pseudonym published in the magazine he co-founded,
Métal Hurlant, which started its run in December 1974. Jodorowsky introduced Giraud to the writings of
Carlos Castaneda, who had written a series of books that describe his training in
shamanism, particularly with a group whose lineage descended from the
Toltecs. The books, narrated in the first person, related his experiences under the tutelage of a
Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named Don Juan Matus. Castaneda's writings made a deep impression on Giraud, already open to Native-Mexican folk culture due to his previous extended trips to the country (he had visited the country a third time in 1972), and it influenced his art as "Mœbius". Unbeknownst to writer Charlier, he managed to sneak in some Castaneda elements in the
Blueberry story "Nez Cassé". Castaneda's influence reasserted itself in full in Giraud's later life, having worked in elements more openly after Charlier's death in his 1999
Blueberry outing "Geronimo l'Apache", and was to become a major element for his
Blueberry 1900-project, which however, had refused to come to fruition for extraneous reasons. Giraud had vainly tried to introduce Charlier to the writings of Castaneda, but his co-writer was conservative in nature and wary of science fiction in general, and never understood what his younger colleague tried to achieve as "Mœbius". Despite this, Charlier understood Giraud's need for a "mental shower" from time to time, and Charlier was appreciative of the graphic innovations Giraud brought into the
Blueberry series, making him "one of the all-time greatest artists in the comic medium," as Charlier said in 1982. Artist , who was brought on by Giraud in 1980 as an inker on "La longue marche" ("The Long March") painted a slightly different picture though. Already recognizing that the two men were living in different worlds, he noted that Charlier was not pleased with Giraud taking on an assistant, afraid that it might have been a prelude to his leaving the series in order to pursue his "experimentations" as Mœbius further. While Charlier was willing to overlook Giraud's "philandering", he was otherwise of the firm conviction that artists, especially his own, should totally and wholeheartedly devote themselves to their craft, as Charlier had always considered the medium. Giraud was in later life led to believe that Charlier "detested" his other work, looking upon it as something akin to "treason", though his personal experiences with the author was that he had kept an "open mind". According to Giraud, Charlier's purported stance negatively influenced his son Philippe, causing their relationship to rapidly deteriorate into open animosity, after the death of his father.
Post-Pilote (1979–2007) In 1979, the long-running disagreement Charlier and Giraud had with their publishing house
Dargaud over the residuals from
Blueberry came to a head. They began the Western comic
Jim Cutlass as a means to put pressure on Dargaud. in the process taking all of Charlier's other co-creations with them. It would be nearly fifteen years before the
Blueberry series (and the others) returned to Dargaud after Charlier died. (For further particulars, including the royalties conflict, see:
Blueberry publication history.) When Charlier died in 1989, Giraud took over the scripting of the main series, the last outing of which, "Apaches", released in 2007, became the last title Giraud created for the parent publisher.
Blueberry has been translated into 19 languages, the first English book translations being published in 1977/78 by UK publisher
Egmont/
Methuen, though its publication was cut short after only four volumes. The original
Blueberry series has spun off a prequel series called
Young Blueberry in the
Pilote-era (1968–1970), but the artwork was in 1984, when that series was resurrected, left to
Colin Wilson and later after the first three original volumes in that series, as well as the Giraud-written, but
William Vance-penciled, 1991–2000 intermezzo series called
Marshal Blueberry. All these series, except
Jim Cutlass, had returned to the parent publisher Dargaud in late 1993, though Giraud himself – having already left the employ of the publisher in 1974 (see
below) – had not, instead plying his trade as a free-lancer, explaining the
Jim Cutlass exception.
Blueberry has always remained Giraud's most successful work in France and mainland Europe, despite the artist expressing a love/hate relationship with his co-creation in later life, which was exemplified by his regular extended leaves of absence. Giraud has admitted as early as 1979 that
Blueberry has remained his primary source of income, allowing him to indulge in his artistic endeavors as Mœbius: "If an album of Moebius is released, about 10,000 people are interested. A
Blueberry album sells at least 100,000 copies [in France],"
Science fiction and fantasy comics The "Mœbius" pseudonym, which Giraud came to use for his science fiction and
fantasy work, was born in 1963, In a satire magazine called
Hara-Kiri, Giraud used the name for 21 strips in 1963–64 (much of which collected in Epic's "Mœbius " – see
below). Though Giraud enjoyed the artistic freedom and atmosphere at the magazine greatly, he eventually gave up his work there as
Blueberry, on which he had embarked in the meantime, demanded too much of his energy, aside from being a better paid job. Magazine editor-in-chief
Cavanna was loath to let Giraud go, not understanding why Giraud would want to waste his talents on a "kiddy comic". and '''' science fiction magazine and pocket book series. Additionally, this period in time also saw four vinyl record music productions endowed with Mœbius sleeve art. There actually had also been a personal reason as well for Giraud to suspend his career as Mœbius comic artist; after he had returned from his second trip from Mexico, he found himself confronted with the artist's version of a
writer's block as far as Mœbius comics were concerned, partly because
Blueberry consumed all his energy. "For eight months I tried, but I could not do it, so I quit", stated Giraud additionally. also collecting shorts he had created for the Fleurus magazines,
Bonux-Boy, and the late-1960s
TOTAL Journal magazine. Bearing in mind Giraud's fascination with the Western genre in general and the cultural aspects of
Native Americans in particular – and whose plight Giraud had always been sympathetic to – it is hardly a surprise that two later examples of such rare works were Native-American themed. These concerned the 2-page short story "Wounded Knee", inspired by the
eponymous 1973 incident staged by
Oglala Lakota, and the 3-page short story "Discours du Chef Seattle", first published in the artbook "Made in L.A." ("The Words of
Chief Seattle", in Epic's
"Ballad for a Coffin"). Giraud suddenly bursting out onto the comic scene as "Mœbius", caught European readership by surprise, and it took many of them, especially outside France, a couple of years before the realization had sunk in that "Jean Gir[raud]" and "Mœbius" were, physically at least, one and the same artist. the humorous and satirical story dealt with a law-abiding citizen of the planet Souldaï, who awakens one day, only to find himself with a permanent erection. Pursued through space and time by his own puritanical authorities, who frown upon the condition, and other parties, who have their own intentions with the hapless
bandard, he eventually finds a safe haven on the asteroid
Fleur of Madame Kowalsky, after several hilarious adventures. When discounting the as "Gir" signed "La déviation", it is in this story that Giraud's signature, minute "Mœbius" art style, for which he became famed not that much later, truly comes into its own. Another novelty introduced in the book is that the narrative is only related on the right-hand pages; the left-hand pages are taken up by one-page panels depicting an entirely unrelated cinematographic sequence of a man transforming after he has snapped his fingers. The story did raise some eyebrows with critics accusing Giraud of
pornography at the time, but one reviewer put it in perspective when stating, "Peut-être Porno, mais Graphique!", which loosely translates as "Porn maybe, but Graphic Art for sure!". In the editorial of the
1990 American edition, Giraud has conceded that he was envious of what his former
Pilote colleagues had achieved with ''L'Écho des savanes
in regard to creating a free, creative environment for their artists, he had already enjoyed so much back at Hara-Kiri'', and that it was an inspiration for the endeavor, Giraud embarked upon next.
