Editing Jean Giraud (section)

===Biography===
Throughout his entire career, Jean Giraud gave numerous interviews both in Europe as well as in the United States, but it is the series of interview sessions conducted over the course of four decades by comics journalist [[Numa Sadoul]] that stand out for its all encompassing scope of Giraud's entire career. Sadoul took a particular interest in the artist and followed the career of Giraud closely from the mid-1970s onward until the latter's death in 2012, conducting extensive in-depth interviews with the artist throughout this period of time with approximate two-decade intervals, which resulted in three consecutive, chronologically organized interview books, ''Mister Mœbius et Docteur Gir'' (1976), ''Mœbius: Entretiens avec Numa Sadoul'' (1991), and ''Docteur Mœbius et Mister Gir: Entretiens avec Jean Giraud'' (2015, see ''[[#Sources|below]]'' for bibliographical details on all editions), the latter two being each an edited, updated and expanded version of the previous one &ndash; and each title incidentally, featuring an entirely different selection of art. Excepting parts of the first book in ''SCHTROUMPF: Les cahiers de la BD'' (issue 25, July 1974), none of the later interviews had seen prior magazine publication, be it in part or in whole. The ''SCHTROUMPF'' interview excerpt, was by Giraud poured into a humorous eight-page autobiographical black & white comic (pp.&nbsp;8–16). The comic, entitled "Entretien avec Jean Giraud", or "Mœbius Circa '74" as it is known in English, was however only reprinted in the 2015 edition of Sadoul's book as a preface (but omitted from the 2023 English translation of that edition), and in hindsight a precursor to Giraud's autobiographical ''Inside Mœbius'' comic books. The similarity had not been lost on the artist himself, after he had embarked on the ''Inside Mœbius'' series and realized, "''Merde'', that is exactly like the comic I have done with Numa!"<ref>[[#Sources|Sadoul, 2015, p. 238]]</ref>

Noteworthy were the testimonials Sadoul collected from seminal persons in Giraud's life and career which included among others his mother, first wife Claudine (of these two the only known published ones<ref name=entre/>), his mentor Jijé and many others, as well as the fact that Giraud spoke more freely about the aspects of his life and career (including the more contentious ones, such as his mind-expanding substance use and his extremely strained relationship with the aforementioned Philippe Charlier, which had over time deteriorated into open hatred) than was commonplace in his more generic interviews, or even in his own, hereafter mentioned, autobiography. For editorial reasons, Sadoul omitted some of the outside testimonials from the second edition for his third. In the third installment (2023, pp. 254-255), Giraud also openly discussed his fear of a painful death because of his progressing cancer.

Posthumously published, the 2015 title was fully sanctioned and endorsed by Giraud's widow Isabelle (who provided a foreword &ndash; praising Sadoul for his friendship and tenacity &ndash; family pictures, privately created art and additional details on her husband's last two years of his life) and has therefore become the closest approximation of an "official biography" of the artist when discounting his own ''Inside Moebius'' autobiographical comic ''and'' his precursory text autobiography ''Histoire de mon double''. The latter, published as an unillustrated paperback in 1999 was the "biography written by Giraud on Mœbius & vice versa",<ref>{{cite web|title=Histoire de mon double|url=http://www.bedetheque.com/BD-AUT-Giraud-Moebius-Tome-10-Histoire-de-mon-double-31393.html|work=Bedetheque.com|language=fr}}</ref> but constituted what Sadoul in his 2015 edition has coined a "snapshot in time", aside from the obvious fact that the last phase of the artist's career was not covered. Giraud himself considered his "enhanced" autobiography on which he had worked for a year, a "funny" piece of work, conceding that accuracy was left to be desired as he could not be bothered to correct mistakes made therein, finding "flavor" in the small inaccuracies, and also admitting that he gave his work only a cursory glance afterwards.<ref name="double"/>

