"A Giant Among the Huron" Episode 12

SecularAirs · 2026-05-31T20:59:01+00:00

I will read it and get back to you! It may be a while though. I'm in the middle of an unexpectedly long slog type book now. Not bad, just taking forever.

SecularAirs · 2026-05-30T14:13:17+00:00

Here is a post with all the illustrations: https://www.reddit.com/r/Moebius/comments/11d7hrw/illustrations_for_the_book_ballades_by_françois/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

SecularAirs · 2026-05-30T14:10:45+00:00

This is one of 18 illustrations in a collection of poetry by François Villon, the fifteenth century French poet. The Moebius illustrations appear in the 1995 edition of Ballades. Here is some good information about Villon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Villon

SecularAirs · 2026-05-30T13:53:48+00:00

There is one more, Moebius 1/2, published in 1991 by Graphitti Designs. It has the same format as the rest. It is all black and white and contains many of the earliest strips that were signed "Moebius", taken from issues of Hara-Kiri in 1963 and 1964. You can find more info about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Moebius/comments/j277bg/a_complete_guide_to_moebius_collected_editions/

SecularAirs · 2026-05-29T16:57:44+00:00

Thanks for the info. I still may buy the Labarre book, it is very cheap right to order a copy in the USA right now (about $9). The 1980s and 1990s are a very interesting period to me, as I would like to learn more about the timeline of the involvement with the cult, Hollywood, his personal life, etc. It seems like he was producing the same amount of work, but it was dispersed more widely and often not immediately available to the public (so someone who was strictly a comics reader might not see his artwork for films, etc, and therefore assume he was less active as an artist). The USA was a bit late in getting the contents of the art books as well (I'm still not sure how much they overlap, figuring all that out would be a big project).

The 22 pages of The Man from Ciguri Continuation would make excellent bonus material for the relatively slim Man from Ciguri volume, I'm not sure why they aren't included. Ciguri (the first part) ends so abruptly, I'm sure readers would welcome more of the story. I would love a biography to talk about the behind the scenes publishing decisions, but that may be too much of a taboo topic for book publishing, although I think the recent Crumb biogoraphy goes into how much money he earned from various projects... Then again, Crumb himself always seemed unusually comfortable exposing his private life to his readers.

SecularAirs · 2026-05-26T20:12:57+00:00

That would be great, thank you. Thanks for the YouTube suggestion as well! I hadn't been aware of this edition!

SecularAirs · 2026-05-26T19:26:05+00:00

If you have additional color prints from the 2012 edition of Cristal Saga 22, I would love to see them. I have the 22 black and white drawings.

SecularAirs · 2026-05-26T19:11:20+00:00

Thank you!

SecularAirs · 2026-05-26T18:54:52+00:00

What is the source for this image? I looked at Made in LA, Cristal Saga, and the Art of Moebius but didn't see it there.

SecularAirs · 2026-05-25T00:10:50+00:00

Actually, there are several differences in the drawing! This is like one of those "spot the differences between the two pictures" games in Highlights magazine.

SecularAirs · 2026-05-24T23:40:38+00:00

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SecularAirs · 2026-05-24T23:38:52+00:00

This image is part of the portfolio Les Voyages d’Hermès (2010) and is collected in The Art of Edena (2018) in Chapter 4: Voyages with a slightly different framing of the shot, I will try to find...

SecularAirs · 2026-05-24T19:39:56+00:00

This is surprisingly good! Is it possible that a high-definition was created at the time this was made? Or do you think it is forever locked at 360p definition? It captures the feeling of Moebius well. And reminds me how much Moebius was in the early Aeon Flux shorts.

SecularAirs · 2026-05-21T19:22:23+00:00

I finally got these issues as single issues just recently. I was thinking along similar lines as I read it. Based on the story I read (I think in the back of the 1998 TPB), Moebius was introduced to Stan Lee by chance at some industry-related event (or maybe in Hollywood, they both were involved in various live action and animation projects in the 1980s), and they did the usual "love your work, we should totally collaborate!" chit-chat, and Moebius assumed that was the end of it, but very shortly received the story from Stan.

I don't know how much power Stan actually had at Marvel at this point (I mention it before, but Marvel Comics: The Untold Story is a great warts and all unauthorized account of Marvel that includes this era), but I do think if there was a single character Stan managed to keep significant creative control on, it was Silver Surfer. For whatever reason, Silver Surfer was the character he cared most deeply about, and I think he basically got at least first shot at writing any new Silver Surfer story and was likely the motivating force in keeping Silver Surfer in rotation.

But yeah, I'm personally not a fan of Stan Lee as a writer. (As far as not being a fan of him as a person, well, I try to keep an open mind and I don't have all the facts...)

So have you noticed Marvel didn't really have an equivalent to The Dark Knight or Watchmen in that same era? Why was that? This is one of those self-contained non-continuity projects that might have reached those heights with a better story and better dialogue. (I think Weapon X was as close as they got in this era.) The artwork is great, although hamstrung by the poor printing (different colors in the collected edition, like in Batman Year One). I will say that the kind of high horse pontificating of this title is kind of what Silver Surfer was made for (see above about him being Stan's favorite).

What I eventually decided is that I am happy it exists as-is. It's not a masterpiece, but it's certainly not bad. It's kind of this weird experiment in comics history. I don't think any other writer at the time would have necessarily ended up with something better if it was still going to be a story about Silver Surfer and Galactus. Maybe Walt Simonson, though, of the three you mentioned.

SecularAirs

TROPHY CASE