Métal Hurlant (1974–1982) {{multiple image | align = right | direction = horizontal | total_width = 440 Later that year, after
Dune was permanently canceled with him definitively returning to France, Giraud became one of the founding members of the comics art group and publishing house "
Les Humanoïdes Associés", together with fellow comic artists
Jean-Pierre Dionnet,
Philippe Druillet (likewise
Pilote colleagues) and (outsider) financial director Bernard Farkas. In imitation of the example set by the ''L'Écho des savanes
founding editors, it was therefore as such also an indirect result of the revolt these artists had previously staged at Pilote
, and whose employ they had left for the undertaking. Together they started the monthly magazine Métal hurlant'' ("Screaming metal") in December 1974, Mœbius' famous serial "
The Airtight Garage" and his groundbreaking "
Arzach" both began in
Métal hurlant. Unlike
Hara-Kiri and ''L'Écho des savanes
though, whose appeal has always remained somewhat limited to the socially engaged satire and underground comic scenes, it was Métal hurlant
in particular that revolutionized the world of Franco-Belgian bandes dessinées'', It tracks the journey of the title character flying on the back of his
pterodactyl through a fantastic world mixing medieval fantasy with
futurism. Unlike most science fiction comics, it is, save for the artfully executed story titles, entirely devoid of captions, speech balloons and written sound effects. It has been argued that the wordlessness provides the strip with a sense of timelessness, setting up Arzach's journey as a quest for eternal, universal truths.), "Ballade" ("The Ballade", 1977 and inspired by the poem "Fleur" by French poet
Arthur Rimbaud), "Ktulu" (issue 33bis, 1978, an
H. P. Lovecraft-inspired story) and "Citadelle aveugle" ("The White Castle", in issue 51, 1980 and oddly enough signed as "Gir") were examples of additional stories Giraud created directly in color, shortly after "Arzach". 1976 saw the
Métal hurlant, issues 7–8, publication of "
The Long Tomorrow", written by
Dan O'Bannon in 1974 during lulls in the pre-production of Jodorowsky's
Dune. His series
The Airtight Garage, starting its magazine run in issue 6, 1976, is particularly notable for its non-linear plot, where movement and temporality can be traced in multiple directions depending on the readers' own interpretation even within a single
planche (page or picture). The series tells of Major Grubert, who is constructing his own multi-level universe on an asteroid named
Fleur (from the "Bandard fou" universe incidentally, and the first known instance of the artist's attempts of tying all his "Mœbius" creations into one coherent
Airtight Garage universe), where he encounters a wealth of fantastic characters including
Michael Moorcock's creation
Jerry Cornelius. 1978 marked the publication of the 54-page "Les yeux du chat" ("Eyes of the Cat"). The dark, disturbing and
surreal tale dealt with a blind boy in a non-descript empty cityscape, who has his pet eagle scout for eyes, which it finds by taking these from a street cat and offering them to his awaiting companion who, while grateful, expresses his preference for the eyes of a child. The story premise originated from a brainstorming session Alejandro Jodorowsky had with his fellows of the
Académie Panique, a group concentrated on chaotic and surreal
performance art, as a response to surrealism becoming mainstream. Jodorowsky worked out the story premise as a therapy to alleviate the depression he was in after the failure of his
Dune project and presented the script to Giraud in 1977 during a visit to Paris. Deeming the story too short for a regular, traditional comic, it was Giraud who suggested the story to be told on the format he had already introduced in "Le bandard fou", to wit, as single panel pages. On recommendation of Jodorowsky, he refined the format by relating the eagle's quest on the right-hand pages, while depicting the awaiting boy in smaller single panel left-hand pages from a contra point-of-view. Giraud furthermore greatly increased his already high level of detail by making extensive use of
zipatone for the first time. Considered a key and seminal work, both for its art and storytelling, setting Jodorowsky off on his career as comic writer, the art evoked memories of the wood engravings from the 19th century, including those of
Gustave Doré, that Giraud discovered and admired in the books of his grandparents when he was living there in his childhood. However, it—like "La déviation"—has remained somewhat of a one-shot in Giraud's body of work in its utilization of such a high level of detail. The story, printed on yellow paper to accentuate the black & white art, was originally published directly as a, to 5000 copies limited book edition, gift item for relations of the publisher. It was only after expensive pirate editions started to appear that the publisher decided to make the work available commercially on a wider scale, starting in 1981. Jodorowsky had intended the work to be the first of a trilogy, but that never came to fruition. In a certain way "Les yeux du chat" concluded a phase that had started with "La Déviation", The very first "Mœbius" anthology collection the publisher released as such, was the 1980–1985
Moebius œuvres complètes six-volume collection of which two, volumes 4, "La Complainte de l'Homme Programme" and 5, "Le Désintégré Réintégré" (the two of them in essence comprising an expanded version of the 1980 original It also concluded a phase in which Giraud was preoccupied in a "characteristic period in his life" in which he was "very somber and pessimistic about my life", resulting in several of his "Mœbius" stories of that period ending in death and destruction. These included the poetic "Ballade", in which Giraud killed off the two protagonists, something he came to regret a decade later in this particular case. However, by this time Giraud felt that his break-out success as "Mœbius" had come at a cost. He had left
Pilote to escape the pressure and stifling conditions he was forced to work under, seeking complete creative freedom, but now it was increasingly becoming "as stifling as it had been before with
