Ode to the X

Auteur

1938: Birth of Jean Giraud – who isn't yet either Gir or Mœbius – on May 8th in Nogent-sur-Marne. Jean is from the earliest age educated at the very efficient ABC school, whose slogan ("If you know how to write, you know how to draw") appeals to Misses Giraud, the mother. 1954: Jean Giraud enters the Arts Appliqués institution. 1955: He illustrates several issues of the publication Fiction. His first comic pages appear in Far-West, Sitting Bull,Fripounet et Marisette, Ames vaillantes, Coeur vaillant and le Journal de l'armée. From 1959 to 1960 he performs his military service in Algeria. 1961: Under the guidance of Jijé, the seminal Belgian artist behind such comics as Spirou et Fantasio, Jean Giraud draws part of La Route de Coronado, an episode of the Western series Jerry Spring. 1963: Jijé returns the favor two years later by proposing that his protégé be the artist on the first volume of a brand-new series, also a Western, and titled Fort Navajo. This Western will soon become known by its more popular title: Blueberry. It is published in the magazine Pilote where Jean-Michel Charlier, the series' writer, is also Editor-In-Chief. At the same time, Jean transforms into Mœbius for the first time and for a few short stories in another magazine, Hara Kiri, a monthly satirical publication. 1973: Appearance of the third and last alias of Jean Giraud. He signs Gir in a couple of the Fort Navajo volumes as well as in La Déviation, a story whose theme is more mature and whose graphic rendition is purer, belonging more to the world of Mœbius than that of Jean Giraud. However, Jean chooses to put the name Mœbius to sleep for a few years, from 1969to 1974, as he participates to a series of Sci-Fi illustrations for Opta, a French publishing house specializing in science fiction and crime fiction. Mœbius reawakens in 1974. 1975: After having drawn, under one name or another, Le Bandard fou, Cauchemar blanc and L'Homme est-il bon?, Mœbius embarks with fellow creators Philippe Druillet, Jean-Pierre Dionnet and businessman Bernard Farkas aboard the Métal Hurlant shuttle, which soon spirals into a revolutionary adventure. There he will publish the firs pages of Arzach, followed by Le Garage hermétique (The Airtight Garage), two resounding works that quickly come to rock the entire Franco-Belgian bande dessinée community. The same year, he meets Alexandro Jodorowsky. The young Chilean filmmaker is looking to adapt Frank Herbert's masterpiece Dune to the big screen. Jodorowsky needs the help of creative minds to bring the complex story to life, and Mœbius is asked to work on the film's storyboards. The project falls apart but the duo of Jodorowsky / Mœbius reforms soon after in 1978 for The Eyes of the Cat, their very first graphic collaboration. 1980: Mœbius and Jodorowsky create together The Black Incal, the first volume in The Adventures of John Difool (which is later retitled The Incal). At the same time, Mœbius draws conceptual designs for Ridley Scott's Alien, followed by the storyboards for Time Masters by René Laloux, and then Tronfor Walt Disney Studios. 1984: Mœbius logically then migrates to the US and Hollywood. He offers himself some recreation, however, famously taking his stab at the US comics scene, drawing an episode of the Silver Surfer, Stan Lee's famous hero. All the while, he continues collaborating with filmmakers, notably James Cameron on The Abyss and Ron Howard on Willow. 1992: Pairing up with Jodorowsky once again, they come up with the three-part story Madwoman of the Sacred Heart. 1994: Again with Jodorowsky, he illustrates a long esoteric poem, pairing the words with erotic illustrations only he could pull off. This becomes Angel Claws. 1997: L'Homme du Ciguri, the follow-up to Le Garage Hermétique, is released. 2000: Release of the first volume of After the Incal, sequel toThe Incal. 2004: Release of Beautiful life from publisher Zampano and written by Stéphane Cattanéo. It is the story of an individual who happily runs toward his end. 2004/2005: Paris hosts the Mœbius -Miyazaki exposition where for the first time the two major artists share their personal collection of drawings. 2005: Release of Icare, drawn by Taniguchi and published by Kana, an affiliate of French publisher Dargaud. In this story, Tokyo is the target of terrorist attacks performed by test tube men. Amid this setting arrives an extraordinary child who soon proves capable of flying. The scientific world is immediately on guard and the child, baptized Icare, is quickly isolated under the guise of being a defense secret. 2006: After Arzach and Major Fatal, les Humanoïdes Associés continue their roll out of new editions of the Mœbius oeuvre by releasing all his major works: L'Homme est-il bon? Cauchemar Blanc , Le Garage hermétique, Les vacances du Major and The Incal. 2007: Mœbius collaborates with legendary BD writer Jean Van Hamme on the cult series XIII, drawing its 18th volume, entitled The Irish Version. 2008: Jean Giraud participates to the production of a new section of the Futuroscope, a French theme park based upon multimedia, cinematographic and audio-visual techniques, inspired by his book The Airtight Garage. He releases Arzak, l'arpenteur and Les Carnets Major, as well as Faune de Mars, between 2010 and 2011 at his own Mœbius Productions. From October 2010 to Mars 2011, Paris's Fondation Cartier plays host to a huge and stunning Mœbius art show titled "Mœbius Transe forme." 2012: Passing of Jean Giraud, genius and ever-evolving artist who continually and throughout his career sought to search, explore, and innovate.

Beb Deum, real name Bertrand Demey, was born in 1960. After attending the École des Arts Appliqués, Beb Deum made his debut in Metal Hurlant where he published some remarkable and strange short stories. In 1987, he published his first book, a collection of stories drawn for the same Métal Hurlant, with Beb Deum choosing a definitive title: L'Album. Scriptwriter Jean-Pierre Dionnet took him under his wing for Région étrangère, a baroque, blood-soaked space-opera. In 1993, with Surgir de l'onde, entrer dans l'ombre, Beb Deum and Marie-Ange Guillaume settled their accounts with Creation. Three years later, the author published La Théorie des Dominos in Japan (published in France the following year). Like a dozen other European artists, Beb Deum was chosen by Kodansha, one of Japan's major publishers, to give the manga industry an exotic makeover.

Born in 1947, Georges Bess made a name for himself, sometimes under pseudonyms (Tideli, Nisseman), in Scandinavia, where he went into exile at the age of twenty-three, and in the United States. Playing the role of luxury replacement for Sweden's top designers, he developed, as he puts it, a "mercenary" hand, capable of surpassing his role models in every style. Thanks to this multi-faceted technique, he contributed to the Scandinavian version of Mad. From 1977 to 1987, Bess drew the stories of the Phantom, a famous masked hero battling the forces of evil deep in a strange Bengal jungle. In 1987, he returned to Paris, where he met Alexandro Jodorowsky, who asked him to illustrate the story of Gabriel Marpa, the White Lama. The first volume of the series won the Grand Prix RTL de la bande dessinée. Subsequently, Bess and Jodorowsky created a children's story, Les Jumeaux magiques, for the Journal de Mickey. In 1990, Bess and Jodorowsky permanently compromised James Bond's reputation, transforming him for two albums into an explosive, sex-obsessed android in Anibal 5. With Juan Solo, Bess and Jo…