Moebius/Jean Giraud
When I was a kid, my father had these comics that I read all the time. The crown jewel in his collection were Moebius’ Inkal series, which chronicles the adventures of sci-fi private investigator John Difool. Ever since this first meet with Moebius, I have kept an eye on his work, and tracked down everything I could find of the old stuff he did.
He is perhaps most known for his creation of the western comic Blueberry. He started this comic in Pilote, and went gradually over to doing science fiction when he started Metal Hurlant, a french science fiction comic (later incarnated into Heavy metal in the english-speaking world)
One especially noteworthy story is that he was deeply involved in the film adaptation of Dune, together with Alejandro Jodorowsky and Salvador Dalí, among others. The entire project was killed due to distribution issues, but then the gang said “crap. Now what?”. So they made Alien instead, just like that.
Now that we’ve seen Avatar, Star trek and so on, it’s only a question of time before someone picks up the pieces and makes the Dune film, for real this time.
Another film project with Giraud that was actually finished? The fifth element, that’s what. Oh, and Tron, nothing less.
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The eminent blog Sci-fi-o-rama has collected some of Girauds work for Dune, it’s all amazing.
It is now impossible for me to read any of his comics for more than a couple minutes straight, before I have to make a run for my sketchbook.His complete mastery of form achieved by simple line work is incredibly satisfying and inspiring. I have a pocketbook copy of Arzach, which now is quite a bit heavier than when I bought it, thanks to all the notes and paper clips I put in there.
As an interesting side note, Giraud is a good friend of Hayao Miyazaki, the heart of Studio Ghibli. Apparently, Giraud named his daughter Nausicaä, after the lead character from Miyazaki’s film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Which just happens to be on my top three most awesome films ever list.
his official homepage is in french, so you’re better off at wikipedia. Here is a really nice documentary about his history as an artist.
Egon Schiele
This guy really brings the human figure to a whole new level. I don’t remember much about him from my art history class, so use Wikipedia if you must know. Anyways, he was a protégé of Gustav Klimt, another of my favourites. He was an early expressionist, although his style is being referred to as art noveau a lot. And he got himself in quite a bit of trouble with the morality police thanks to his continuous portrayal of naked women, and on one point got locked up for it, too.
His paintings are awesome, but it’s his drawings that interest me the most, where I can analyze it for myself. I remember a lot of the stuff I did in early art school was all based on my references of Schiele.
I guess that does it for this edition of Jacob tells you what makes him tick. If you want more posts like these, holler back in the comments!