Blueberry", as he conceded in 1982, adding philosophically, "The more you free yourself, the more powerless you become!". How deeply ingrained this sentiment was, was evidenced in a short interview in
Métal Hurlant, issue 82, later that year, where an overworked Giraud stated, "I will finish the
Blueberry series, I will finish the
John Difool [
Incal] series and then I'm done. Then I will quit comics!" At the time he had just finished working as storyboard, and production design artist on the Movie
Tron, something he had enjoyed immensely. Fortunately for his fans, Giraud did not act upon his impulse as history has shown, though he did take action to escape the hectic Parisian comic scene in 1980 by moving himself and his family as far away from Paris as possible in France, and relocated to the small city of
Pau at the foothills of the
Pyrenees.
Tahiti (1983–1984) From 1985 to 2001 he also created his six-volume fantasy series ''
Le Monde d'Edena, which has appeared in English as The Aedena Cycle''. The stories were strongly influenced by the teachings of Jean-Paul Appel-Guéry, the leader of the UFO religion
Iso-Zen, and
Guy-Claude Burger's instinctotherapy. In effect, Giraud and his family did join Appel-Guéry's
commune on Tahiti in 1983, until late 1984, when the family moved to the United States, where Giraud set up shop first in Santa Monica, and subsequently in Venice and Woodland Hills, California. Giraud's one-shot comic book "La nuit de l'étoile" was co-written by Appel-Guéry, and has been the most visible manifestation of Giraud's stay on Tahiti, aside from the artbooks "La memoire du futur" and "Venise celeste". Concurrently collaborating on "La nuit de l'étoile" was young artist
Marc Bati, also residing at the commune at the time, and for whom Giraud afterwards wrote the comic series
Altor (
The Magic Crystal), while in the US. It was under the influence of Appel-Guéry's teachings that Giraud conceived a third pseudonym,
Jean Gir – formally introduced to the public as "Jean Gir, Le Nouveau Mœbius" in "Venise celeste" (p. 33), though Giraud had by the time of publication already dispensed with the pseudonym himself – which appeared on the art he created while on Tahiti, though not using it for his
Aedena Cycle. Another member of the commune was Paula Salomon, for whom Giraud had already illustrated her 1980 book "La parapsychologie et vous". Having to move stateside for work served Giraud well, as he became increasingly disenchanted at a later stage with the way Appel-Guéry ran his commune on Tahiti, in the process dispensing with his short-lived third pseudonym. During his stay on Tahiti, Giraud had co-founded his second publishing house under two concurrent imprints, Éditions Gentiane (predominantly for his work as Gir, most notably
Blueberry) and (predominantly for his work as Mœbius, and not entirely by coincidence named after the series he was working on at the time), together with friend and former editor at Les Humanoïdes Associés, , for the express purpose to release his work in a more artful manner, such as limited edition art prints, art books ("La memoire du futur" was first released under the Gentiane imprint, and reprinted under that of Aedena) and art portfolios. Both men had already released the very first such art book in the Humanoïdes days, essentially the US branch of Gentiane/Aedena with the same goals, resulting in the release of, among others, the extremely limited art portfolio
La Cité de Feu, a collaborative art project of Giraud with
Geoff Darrow (see
below). However, due to their unfamiliarity with the American publishing world, the company did not do well, and in an effort to remedy the situation Claudine hired the French/American editor couple
Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, whom she had met at the summer 1985
San Diego ComicCon, as translators and editors-in-chief for Starwatcher, also becoming shareholders in the company. It was for the Marvel/Epic publication effort that it was decided to dispense with the "Jean [Gir]aud"/"Mœbius" dichotomy—until then strictly adhered-to by the artist—as both the artist's given name and his
Blueberry creation were all but unknown in the English speaking world. This was contrary to his reputation as "Mœbius", already acquired in the
Heavy Metal days, and from then on used for
all his work in the English speaking world (and Japan), though the dichotomy remained elsewhere, including native France. A two-issue
Silver Surfer miniseries (later collected as
Silver Surfer: Parable), written by
Stan Lee and drawn by Giraud (as Mœbius), was published through Marvel's Epic Comics imprint in 1988 and 1989. According to Giraud, this was his first time working under the
Marvel method instead of from a full script, and he has admitted to being baffled by the fact that he already had a complete story synopsis on his desk only two days after he had met Stan Lee for the first time, having discussed what Giraud had assumed was a mere proposition over lunch. This miniseries won the
Eisner Award for best finite/limited series in 1989. Mœbius' version was discussed in the 1995 submarine thriller
Crimson Tide by two sailors pitting his version against those of
Jack Kirby, with the main character played by
Denzel Washington, emphasizing the Kirby one being the better of the two. Becoming aware of the reference around 1997, Giraud was later told around 2005 by the movie's director
Tony Scott, that it was he who had written in the dialog as an homage to the artist on behalf of his brother
Ridley, a Mœbius admirer, and not (uncredited) script doctor
Quentin Tarentino (known for infusing his works with pop culture references) as he was previously led to believe. An amused Giraud quipped, "It's better than a big stature, because in a way, I can not dream of anything better to be immortal [than] being in a movie about submarines!" Even as late as 1997, Giraud had created cover art for two DC comic book outings,
Hardware (Vol. 1, issue 49, March 1997) and
Static (Vol. 1, issue 45, March 1997), after an earlier cover for
Marvel Tales (Vol. 2, issue 253, September 1991). Another project Giraud embarked upon in his "American period", was for a venture into that other staple of American pop culture,
