58 Facts About Jean Giraud

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud was a French artist, cartoonist and writer who worked in the Franco-Belgian bandes dessinees tradition.

Jean Giraud collaborated with avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky for an unproduced adaptation of Dune and the comic book series The Incal.

Jean Giraud was born in Nogent-sur-Marne, Val-de-Marne, in the suburbs of Paris, on 8 May 1938, as the only child to Raymond Giraud, an insurance agent, and Pauline Vinchon, who had worked at the agency.

An introverted child at first, young Jean Giraud found solace after World War II in a small theater, located on a corner in the street where his mother lived, which concurrently provided an escape from the dreary atmosphere in postwar reconstruction-era France.

At 18, Jean Giraud was drawing his own humorous, Morris-inspired, Western comic two-page shorts, Frank et Jeremie, for the magazine Far West, his first freelance commercial sales.

Magazine editor Marijac thought young Jean Giraud was gifted with a knack for humorous comics, but none whatsoever for realistically drawn comics, and advised him to continue in the vein of "Frank et Jeremie".

For example, two of the books Jean Giraud illustrated for Fleurus, were co-illustrated with Guy Mouminoux, another name of some future renown in the Franco-Belgian comic world, and Jean Giraud's work can only be identified, because he signed his work, whereas Mouminoux did not sign his.

Shortly before he entered military service, Jean Giraud visited his idol at his home for the first time with Mezieres and Mallet, followed by a few visits on his own to see the master at work for himself.

Jije was then one of the leading comic artists in Europe and known for his gracious tendency to voluntarily act as a mentor for young, aspiring comic artists, of whom Jean Giraud was only one, going even as far as opening up his family home in Champrosay for days on end for these youngsters, which, again, included Jean Giraud.

For Jije, Jean Giraud created several other shorts and illustrations for the short-lived magazine Bonux-Boy, his first comic work after military service, and his penultimate one before embarking on Blueberry.

Actually, Jije had intended his promising pupil for the entirety of the story art, but the still-inexperienced Jean Giraud, who was used to working under the relaxed conditions at Fleurus, found himself overwhelmed by the strict time schedules that production for a periodical demanded.

Jean Giraud was so eager to return to the project during a stopover from the United States while the project was in hiatus, that he greatly accelerated the work on the "Angel Face" outing of Blueberry he was working on at the time, shearing off weeks from its originally intended completion.

Jean Giraud returned to the Blueberry series in 1979 with "Nez Casse" as a free-lancer.

Later that year however, the long-running disagreement Charlier and Jean Giraud had with their publishing house Dargaud, the publisher of Pilote, over the residuals from Blueberry came to a head.

Magazine editor-in-chief Cavanna was loath to let Jean Giraud go, not understanding why Jean Giraud would want to waste his talents on a "kiddy comic".

Subsequently, the pseudonym went unused for a decade, that is for comics at least, as Jean Giraud continued its use for side-projects as illustrator.

Later that year, after Dune was permanently canceled with him definitively returning to France, Giraud became one of the founding members of the comics art group and publishing house "Les Humanoides Associes", together with fellow comic artists Jean-Pierre Dionnet, Philippe Druillet and financial director Bernard Farkas.

Fortunately for his fans, Jean Giraud did not act upon his impulse as history has shown, though he did take action to escape the hectic Parisian comic scene in 1980 by moving himself and his family as far away from Paris as possible in France, and relocated to the small city of Pau at the foothills of the Pyrenees.

Concurrently collaborating on "La nuit de l'etoile" was young artist Marc Bati, residing at the commune at the time, and for whom Jean Giraud afterwards wrote the comic series Altor, while in the US.

Jean Giraud's stay at the commune though, had practical implications on his personal life; Giraud gave up eating meat, smoking, coffee, alcohol and, for the time being, the use of mind-expanding substances, adhering to his newfound abstinence for the most part for the remainder of his life.

In late summer 1989, Jean Giraud returned to France, definitively as it turned out, though that was initially not his intent.

Jean Giraud's family had already returned to France earlier, as his children wanted to start their college education in their native county and wife Claudine had accompanied them to set up home in Paris.

Additionally, Jean Giraud had met Isabelle Champeval during a book signing in Venice, Italy in February 1984, and entered into a relationship with her in 1987, which resulted in the birth of second son Raphael in 1989.

The company, in both publishing and art gallery iterations, is as of 2023 still being run by Isabelle Jean Giraud who had taken over the function of publishing editor and co-ownership from Claudine, after the latter's marriage with Jean Giraud was dissolved in 1994, and her sister Claire.

The first thing Giraud did creatively upon his return was to finish up on the Blueberry album "Arizona Love" on his own after his longtime writing partner Jean-Michel Charlier had died on 10 July 1989.

Jean Giraud stated that the series had lost its "father", and that the "mother needed time to mourn".

