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Week Nine: The Wide World of Comics

This topic has special interest to me, because of the particularly nostalgic and poignant time in my life when I discovered people like Moebius and Jodorowsky. I was assigned to do six months in the Beale Air Force base Honor guard, when in my off time I stumbled across a torrent with the entire Jean Giraud archive. Far up north in the foothills of Tahoe, for that entire green and rainy California spring, in between flag folding ceremonies and funerary rifle firing - I was absolutely immersed.

There are many incredible things about the work of Jean Giraud; his soft ethereal colors, his borderline mystic line quality and geometrically grounded spirituality, his philosophy on art, his humor, its really hard to pick one aspect of his work to rave about. Ultimately his incredibly detailed and sometimes delicate draftsmanship, mixed with his use of both silent and worded storytelling makes for a fantastically engrossing experience. The only thing more fantastic than being absorbed by on of his stories; was learning about his connection to Jodorowsky, and their adventure trying to create their DUNE, and later The Incal..


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