Editing Jean Giraud (section)

====''Pilote'' (1963–1974)====
In October 1963, Giraud and writer [[Jean-Michel Charlier]] started the comic strip ''Fort Navajo'' for the Charlier-co-founded ''Pilote'' magazine, issue 210.<ref>It was the first outing of the series that has seen the very first known English-language publication of Giraud art as the similarly named "Fort Navajo" in the British weekly comic magazine ''[[Valiant (comics)|Valiant]]'' ([https://comicvine.gamespot.com/valiant/4050-33913/object-appearances/4005-28524/ ComicVine]; [[IPC Magazines]]), starting its edited and truncated black & white run in issue 15 May 1965 through issue 21 August 1965, fifteen issues in total. Still, excepting the 1968 history book ''[[#Various|Buffalo Bill, Scout and Frontiersman]]'', it would take until 1977 with the advent of ''[[Heavy Metal (magazine)|Heavy Metal]]'' and the first four British ''Blueberry'' books by Methuen, for additional work to see English publication.</ref> At this time the affinity between the styles of Giraud and Jijé (who in effect had been Charlier's first choice for the series, but who was reverted to Giraud by Jijé) was so close that Jijé penciled several pages for the series when Giraud went [[AWOL]]. In effect, when "Fort Navajo" started its run, ''Pilote'' received angry letters, accusing Giraud of [[plagiarism]], which was however foreseen by Jijé and Giraud. Shirking off the accusations, Jijé encouraged his former pupil to stay the course instead, thereby propping up his self-confidence.<ref name="Jije"/> The first time Jijé had to fill in for Giraud, was during the production of the second story, "Thunder in the West" (1964), when the still inexperienced Giraud, buckling under the stress of having to produce a strictly scheduled magazine serial, suffered from a nervous breakdown, with Jijé taking on plates 28–36.<ref>Brouard, Jean-Yves (2004). [http://www.jmcharlier.com/blueberry1.php#1 "Blueberry"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160519205013/http://www.jmcharlier.com/blueberry1.php#1 |date=19 May 2016 }}, jmcharlier.com {{in lang|fr}}</ref> The second time occurred one year later, during the production of "Mission to Mexico (The Lost Rider)", when Giraud unexpectedly packed up and left to travel the United States,<ref>Close friend Mézières, like Giraud passionate about Westerns and the Far West, took it up a notch, when he too left at about the same time for the United States, actually working as a [[cowboy]] for two years, albeit not in the South-West, but rather in the North-West.</ref> and, again, Mexico; yet again former mentor Jijé came to the rescue by penciling plates 17–38.<ref>[[:fr:Gilles Ratier|Ratier, Gilles]] (27 March 2012). [http://bdzoom.com/47677/patrimoine/pour-se-souvenir-de-jean-giraud%E2%80%A6/ "Pour se souvenir de Jean Giraud (alias Gir ou Moebius)..."], BDzoom.com {{in lang|fr}}</ref><ref name="LofficierPast">Jean-Marc Lofficier. 1989. "The Past Master", in Moebius 5: Blueberry. Graphitti designs.</ref> While the art style of both artists had been nearly indistinguishable from each other in "Thunder in the West", after Giraud resumed work on plate 39 of "Mission to Mexico", a clearly noticeable style breach was now observable, indicating that Giraud was now well on his way to develop his own signature style, eventually surpassing that of his former teacher Jijé, who, impressed by his former pupil's achievements, has later coined him the "[[Rimbaud]] de la BD".<ref name="Jije"/>