trading cards. Trading card company Comic Images released a "Mœbius Collector Cards" set in 1993, featuring characters and imagery from all over his Mœbius universe, though his Western work was excluded. None of the images were lifted from already existing work, but were especially created by Giraud the year previously. Although Giraud had taken up residence in California for five years – holding a temporary residence (the O-1 "Extraordinary Ability" category, including the "International Artist" status) visa – he maintained a transient lifestyle, as his work had him frequently travel to Belgium and native France (maintaining a home in Paris), as well as to Japan, for extended periods of time. His stay in the United States was an inspiration for his aptly called
Made in L.A. art book, the latter of which having seen a translation in English by Epic. Giraud's extended stay in the US, garnered him a 1986
Inkpot Award, an additional 1991 Eisner Award, as well as three
Harvey Awards in the period 1988–1991 for the various graphic novel releases by Marvel. It was in this period that Giraud, who had already picked up Spanish as a second language as a result from his various trips to Mexico and his dealings with Jodorowsky and his retinue, also picked up sufficient language skills to communicate in English. Additionally, Giraud had met Isabelle Champeval during a book signing in Venice, Italy in February 1984, and entered into a relationship with her in 1987, which resulted in the birth of second son Raphaël in 1989. Giraud's marriage with Claudine was legally ended in December 1994, without much drama according to Giraud, as both spouses had realized that "each wanted something different out of life".
and the documentary made for the occasion of its release. Giraud and Isabelle were married on 13 May 1995, and the union resulted in their second child, daughter Nausicaa, the same year. Isabelle's sister and Giraud's sister-in-law, Claire, became a regular contributor as colorist on Giraud's latter-day work. The changes in his personal life were also accompanied with changes in his business holdings during 1988–1990. His co-founded publishing house Gentiane/Aedena went into receivership in 1988, going bankrupt a short time thereafter. The American subsidiary Starwatcher Graphics followed in its wake around the turn of the millennium, with the 1525-copy limited mini art portfolio "Mockba - carnet de bord" becoming the company's first recorded publication in September the same year. Apart from being a publishing house, it was concurrently an art gallery, located on 27 Rue Falguière, 75015 Paris, organizing themed
exhibitions on a regular basis. In 1997, the company was renamed Moebius Production – singular, despite the occasional and erroneous use of the plural, even by the company itself. The company, in both publishing and art gallery iterations, is as of 2023 still being run by Isabelle Giraud who had taken over the function of publishing editor
and co-ownership from Claudine (explaining the renaming of the company), after the latter's marriage with Giraud was dissolved in 1994, and her sister Claire. The first thing Giraud did creatively upon his return was to finish up on the
Blueberry album "Arizona Love" on his own after his longtime writing partner Jean-Michel Charlier had died on 10 July 1989. Due to his intimate twenty-five year familiarity with both the series and its writer, it was a foregone conclusion that Giraud would from then on take on the scripting of the main
Blueberry series as well, especially since it was already agreed upon in the "contracts signed with Jean-Michel" that "the survivor would take over the series". Nonetheless, he did embark on the
Marshal Blueberry spin-off series in 1990 as writer (leaving the artwork firstly to
William Vance and subsequently to ), wanting to pay homage to the legacy of his late writing partner by creating a story in his spirit, or as Giraud had put it, "{A]nd [I] said to myself: Well, I'm going to see if I'm able to write a story à la Charlier. So I wrote this scenario, not too bad, but quite traditional, quite classic." In similar vein, Giraud took up the writing for the other Charlier/Giraud western creation,
Jim Cutlass, that Charlier had actually been in the process of revitalizing in the year before his death, and for which he had already contracted for the artwork, besides having already started on the scenario. After having added six more volumes to the once one-shot series, the series – which he, as explained
above, had published at publisher
Casterman instead of (western) house-publisher Dargud – folded in 1999 due to the fact that it was not nearly as commercially successful as
Blueberry had been. Under his "Mœbius" pseudonym, Giraud concurrently continued to work on
The Aedena Cycle and the
Madwoman of the Sacred Heart trilogy, both of which started in the US and completed in 2001 and 1998 respectively, after which he concentrated on
Blueberrys "OK Corral" cycle, started in 1994 upon his return to France. While Giraud was in the midst of "OK Corral" cycle, he also embarked on a new sequel cycle of his acclaimed
Incal main series, called ''Après l'Incal
(After the Incal
). Yet, after he had penciled the first outing in the series, "Le nouveau rêve", he found himself confronted with "too many things that attract me, too many desires in all the senses", causing him to be no longer able to "devote myself to the bande dessinée'' as befitting a professional in the traditional sense". Despite repeated pleas to convince Giraud otherwise, it left writer Jodorowsky with no other recourse than to start anew with a new artist. This insight had repercussions though, as Giraud, after he had finished the "OK Corral" cycle in 2005, no longer continued to produce comics and/or art on a commercial base, but rather on a project and/or personal base, usually under the aegis of his own publishing house Mœbius Production. As Mœbius Production, Giraud published from 2000 to 2010
Inside Mœbius (French text despite English title), an illustrated autobiographical fantasy in six hardcover volumes totaling 700 pages.
