First Ralph McQuarrie, now the legendary Moebius! I double checked to make sure Syd Mead was still alive since we all know the cliche about death coming in threes.
Many of you are probably going, “Who was this French guy?” You’d likely recognize his work if you saw it, just not as suddenly like HR Giger. I think the easiest reference to go with would be The Fifth Element. When I saw this in theaters, beyond the Paul Gaultier-designed uniforms for the McDonald’s staffers (or MacDo’s in French), I could instantly see Moebius’ fingerprints all over the movie, from the aliens to the gear.
Besides concept art for numerous films (Alien, Dune’s failed attempt in the Seventies and Willow, abandoned due to its “weirdness”), he was more memorable to me with his contributions to comics. I’m not talking about the standard long-underwear stuff published by the big two, the man’s named graced the more adult stuff…Heavy Metal and I think Marvel’s imitator called Epic. Initially, I found his work confusing but in my defense, I was a kid and it was the very early Eighties. Comic books hadn’t found their more consistent, mature voice. When I got more into comics, I could tell which pencillers/inkers he influenced. Art Adams and Geoff Darrow quickly come to mind.
To close my eulogy to Moebius, I want to mention that the heavy hitters in comics often have one or two characters they’re synonymous with. Someone the writer/artist makes the superhero his/her own through stylistic touches. For example, Gil Kane? Green Lantern; Joe Kubert? Sgt. Rock; and Jill Thompson? Death. There are some shared by multiple greats: Batman has Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Jim Aparo, and Marshall Rogers (yes, I do notice a DC bias showing up). Moebius falls into the former group with the Silver Surfer. To me, he was the artist who successfully transformed a goofy concept Stan Lee and/or Jack Kirby probably threw out there to convince West Coast kids they “got” their youth culture (surfing, the Beach Boys); and made the soliloquy-prone herald of Galactus into this trippy, cosmic traveler worth reading/knowing about.
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