Art of Moebius

I was lucky to have picked this up comparitively cheap, if I had paid what this is going for lately I would have been disappointed. Thats not a critique of Moebius’ artwork, I’m a huge fan but I found the selection of his work and the way it was presented unsatisfying. I was hoping for lots of full page spreads where I could get lost in the linework of some of his greatest pieces. Flipping through the book now I can say I get that less than a handfull of times. The cover image is probably the one I enjoy most and the kind of image I was hoping for more of. What you get instead are a lot of works which are quite painterly if not entirely done in paint, sketchy or preliminary or (and I hate to say it) dated. It kind of feels like through trying to give an insight into his process and the breadth of his work that they almost exactly detour around his genius. In regards to being dated, while I think Moebius can be timeless (and placeless) it should be no surprise that this collection feels dated given that it was printed 24 years ago at the time I write this.
Another issue is the print quality. For a book on art it suffers from registration issues quite often, one picture here even has the parts of the page where the colours aligned perfectly while other parts of the image appear to have the colours offset at least 2mm. As a result its mainly the images without colour that appear as sharp as they should.
This is printed by Epic and looks to belong to the family of books that they printed such as Moebius 4, the long tomorrow and other science fiction stories, as it is the same size and stock. Despite one review that says it presents comic art without the word baloons this is more about standalone pieces and when a spread from a comic is shown (only a couple) the word baloons are present. The forward by Lucas is less than 100 words but there is a decent foreward by Preiss and introduction by Lofficier which together span 6 pages and which give a good insight into moebius and his carrer.
I just wanted to give some details about a book which is demanding extreme prices but which has very little information about it available. I feel strongly about Moebius despite the negative stance I take in this review; for me his genius is readily visible in his work and I’d recommend investing in some of his works rather than this compilation. Yes I mean the Airtight Garage, Arzach, the Aedena cycle, the Incal (vast and easily available) Madwoman of the Sacred Heart and… Blueberry.
I hope this was of some use
Graham

Sorry for my english…
This for sure is not the best book on Moebius work as illustrator but i think it’s the best one concieved for the english speaking market (except the beautiful “Fusion” by Epic).
There’s a lot of books devoted to Moebius illustration in French and other european languages, starting from 1979.
Let’s see the french titles:

-“Poemes” (simply titled Moebius a.k.a. Poems or 30×30 due to its size)
-“La Memoire du Futur” (the memory of future)
-“Venise Celeste” (should i translate it “Sky Venice” or “Heavenly Venice”? or Pale Blue Venice…)
-“La Complainte de L’Homme Programme”
-“Le Désintégré Réintégré” (this and the previous being an updated and expandet to 2 volumes version of the previous 1979 “Poemes”)
-“Starwatcher” (an expanded 1986 update to 1983 “Memoire”)
-“Made in LA”
-“Fusion”
-“Chaos”
-“Croniques Metalliques” (this one together with Chaos expanding more and more “Poemes” and its’ updates with many unpublished works)
-“40 days in the Desert B”
-“La Faune de Mars”
+ some ultra-rare carnets in limited editions (sketches, doddles, etc.)
+ some beautiful expositions catalogues from France, Italy, etc. the best ones being:
-“Dr Gir et Monsieur Moebius” (first big personal exposition by Moebius held in Siena, Italy, in 1983)
-“Infinito” (1998 exposition in Italy – Palermo, Venezia, Milano – lots of unpublished works on this catalogue)
And again about a dozen of books illustrated by Moebius (Dante Alighieri, Francois Villon, Paulo Coelho, etc.)
and OK, something else that i sure forgot…

Anyway, what’s interesting in this book is that it was (in 1989) the first serious introduction to the US market to Moebius as illustrator. OK, you had Heavy Metal magazine with the short stories from the 70’s, the Incal, the Garage, etc.
But this book was the first Anthology of llustrations. And yes, there’s stuff from the mid 70’s until the late 80’s (obviously, being the first anthology for the USA). And probably something looking dated for someone (not IMHO, since Moebius it’s simply eternal).
And one more thing peculiar in this book is the author’s comment to almost any image printed within. He speaks about technique, or just the mood of that moment or that period or a short explanation behind that image and the reason it was done. That is the most interesting part, since all of the previous books i listed lack this written part.
Having about 200 Moebius books in different languages i have almost all these images printed on other books too(in fact this is a mix of mainly “Starwatcher”‘s parts with other parts from “Memoire”, “Made in LA” plus some private carnet).
But i’ll keep my copy of this one mainly for Moebius written part.
I bought this back in 1990 and i’m happy with it and with its price at that time.
Of course its price (especially on Amazon) it’s impossible to afford now. But 42 $ was a good price.
For better anthologies of illustrations by Moebius in english try “Fusion” or “Virtual Meltdown”.
The first is oriented to mid 90’s works, the second title comprehends “Chaos” and “Metallic Memories” (with works starting from 1974 to 1991 circa).
But prices for these books are not cheaper.

Jean Giraud, also known as Moebius, was an amazingly talented French artist with a real eye for composition and color. His scenes would almost glow like a stained glass window. He lived from 1938-2012.

This book, published in 1989, features a range of his artistry. For many of the paintings, you get details from Giraud himself about what drew him to create that scene or his approaches to making art.

Highly recommended.