Pirandello-like, he appears in cartoon form as both creator and protagonist trapped within the story alongside his younger self and several longtime characters such as Blueberry, Arzak (the latest re-spelling of the
Arzach character's name), Major Grubert (from
The Airtight Garage) and others. Jean Giraud drew the first of the two-part volume of the
XIII series titled "La Version Irlandaise" ("The Irish Version") from a script by
Jean Van Hamme, to accompany the second part by the regular team Jean Van Hamme–William Vance, "Le dernier round" ("The Last Round"). Both parts were published on the same date (13 November 2007) and were the last ones written by Van Hamme before
Yves Sente took over the series. The contribution was also a professional courtesy to the series' artist, Vance, who had previously provided the artwork for the first two titles in the Giraud-written
Marshall Blueberry spin-off series. Late in life, Giraud also decided to revive his seminal Arzak character in an elaborate new adventure series; the first (and last in hindsight) volume of a planned trilogy, ''Arzak l'arpenteur
, appeared in 2010. He also added to the Airtight Garage'' series with two volumes entitled "Le chasseur déprime" (2008) and "Major" (2011), as well as the art book "La faune de Mars" (2011), the latter two initially released in a limited, 1000 copy French only, print run by Mœbius Production. By this time, Giraud created his comic art on a specialized graphic computer tablet, as its enlargement features had become an indispensable aid, because of his failing eyesight. Creating comics became increasingly difficult for Giraud, as his eyesight started to fail him in his last years, having undergone severe surgery in 2010 to stave off blindness in his left eye, and it was mainly for this reason that Giraud increasingly concentrated on creating single-piece art, both as "Gir" and as "Mœbius", on larger canvases on either commission basis or under the aegis of Mœbius Production. Much of the latter artwork was from 2005 onward, alongside older original art Giraud still had in his possession, sold by the company for considerable prices in specialized comic auctions at such auction houses like
Artcurial,
Hôtel Drouot and Millon & Associés.
Illustrator and author As already indicated above, Giraud had throughout his entire career made illustrations for books, magazines, music productions), but also promotional art for commercial institutions such as banks and corporations. A notable early example of the latter, concerned the
Blueberry art he created in 1978 for the Spanish
jeans manufacturer Lois Jeans & Jackets; Aside from being traditionally run as an advertisement in numerous magazines, it was also blown up to gigantic, mural-like dimensions and as posters plastered on walls and billboards in several places all around Paris. As book illustrator, Giraud illustrated for example the 1987 first edition of the science fiction novel "Project Pendulum" by
Robert Silverberg, and the 1994 French edition of the novel "
The Alchemist" by
Paulo Coelho. The subsequent year Giraud followed up in the same vein as the Coelho novel, with his cover and interior illustrations for a French 1995 reprint of "Ballades" from the French medieval poet
François Villon, itself followed by similar work for 's 2001 new-age novel "La mémoire de l'âme". Much of this non-comic art, including the one for Lois has been reproduced in the artbooks that were released over the years. Giraud was in mid-1990s approached by two
video game developers to provide the box cover art for the video games that were released in 1995; the first one concerned the
Fade to Black video game developed by the US
Delphine Software International, whereas the second one concerned
Panzer Dragoon video game developed by the Japanese
Sega Corporation. And while Giraud was by now the well established Mœbius artist in both countries, he was only asked to contribute the box cover art for the two video game releases, and nothing beyond. A few years later though, he was also asked to contribute to later games as a concept artist. In 1999, Giraud's illustrations appeared in a soft cover edition of
Dante Alighieri's
La Divina Commedia, published by the Nuages Gallery in
Milan. As "Mœbius" he illustrated the "
Paradiso" volume, while the two others, "
Inferno" and "
Purgatorio", were illustrated by
Lorenzo Mattotti and
Milton Glaser respectively. The edition was published under the Mœbius name. Giraud's illustrations for "Paradiso" take heavy inspiration from the engravings of the
Divine Comedy by Gustave Doré, whose work he had discovered in his grandparents' library and learned to appreciate in his early formative years, with compositions often approaching an exact match. Giraud acknowledged this influence directly, praising Doré's work and remarking how he sometimes literally used tracing paper to sketch compositions. Though another prominent example of Giraud's non-comic book work, the influences from his science fiction and fantasy comics shine through. The illustrations, with vivid colors and space-age headresses, are distinctly rendered in the Mœbius mode. An out-of-the-ordinary latter-day contribution as such, constituted his illustrations as "Mœbius" for the Thursday 6 March 2008 issue of the Belgian newspaper
Le Soir. His illustrations accompanied news articles throughout the newspaper, providing a
Mœbiusienne look on events. In return, the newspaper, for the occasion entitled "Le Soir par (by) Mœbius", featured two half-page editorials on the artist (pp. 20 & 37). Under the names Giraud, Gir and Mœbius, he also wrote several comics for other comic artists as listed
below, and the early ones included
Jacques Tardi and
Claude Auclair. Aside from writing for other comic artists, he also wrote story outlines for the movies
Les Maîtres du temps,
Internal Transfer,
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland and
Thru the Moebius Strip as outlined further down the line. As author on personal title, Giraud has – apart from his own
bande dessinée scripts – written philosophical poetry that accompanied his art in his Mœbius artbooks of the 1980s and 1990s. He also wrote the "Story Notes" editorials for the American Epic publications, providing background information on his work contained therein. In 1998, he took time off to write his autobiography,
Moebius-Giraud: Histoire de mon double.
