GIRAUD, JEAN (GIR, MOEBIUS) 259
and hover-scooters in a dark but not completely dystopian future. Gibbons would also
be a source of authorial input on the cinematic adaptation of Wa t c h m e n (2009).
Lance Eaton
GIRAUD, JEAN (GIR, MOEBIUS) (1938–). Also known as Moebius and occasionally
as Gir, Jean Giraud is one of the few internationally celebrated European comics artists.
Born in a village close to Paris, he started his career in France in 1956. However, except
for some international projects such as Th e Silver Surfer : Parable (with Stan Lee , 1988)
and Icare (with Jiro Taniguchi, 2000)—his work has only partly been translated from
French into other languages (in English most of Moebius work has been published by
Marvel / Epic). Giraud’s use of pen names is fundamental not only in his work but also
in his personal life; Giraud claims in his written autobiography that he carries the trou-
bling rupture between two worlds (father/mother, city/country) and that he is trying
to fi nd the original unity by building bridges between the two worlds. He admits to
having consumed lots of drugs and has followed various doubtful New Age-therapies as
well—among them Guy-Claude Burger’s raw diet “instinctotherapy.” Giraud claims in
his book that his main goal in life was to not duplicate the painful pattern of his family;
after the divorce of his parents when he was three years old, after which he was as an only
child mainly raised by his grandparents. His drawing skills would change his life fun-
damentally. Before Giraud became an apprentice with the Belgian comics artist Jijé, the
young artist had already published some comics, but it was under the guidance of this
Belgian master that he would develop himself remarkably ( Jijé had also inspired other
comics artists such as André Franquin, Morris, Roba or Peyo). Giraud’s breakthrough
would come in 1963, when Jean-Michel Charlier started writing for him the successful
We s t e r n series Blueberry about a rebellious offi cer of the American army at the end of
the 19th century, shortly after the U.S. Civil War. For a decade Giraud concentrated on
Blueberry (being published in Pilote and in albums), but when Charlier got into a con-
tractual dispute with the publisher, Giraud took the occasion to create a quite diff erent
kind of work under the pseudonym of Moebius—a name he had used already for some
short comics in the French satirical magazine Hara-Kiri. As Moebius, he also assumed
the role of scriptwriter and produced mainly science fi ction stories, including the
strange wordless Arzach (1975) and the improvisational Le Garage Hermétique/Major
Fatal (1976) ( Th e Airtight Garage ), both fi rst published in another French magazine
Métal Hurlant. In the same period Giraud met the Chilean cult fi lm director Alejandro
Jodorowsky and they started collaborating on a fi lm adaptation of Dune , but the project
was aborted due to lack of funding. Various ideas from the aborted Dune -project were
nevertheless invested in a new comic series, L’ I n c a l ( Th e Incal , Th e Adventures of John
Difool , 1980–88) a superb New Age space opera. After his work on that series, Moe-
bius set out for new projects. A commercial comic for the French car builder Citroën
( Sur l’Étoile , 1983) became later the basis for a new fascinating science fi ction series, Le
Monde d’Edena (1988–2001). In addition to comics, the artist collaborated on various
fi lms (including Alien , Tro n , and Th e Fifth Element ). Moreover, two of his own comics
