Jean Giraud (Moebius)

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud (also known as Moebius) was a French comics artist, working in the French tradition of bandes dessinées (bandes dessinées is derived from the original description of the comics art form as "drawn strips").
Pioneering cyberpunk author William Gibson said of Giraud's work, The Long Tomorrow:
"So it's entirely fair to say, and I've said it before, that the way Neuromancer, the novel, "looks" was influenced in large part by some of the artwork I saw in Heavy Metal. I assume that this must also be true of John Carpenter's Escape from New York, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and all other artifacts of the style sometimes dubbed 'cyberpunk'. Those French guys, they got their end in early."

The Long Tomorrow also came to the attention of Ridley Scott and was a key visual reference for Blade Runner.


"I consider him more important than Doré," said Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. "He’s a unique talent endowed with an extraordinary visionary imagination that’s constantly renewed and never vulgar. Moebius disturbs and consoles. He has the ability to transport us into unknown worlds where we encounter unsettling characters. My admiration for him is total. I consider him a great artist-- as great as Picasso and Matisse."

To distinguish between work by Giraud and Moebius, Giraud used a brush for his own work and a pen when he signed his work as Moebius.


Giraud died in Paris, on March 10, 2012, at the age of 73.