Films Giraud's friend Jean-Claude Mézières has divulged in the 1970s that their very first outing into the world of cinema concerned a 1957 animated Western, unsurprisingly, considering their shared passion for the genre, "Giraud, with his newfound prestige because of his trip to Mexico [note: Mézières had wanted to accompany his friend to Mexico, but was not able to raise the money], started a pro career at
Cœurs Valiants, but together with two other friends we tackled a very ambitious project first: a cartoon western for which Giraud drew the sets and the main characters. Alas, rather disappointingly, we had to stop after only 45 seconds!" Any further movie aspirations Giraud, who himself had considered the effort "too laborious", might have had entertained had to wait until he received the 1974 invitation of Alejandro Jodorowsky to work on his planned adaptation of
Frank Herbert's
Dune, which was however abandoned in pre-production. ''
Jodorowsky's Dune'', a 2013 American-French documentary directed by
Frank Pavich, explores Jodorowsky's unsuccessful attempt. Giraud, a non-English speaker at the time, later admitted that the prospect of moving over to Los Angeles filled him with trepidation, initially causing him to procrastinate. It was friend Philippe Druillet (with whom he would co-found Les Humanoïdes Associés later that year) who pushed him to up and go, which he did by going AWOL again from his job at
Pilote. Giraud was grateful for Druillet pushing him as he found that he reveled in his first Hollywood experience. resulting in what Giraud had coined "two weeks of work and ten years of fallout in media and advertising". Still,
Alien led to two other movie assignments in 1982, this time as both concept and storyboard artist. The first one concerned the Disney science fiction movie
Tron, whose director
Steven Lisberger specifically requested Giraud, after he had discovered his work in
Heavy Metal magazine. For the latter, Giraud was also responsible for the poster art and the comic adaption of the same title, with some of his concept and storyboard art featured in a "making-of" book to boot. Excepting
Les Maîtres du temps, Giraud's movie work had him travel to Los Angeles for longer periods of time. Outside his actual involvement with motion pictures, Giraud was in this period of time also occasionally commissioned to create poster art for, predominantly European, movies. Movies for which Giraud, also as "Mœbius", created poster art included,
Touche pas à la femme blanche ! (1974 as Gir, three 120x160 cm versions),
S*P*Y*S (1974, unsigned, American movie but poster art for release in France), ''
(1975, unsigned), Les Chiens (1979 as Mœbius, rejected, used as cover for Taboo 4), Tusk (1980 as Giraud, a Jodorowsky film), and '' (1983 as Mœbius). As his two 1982 movies coincided with the end of his
Métal hurlant days and his departure for Tahiti shortly thereafter, this era can be seen as Giraud's "first Hollywood period", especially since the next project he embarked on entailed a movie in which he was very much invested as initiator, writer and producer as well, contrary to the movies he hitherto had worked upon as a gun-for-hire. While Giraud was residing in Appel-Guéry's commune, he, together with Appel-Guéry and another member of the commune, Paula Salomon, came up with a story premise for a major animated science fiction movie called
Internal Transfer, which was endowed with the English title
Starwatcher – after which Giraud's American publishing house was named. Slated for the production was Arnie Wong, whom Giraud had met during the production of
Tron (and, incidentally, one of the animators of the vaunted "Taarna" segment of the
Heavy Metal movie), and it was actually Disney whom Giraud offered the production first. Disney, at the time not believing in the viability of such a production in animation, declined. Another member of the commune fronted some of the money for the project to proceed, and the production was moved to Wong's animation studio in Los Angeles. It was this circumstance that provided Giraud with his alibi to leave Appel-Guéry's commune and settle in California – and the reason why he had to decline Ridley Scott for his
Legend movie. Much to Giraud's disappointment and frustration though, the project eventually fell apart for several extraneous reasons, most notably for lack of funding, as related above by the artist. His definitive return to France in 1989 marked the beginning of Giraud's third and last movie period. In January 1992, the French newspaper
Le Monde reported on a computer animated movie that was under development at the company Vidéosystem. It actually concerned a second attempt to get
Starwatcher on the silver screen, but just like its 1984 predecessor, it eventually failed to come to fruition. Afterwards, Giraud made original character designs and did visual development for Warner Bros.' partly animated 1996 movie
Space Jam. 1997 saw his participation as concept artist on Luc Besson's science fiction epic
The Fifth Element, which was of great personal importance for Giraud as it meant working together with his lifelong friend Jean-Claude Mézières, coming full circle after their very first aborted 1957 attempt at creating a motion picture. The
2005 documentary made for this occasion was testament to the great friendship both men had for each other. Concurrently, Giraud's oldest child, daughter Hélène, was employed on the movie in a similar function, albeit uncredited, though Giraud had stated with fatherly pride, "Yes, she had cooperated in a truly engaged manner. She started at the crack of dawn, and only went home in the evening, after the whole team had stopped working." Giraud's experience on the movie was however somewhat marred by the 2004 lawsuit publisher Les Humanoïdes Associés (ostensibly on his behalf like the earlier 1981 intent which Giraud had then successfully prevented) and Alejandro Jodorowsky leveled against Besson for alleged plagiarism of ''L'Incal'', a lawsuit they lost. 2005 saw the release of the Chinese movie
Thru the Moebius Strip, based on a story by Giraud who also served as the production designer and the co-producer, and which reunited him with Arnie Wong, whereas his stint as concept designer on the 2012 animated science fiction movie
Strange Frame, has become Giraud's final recorded motion picture contribution.
