My thoughts about Jean Giraud's death are hard to express. Many artists, far greater than myself, have written beautifully about the man. It's difficult to think I could even bring anything to the table. I'm a very small fish in a huge sea of overwhelming talent. But, perhaps I just need to write this for myself.
When I was a kid I saw Alien (Is nine to young to see Alien?), and Tron far before I ever knew of Moebius - but the seed had been planted. Around the same time, I'd seen Heavy Metal on the shelves of Walden Books (back when they didn't care, or accidentally displayed them at the eye level of kids), and thumbed through a few issues while my Mom wasn't looking. There was excitement on those pages. Untapped worlds. Unbridled imaginations. Spaceships. Boobs.
A few years later, I traded a couple of albums on cassette tape to a schoolmate for a few issues of Heavy Metal. That was my first pure taste of Moebius. I was hooked as a hooked thing could be. At the end of high school, I might have had six issues in total. My hometown was lousy for comics exposure, so it wasn't until college that I scraped together just enough to get Metallic Memories and Chaos at a shop across from campus. I still have those very same issues of Heavy Metal, and damned near the entire run from '77 to '05.
Look, I think it's fairly obvious to see what Moebius's influence has had on my artwork. Just hit any old random page on this blog. I am in debt to him. His blood is in my veins, and I'm sure thousands of people feel the same. I am sad that he is gone. I always thought he would make comics into his late 90's and still manage to make all of us look like fools. I'm sad that won't happen. However, I am truly grateful and overjoyed of the legacy of art he has left. Thousands upon thousands of spectacular images are available for anyone to enjoy, and be inspired by. To be of that calibre is something to aspire to.
This image was done when I was 24.
The last two, at 39.
Yeah, he made an impression.
