The French comic book artist and designer Jean Giraud, better known under his professional name of Moebius, has died in Paris after a long illness. He was 74.
As a comic book creator, Moebius was highly influential on artists around the world, even if his work did not have the same high profile that it did in Europe. In 1975, he was one of the founders of the anthology series Metal Hurlant, which was imported to the United States under the title Heavy Metal. The artist’s “Arzach” stories in the comic were the inspiration for the Taarna segment of the 1981 Heavy Metal film. His western hero Blueberry was also adapted into a French film in 2004.
Beyond his comics work, Moebius did design work for a number of films including Alien, Tron, Masters Of The Universe, Willow, The Abyss and The Fifth Element. George Lucas picked his design for the Imperial Probe Droid for The Empire Strikes Back and his artwork for the Dan O’Bannon short story comic “The Long Tomorrow” was one of the key visual references for Blade Runner. He also worked on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s never produced film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic novel Dune.