Movie adaptations In 1991 his graphic novel short, "Cauchemar Blanc", was cinematized by
Mathieu Kassovitz, winning Kassovitz (but not Giraud) two film awards. With '''', Giraud saw his ambitions as a full-fledged animation movie maker at least in part fulfilled. A 2002 series for French television broadcaster
France 2, it consisted of fourteen four minute long animated vignettes, based on Giraud's seminal character, for which he did the writing, drawings and co-production. Young daughter Nausicaa had voice-over appearances in three of the episodes together with her father. "The Lost Dutchman's Mine" story cycle of the
Blueberry series was adapted for the screen in 2004, by
Jan Kounen, as ''
Blueberry: L'expérience secrète. Three prior attempts to bring Blueberry
to the silver screen had fallen through two decades earlier; in 1986 Charlier disclosed how American actor Martin Kove had actually already been signed to play the titular role – with whom Kove shared a remarkable resemblance at the time – for the first two early-1980s attempts, which were both based on the "Confederate Gold" cycle. It was Kove who introduced the two Blueberry creators to would-be American film producers on both occasions. The first attempt failed because American producers intended a complete script rewrite turning Blueberry into a completely unrecognizable standard western. The second attempt suffered even worse as its American producer, "inspired" by the success of the 1981 movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, wanted to turn the project into a Raiders
2.0, set in the Yucatán peninsula, complete with Aztec warriors and pyramids and featuring a daring escape in a zeppelin-type airship. Helped by his background in law, an aghast Charlier instructed Giraud to sabotage the project as much as possible and the Blueberry
creators eventually managed to buy back the rights for US$30,000. Already mentioned by Charlier in his 1986 interview, Kove had even traveled to Europe to shoot some test-footage scenes from the comic series in this role in order to entice potential investors, and that some of it was still in his possession as it turned out decades later. Convinced that the project was a viable one, Kove has also revealed in 2014 that he, together with the two Blueberry'' creators, tried to save it by putting up his own money as well when the project was falling apart due to arguments about funding among European/American would-be producers – to no avail however, which was a slightly different version of events as had been related by Charlier. The third (and last) attempt concerned a European only endeavor, which had at one point actually involved
Sergio Leone, according to Charlier, and was actually conceived as a television movie series and slated to be produced by the Swiss/French/Belgian production/distribution company Technisonor, more faithfully adhering – than the later 2004 film adaptation – to the main comic series and intended to span the "Iron Horse" through the "Rehabilitation" story cycles. That 1983 attempt petered out without so much as a whimper, most likely due to lack of interest on the part of European investors. 2010 saw the adaptation of "La planète encore" ("The Still Planet"), a short story from the ''Le Monde d'Edena'' universe – and which had won him his
1991 Eisner Award – into an animated short. Moebius Production served as a production company, with Isabelle Giraud serving as one of its producers. Giraud himself was one of the two directors of the short and it premiered at the «Mœbius transe forme» exposition at the
Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris. In November 2021 it was announced
Oscar winner
Taika Waititi would direct the screen adaptation of Jodorowsky/Moebius's graphic novel
The Incal and co-write the script with frequent collaborators
Jemaine Clement and Peter Warren.
Video games Two years after he had provided box cover art for two video games, Giraud was approached for more substantial video game contributions when developer
Arxel Tribe asked Giraud to become a concept designer for their 1997
Pilgrim: Faith as a Weapon game they had in development. It actually reunited Giraud with Paulo Coelho on whose 1987 work
The Pilgrimage the game was based and who also responsible for its adaptation, and for whom Giraud had illustrated his
Alchemist French-edition novel three years earlier. As Mœbius, Giraud designed among others the costumes for the game. Seven years later the Japanese 2004 video game
Seven Samurai 20XX was released for which Giraud was asked to provide the character concept designs. This was his last known video game contribution. Essentially, the work he had been asked to perform for these two video games, did not differ that much from the movie work Giraud had done since the 1979 movie
Alien in a near-similar function.