Author Sadoul accounted for his work in the introduction of the 2015 edition where he summarized that the interviews for the first edition took three days in March 1974 and in August and September 1975 &ndash; and thus shortly ''before'' Giraud achieved fame in his second "Mœbius" career &ndash; at the artist's home in Fontenay-sous-Bois. Having kept more detailed records, the second edition took in total 19 hours and 45 minutes of interviews conducted between 18 and 21 October 1988 at Sadoul's home in [[Cagnes-sur-Mer]] (for which Giraud and his future wife Isabelle especially traveled from Paris), augmented with an additional two hours at Giraud's home in Paris on 17 August 1989. The third edition accounted for a further 10 hours and 48 minutes worth of interviews, conducted between 15 September 2000 and 28 December 2011, either at Giraud's home in Paris or over the telephone. Sadoul acknowledged that the three series of interview sessions were snapshots in time of Giraud's life and career, causing the artist to occasionally contradict himself in later life &ndash; something Giraud himself actually addressed in a humorous fashion in his ''Inside Moebius'' comics by regularly confronting his older self with his younger versions &ndash;, but chose not to redact or edit such earlier made statements (at most adding short, clarifying editorial annotations), instead transcribing these exactly as made at the time. Sadoul's reasoning was that by doing so, it reflected truthfully the spiritual development the artist had undergone throughout his career.

Despite the worldwide renown Giraud/Mœbius has acquired, Sadoul's biography has until late-2023 only seen two other-language editions, a German 2nd edition, and a Japanese 3rd edition release (also see ''[[#Sources|below]]'' for bibliographic details). It has limited the appeal of the book as none of the three languages are all that easily accessible to the wider readership beyond the three respective language areas alone. Yet, a more universally accessible 3rd edition English-language release had already been solicited by [[Dark Horse Comics|Dark Horse]] as early as 12 May 2020.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.renaud-bray.com/books_product.aspx?id=2967947&def=Dr.+Moebius+and+Mister+Gir%2CMOEBIUS%2C9781506713434|title=Dr. Moebius and Mister Gir|website=renaud-bray.com|language=fr}}</ref> Dark Horse however, kept postponing the release at such a recurring frequency, that fans started to consider the solicitation a bad running gag by Dark Horse and began to wonder if the title would even be released at all. In 2021, after the umpteenth postponement of the release, translator Edward Gauvin, stumbled upon that restarted discussion on the [[Reddit]] newsite, and took it upon himself to clarify the reasons for the continuous release delays. He explained that firstly, regular Dark Horse translator for Mœbius works, [[Diana Schutz]], had been temporarily disabled by a wrist operation, and that it took time to find a replacement. Secondly, a first draft was only delivered by Gauvin in late 2019, but the [[COVID-19 pandemic]] subsequently threw all kinds of monkey wrenches into Dark Horse's release plans. Thirdly, after Gauvin had submitted his final draft in early 2021, he was asked by Dark Horse to compile a glossary of end-notes for the book, explaining the in the interview sessions casually dropped ''bande dessinée'' names and terminology to a US/UK readership, much like Schutz had done for her three-volume ''Inside Moebius'' translations. The substantial extra editorial work required by that late Dark Horse request only served to add to the series of release delays.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Moebius/comments/syntul/comment/i6fd4zp|title=Any updates on Dark Horse's Moebius Library?|website=Reddit.com|date=27 April 2022 }}</ref> The English-language edition of the book was ultimately released on 13 December 2023 after all.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.darkhorse.com/Books/3000-133/Doctor-Moebius-and-Mister-Gir-TPB|title=Doctor Moebius and Mister Gir TPB|website=darkhorse.com}}</ref>

A more traditional first-time biography, titled "Jean Giraud alias Mœbius", by French ''BD'' publicist Christophe Quillien, was shortly afterwards published on 17 May 2024.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.stripspeciaalzaak.be/stripnieuws/biografie-jean-giraud-alias-moebius-mei-2024|title=Biografie Jean Giraud alias Mœbius in mei 2024|website=www.stripspeciaalzaak.be|date=25 April 2024|language=nl}}</ref>