The contribution was a professional courtesy to the series' artist, Vance, who had previously provided the artwork for the first two titles in the by Jean Giraud written Marshall Blueberry spin-off series.

Late in life, Jean Giraud decided to revive his seminal Arzak character in an elaborate new adventure series; the first volume of a planned trilogy, Arzak l'arpenteur, appeared in 2010.

The subsequent year Jean Giraud followed up in the same vein as the Coelho novel, with his cover and interior illustrations for a French 1995 reprint of "Ballades" from the French medieval poet Francois Villon.

Jean Giraud was in mid-1990s approached by two video game developers to provide the box cover art for the video games that were released in 1995; the first one concerned the Fade to Black video game developed by the US Delphine Software International, whereas the second one concerned Panzer Dragoon video game developed by the Japanese Sega Corporation.

In 1999, Jean Giraud's illustrations appeared in a soft cover edition of Dante Alighieri's La Divina Commedia, published by the Nuages Gallery in Milan.

Jean Giraud acknowledged this influence directly, praising Dore's work and remarking how he sometimes literally used tracing paper to sketch compositions.

Jean Giraud wrote the "Story Notes" editorials for the American Epic publications, providing background information on his work contained therein.

Jean Giraud was grateful for Druillet pushing him as he found that he reveled in his first Hollywood experience.

Nonetheless, his designs for the Nostromo crew attire, and their spacesuits in particular, were almost one-on-one adopted by Scott and appearing onscreen as designed, resulting in what Jean Giraud had coined "two weeks of work and ten years of fallout in media and advertising".

Scott was taken with Jean Giraud's art, having cited "The Long Tomorrow" as an influence on his second major movie Blade Runner of 1982, and invited him again for both this, and his subsequent third major movie Legend of 1985, which Jean Giraud had to decline in both cases for, again, obligations elsewhere.

Jean Giraud especially regretted not having been able to work on the latter movie, having deemed it "very good", and it was still on his mind as late as 2010, as he directly referred to the movie when he made his "unicorn" statement regarding his legacy, quoted below.

The heavily "Arzach"-inspired last, "Taarna", section of the movie, has led to the persistent misconception, especially held in the United States, that Jean Giraud had provided characters and situations for the segment, albeit uncredited.

Outside his actual involvement with motion pictures, Jean Giraud was in this period of time occasionally commissioned to create poster art for, predominantly European, movies.

Jean Giraud started at the crack of dawn, and only went home in the evening, after the whole team had stopped working.

Moebius Production served as a production company, with Isabelle Jean Giraud serving as one of its producers.

Two years after he had provided box cover art for two video games, Jean Giraud was approached for more substantial video game contributions when developer Arxel Tribe asked Jean Giraud to become a concept designer for their 1997 Pilgrim: Faith as a Weapon game they had in development.

Seven years later the Japanese 2004 video game Seven Samurai 20XX was released for which Jean Giraud was asked to provide the character concept designs.

Essentially, the work he had been asked to perform for these two video games, did not differ that much from the movie work Jean Giraud had done since the 1979 movie Alien in a near-similar function.

In 1988 Jean Giraud was chosen, among 11 other winners of the prestigious Grand Prix of the Angouleme Festival, to illustrate a postage stamp set issued on the theme of communication.

Jean Giraud's working methods were various and adaptable ranging from etchings, white and black illustrations, to work in colour of the ligne claire genre and water colours.

Jean Giraud often starts with glasses on to have a global perspective then later continues without glasses.

Jean Giraud died in Montrouge, on 10 March 2012, aged 73, after a long battle with cancer.

Jean Giraud left his estate to his second wife Isabelle and his four children.

Long before his death Jean Giraud had already been coined "the most influential bandes dessinees artist after Herge" by several academic comic scholars, and many artists from around the world have cited him as a major influence on their work.

Jean Giraud is a master draftsman, a superb artist, and more: his vision is original and strong.

Jean Giraud has the ability to transport us into unknown worlds where we encounter unsettling characters.

Jean Giraud was an incredible producer, he said he wanted to show what eyes do not always see.

The Elsewhere Prince While Jean Giraud was only the co-writer of this US standard comic book mini series, which took place in "The Airtight Garage" universe, there was additional art from him featured in short accompanying editorials, as well as one to two page short stories.

The Halo Graphic Novel Comprising four chapters, Jean Giraud provided the 16-page art for chapter 4, "Second Sunrise over New Mombasa".

The eight-page editorials in each are dedicated to the production design art Jean Giraud had provided for the movie.

The Metabarons Jean Giraud had created one 8-page short story "Au coeur de l'inviolable meta bunker" in 1989, focusing on one of the major secondary characters from the Incal saga, The Metabaron, whose ancestry later received its own The Metabarons spin-off series.

Jean Giraud provided the promotional poster art for this outing, but not the cover.