Jean Giraud (aka Moebius) has shuffled off this mortal coil at the age of 73 after a battle with cancer.
Over the years, the French artist had a profound influence on the look and feel of numerous sci-fi/fantasy films such as Alien, Tron, Willow, Masters of the Universe, The Abyss and The Fifth Element.
Giraud was also admired by a number of high-profile genre personalities, including George Lucas, James Cameron, Paulo Coelho, Stan Lee, Hayao Miyazaki and Ridley Scott.
“It’s one thing to be talented and work hard enough to put your spirit and soul in your work,” Steven Lisberger, the writer-director of Tron told the Los Angeles Times. “And it’s a totally other thing to have a spirit and soul that is so beautiful and wise that it deserves to be put into art… Giraud was a very rare man, a true master, and his life’s work is a masterpiece.”
Rick Carter, the production designer who won an Oscar for his art direction on the 2009 film “Avatar,” expressed similar sentiments.
“The inspiration I always felt from the art of Moebius was that I believed he truly saw the imagery he depicted and was actually not making it up,” Carter said. ”His imagery appears as if it was sketched from a real-life subconscious world/existence.”
Jean Henri Gaston Giraud was born in May 1938 in the small Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne. Although he lacked professional training, Giraud’s first cowboy adventure tales was published in the Far West magazine by the time he was 18.
“[Artists say[ that I changed their life. Your work is why I became an artist.’ Oh, it makes me happy,” Giraud told the Times back in 2011.
”But you know at same time I have an internal broom to clean it all up. It can be dangerous to believe it. Someone wrote, ‘Moebius is a legendary artist.’ A legend – now I am like a unicorn.”