Exhibitions Part of the "many desires" that increasingly attracted Giraud later in life, steering him away from creating traditional
bandes dessinées, was his personal fascination and involvement with the many exhibitions dedicated to his work, that started to proliferate from the mid-1990s onward not only in native France, but internationally as well, causing him to frequently travel abroad, among others to Japan, for extended periods of time, with the prestigious high-profile 2010 «Mœbius transe forme» exposition in Paris becoming the apotheosis. • Summer 1991: Exposition at the ,
Montréal, Canada • 26 April-16 August 1995:«Mœbius: a retrospective» exposition at the
Cartoon Art Museum,
San Francisco, US; came with limited edition catalog (see
below) • December 1995: «Wanted: Blueberry» exposition at the Arthaud Grenette mega-bookstore,
Grenoble, France; also featuring original
Blueberry art by Colin Wilson. Both he and Jean Giraud attended the opening on 1 December, making themselves also available for book signings. Prior to the opening a promotional brochure was disseminated by the bookstore ("Arthaud
BD News", issue 1, November 1995), featuring a three-page interview with Giraud. • 19 September-9 October 1996: «Jean Giraud Blueberry» exposition at the Stardom Gallery, Paris, France, for the occasion of the upcoming release of the "Blueberry's" artbook by Stardom A special festival guide, illustrated by Giraud – having received the festival's
most prestigious comic award the previous year – and featuring a large interview with the artist, was published for the occasion by the festival organization. • 10 October–9 November 1997: «Mœbius: Infinito» grande exposition, Deposito ferroviario ai Lolli,
Palermo, and on 7 February–29 March 1998,
Palazzo Querini Stampalia,
Venice, Italy; The softcover artbook "Mœbius: Infinito" () published for the occasions • 29 November 1997 – 11 January 1998: «Mœbius: Visoni de fine mellennio» grande exposition, ,
Milan, Italy; The softcover artbook "Moebius: Visoni de fine mellennio" () published for the occasion • December 1998-January 1990:
Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon, France • 30 June-14 November 1999: «1 Monde Réel» exposition at
Fondation Cartier, Paris, France • 26 January-3 September 2000: «Trait de Génie Giraud» exposition, ,
Angoulême, France; The 48-page illustrated exhibition catalog "Trait de génie Giraud Moebius" () published for the occasion. Enhanced with elaborate background information and an in-depth interview with the artist, the book edition was limited to 2000 copies. • May–June 2000: Große Austellung,
Erlangen, Germany • May 2000: Collective exposition on contemporary comics at the
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France • October 2001: Grande exposition,
Montrouge, France • 17 January–7 March 2003: «MOEBIUS: WORLDS» exposition in the ,
Karlsruhe, Germany • June 2003: Great exposition,
Kemi, Finland • 16 November-31 December 2003: «Giraud-Moebius» exposition, ,
Liège, Belgium • 4 March-28 April 2004: «L'Elixir du Docteur Gir/Moebius» exposition, Galerie Arludik, Paris, France • 1 December 2004 – 13 April 2005: «Giraud/Mœbius &
Hayao Miyazaki» exposition at the
Musée de la Monnaie de Paris, France • 15 March-15 April 2005: «JEAN GIRAUD: Exposition de dessins et planches originales de "DUST" le nouvel album de Blueberry aux editions Dargaud», Galerie Arludik, Paris, France; small exhibition for the occasion of the 28th
Blueberry album release. • June 2005: Exposition «Mythes Grecs» at the Stardom/Mœbius Production Art Gallery, Paris, France • December 2005: «Jardins d'Eros» exposition at the Stardom/Mœbius Production Art Gallery, Paris, France • February 2006: Exposition "sur le thème du Rêve" at the
Centre d'arts plastiques contemporains de Bordeaux, France • October 2006: «Boudha line» exposition at the Stardom/Mœbius Production Art Gallery, Paris, France • May 2007: Exposition,
Seoul, South-Korea • May 2007: «Hommage au Major» exposition at the Stardom/Mœbius Production Art Gallery, Paris, France • February 2008: «La citadelle du vertige» attraction from
Futuroscope (
Poitiers), France; inspired by the
Garage hermétique universe. • June 2008: «Fou et Cavalier» exposition at l'Espace Cortambert/Mœbius Production, Paris, France • 15 January-14 June 2009: «Blueberry» exposition at the Maison de la bande dessinée,
Brussels, Belgium • May 2009: Exposition at the
Kyoto International Manga Museum, Japan • November 2009: «Arzak, destination Tassili» exposition at the SFL building located at 103 rue de Grenelle, Paris, France (Co-production of Espace Cortambert/SFL/Mœbius Production) • 12 October 2010 – 13 March 2011: «Mœbius transe forme» exposition at the
Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, France, which the museum had called "the first major exhibition in Paris devoted to the work of Jean Giraud, known by his pseudonyms Gir and Mœbius." A major and prestigious event, it reflected the status Giraud had by then attained in French (comic) culture. A massive, similarly titled limited edition deluxe art book () was released by the museum for the occasion. The book incidentally, won the 2011 "Bande Dessinée" category award of the annual "Prix La Nuit du Livre". • June–December 2011: «Mœbius multiple(s)» exposition at the
Musée Thomas-Henry,
Cherbourg-Octeville, France
Posthumous exhibitions • 15 September 2019 – 29 March 2020: «Mœbius: Surreale Comicwelten» exposition at the ,
Brühl, Germany. A massive 272 page hardcover "Mœbius: Wanderer zwischen den Welten (="Wanderer between worlds")" art book, akin to the 2010 Parisian museum release, was released as a deluxe limited German/English bilingual edition exposition catalog by the museum for the occasion. (No ISBN mentioned but assigned the by the
German National Library) The exposition though, was prematurely closed on 14 March 2020 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic crisis. • 10 July 2021 - 4 October 2021: «MOEBIUS - Alla ricerca del tempo» exposition at the
Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN),
Naples, Italy. Exhibition organized around the theme of historical Italy, and in a sense an elaborate expansion of the earlier June 2005 «Mythes Grecs» exposition. Originally slated to open on 10 April 2021, the exhibition's opening was postponed by three months due the COVID-19 pandemic. For the occasion, a 176-page hardcover art book was released as a deluxe, limited edition French/Italian bilingual exposition catalog in a joint venture effort by publishers Moebius Production and
Comicon Edizioni – hence its dual ISBNs, the French one, and the Italian . • 25 October 2021 - 5 December 2021: «Hell, Purgatory, Paradise. Divine illustrations» exposition at the
Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze,
Florence, Italy. The exhibition was held to celebrate the 700th anniversary of Dante's death, and included the illustrations of Giraud, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Milton Glaser
previously compiled in a 1999 illustrated edition of the
Divine Comedy.
Stamps In 1988 Giraud was chosen, among 11 other winners of the prestigious
Grand Prix of the
Angoulême Festival, to illustrate a postage stamp set issued on the theme of communication. ==Style==