The Repairmen

Over the years, the work of Moebius; or Jean Giraud; has always avoided me, not because I was oblivious to the fact about his brilliance, but because his work is IMPOSSIBLE to find. Everything published in North America is looooong out of print, and the sellers on ebay know this. Sorry, but I don't feel like throwing down $15 that I don't have on "worn" Heavy Metal no. 8.

Thanks to the Internet, some hero posted on a torrent file hosting site the near complete works of Moebius' domestic publications. I flipped out. Finally I was going to be able to dive head first into his narrative work.

Moebius Vol. 1 (of 9, and three related releases) published by Epic Comics in 1987. This is a fantastic release, because not only does it contain the building blocks of "Moebius-verse", but because he had a hand in every aspect of these releases (translation, coloring, editing, etc.)

The opening story is titled The Repairmen, which establishes the two main characters of his arching "Aedena Cycle" that permeates all of his multi-verse. The rundown of The Repairmen is about two mechanics (Atan and Stel, these characters are important to later works) who go to some alien world (the planet Styrinx) where the only beings are these gigantic, hovering car-androids (called Waymasters) that are in a constant state of racing. They're job is to fix up one of the Waymasters so he can continue racing. That plot alone makes me lean back in my chair and ponder what kind of universe these characters live in. Seriously, with that simple premise alone, Moebius has created a surreal, dream-like world that comes off as being filled with planets, creatures, characters, etc that I don't think he even thought about until later. Thats just the written plot. Check out this composition-
Look at how the Waymaster is illustrated. It's the perfect progression of 60's psychedelic art, but used in a narrative context and updated to a more modern (er, 1970s/1980s) contemporary styling. And the use of complementary colors, with different hues of orange to vary from red to brown. This gives you a good idea of Moebius's "layered" style (for lack of a better term). By "layered" I mean he draws overlapping shapes of repeated (sometimes similar) forms to create depth and texture. It's so thick, but organic. But enough on form, check out the last panel that shows you the Waymaster's homeworld-

Again, note the colors. Through reading most of Moebius's work, it's apparent that he's a master of color. He uses it to highlight the characters, to direct the eyes to the action, or to create the sense of space and environment. The above image is slim pickins compared to his other stuff, but fuck man, i just want to know what is going on in his head. His conceptual art is definitely beyond the realm of what could be real (hence why i said dream-like) but he makes it believeable. You don't question what is presented in front of you, it's just accepted.

I'm going to post the complete story of The Repairmen so you can have a good idea of what Moebius is about. If the following doesn't provoke any sense of imagination or leave anykind of artistic impression, then your a square and should go back to reading Archie comics












Epic graphic novels: Moebius vol. 1 Upon A Star. Art and Story Copyright 1983 Moebius. Translation & Text copyright Starwatcher Graphics. All rights reserved