[[File:Blueberry Giraud.png|right|thumb|{{center|[[Blueberry (comics)|Blueberry]], created by Giraud and writer Jean-Michel Charlier. Within the series, he turned from the classic Western comic to a grittier realism}}<!-- the specific image should be placed in time and transformation -->]]
The Lieutenant Blueberry character, whose facial features were based on those of the actor [[Jean-Paul Belmondo]], was created in 1963 by Charlier (scenario) and Giraud (drawings) for ''Pilote.''<ref name="Booker69"/><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20101208193542/http://www.dargaud.com/blueberry,209/ Dargaud archive: "C'est en 1963 qu'est créé ce {{Not a typo|personnage}} pour PILOTE par Charlier et Giraud."]</ref> While the ''Fort Navajo'' series had originally been intended as an ensemble narrative, it quickly gravitated towards having Blueberry as its central figure. His featured adventures, in what was later called the ''Blueberry'' series, may be Giraud's best known work in native France and the rest of Europe, before later collaborations with [[Alejandro Jodorowsky]]. The early Blueberry comics used a simple line drawing style similar to that of Jijé, and standard Western themes and imagery (specifically, those of [[John Ford]]'s [[US Cavalry]] Western trilogy, with [[Howard Hawk]]'s 1959 ''[[Rio Bravo (film)|Rio Bravo]]'' thrown in for good measure for the sixth, one-shot title "The Man with the Silver Star"), but gradually Giraud developed a darker and grittier style inspired by, firstly the 1970 Westerns ''[[Soldier Blue]]'' and ''[[Little Big Man (film)|Little Big Man]]'' (for the "Iron Horse" story-arc), and subsequently by the [[Spaghetti Western]]s of [[Sergio Leone]] and the dark realism of [[Sam Peckinpah]] in particular (for the "Lost Goldmine" story-arc and beyond).<ref>Booker Keith M. 201. "Western Comics" in Encyclopedia of comic books and graphic novels, Volume 2. ABC-CLIO. p. 691</ref> With the fifth album, "The Trail of the Navajos", Giraud established his own style, and after both editorial control and censorship laws were loosened in the wake of the [[May 1968 events in France|May 1968 social upheaval]] in France &ndash; the former in no small part due to the revolt key comic artists, Giraud chief among them, staged a short time thereafter in the editorial offices of [[Dargaud]], the publisher of ''Pilote'', demanding and ultimately receiving more creative freedom from editor-in-chief [[René Goscinny]]{{efn|name="pilote"|"On his part in the uprising at ''Pilote'' Giraud said in 1974, 'It was shit, absolute shit ... ! I got ulcers at the publisher, they behaved horribly. They are all &ndash; and I weigh my words carefully &ndash; pigs and assholes. The way they treated their artists &ndash; who provided them with their bread and butter in the first place &ndash; was despicable, inexcusable. There was no social insurance, no retirement plans, etc. I know people who wound up in unbearable circumstances, who were fired and ended up in dire straits ... It was not a particularly bright thing to do on the publisher's part, they should have nurtured their stable of artists instead, if only for strategic reasons. In May '68 we, together with the union, convened a meeting to which we invited the responsible editors. But it was only Goscinny who showed up. There he stood, entirely alone, before an agitated mob who went after him, instead of conducting a dialog, discussing the problems. I was one of them, and ripped into him mercilessly. He was previously led to believe in private, that we all could come to some sort of arrangement together, and now he had to take all this abuse. There were even some guys who called him names and threatened him. Goscinny really found himself in an awful situation. He took it very hard, and I can not blame him, it was simply unjustified. I believe that he has never been able to put it behind him ... We demanded answers, proposals, improvements from him. But you cannot expect that from a man like Goscinny: Every attack hurt him deeply, had him choking on it, had him freeze ... Ever since, Goscinny distrusted his co-workers, especially me, because I was the only representative of the ''Pilote'' team, whose interests I represented.'"<ref name="charlier"/>}} &ndash; the strip became more explicitly adult, and also adopted a thematically wider range.<ref name="Screech2005">Screech, Matthew. 2005. "A challenge to Convention: Jean Giraud/Gir/Moebius" Chapter 4 in ''Masters of the ninth art: bandes dessinées and Franco-Belgian identity''. Liverpool University Press. pp 95 – 128</ref><ref name="LofficierPast"/> The first ''Blueberry'' album penciled by Giraud after he had begun publishing science fiction as Mœbius, "Nez Cassé" ("Broken Nose"), was much more experimental than his previous Western work.<ref name="LofficierPast"/> While the editorial revolt at Dargaud had effectively become the starting point of the emancipation of the French comic world,<ref name="morales">{{cite news | url= http://www.causeur.fr/pilote-goscinny-mai-68-31599.html | title= La BD fait sa révolution / Comics make their revolution | work= Causeur.fr | first= Thomas | last= Morales | date= 22 February 2015 | access-date= 27 May 2017 | language= fr | archive-date= 9 May 2017 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170509090656/http://www.causeur.fr/pilote-goscinny-mai-68-31599.html | url-status= live | df= dmy-all }}</ref> Giraud admitted that it also had caused a severe breach in his hitherto warm relationship with the conservative Goscinny, which never fully mended.<ref>[[#Sources|Svane, 2003, p. 43]]</ref>

Giraud left the series and publisher in 1974, partly because he was tired of the publication pressure he was under in order to produce the series, partly because of an emerging royalties conflict, but ''mostly'' because he wanted further explore and develop his "Mœbius" alter ego, in particular because Jodorowsky, who was impressed by the graphic qualities of ''Blueberry'', had already invited him to Los Angeles to start production design on his ''[[Dune (novel)#Early stalled attempts|Dune]]'' movie project, and which constituted the first Jodorowsky/Mœbius collaboration. Giraud was so eager to return to the project during a stopover from the United States while the project was in hiatus, that he greatly accelerated the work on the "Angel Face" outing of ''Blueberry'' he was working on at the time, shearing off weeks from its originally intended completion.<ref name ="bree24">[[#Sources|de Bree, 1982, p. 24]]</ref> The project fell through though, and after he had returned definitely to France later that year, he started to produce comic work under this pseudonym that was published in the magazine he co-founded, ''[[Métal Hurlant]]'', which started its run in December 1974 and revolutionized the Franco-Belgian comic world in the process.

It was Jodorowsky who introduced Giraud to the writings of [[Carlos Castaneda]], who had written a series of books that describe his training in [[shamanism]], particularly with a group whose lineage descended from the [[Toltecs]]. The books, narrated in the first person, related his experiences under the tutelage of a [[Yaqui]] "Man of Knowledge" named Don Juan Matus. Castaneda's writings made a deep and everlasting impression on Giraud, already open to Native-Mexican folk culture due to his three previous extended trips to the country (he had visited the country a third time in 1972<ref>[[#Sources|de Bree, 1982, pp. 22-24]]</ref>), and it did influence his art as "Mœbius", particularly in regard to dream sequences, though he was not quite able to work in such influences in his mainstream ''Blueberry'' comic.{{efn|name="castaneda"|"On the impression Castaneda had left on him Giraud stated in 1975, "Alejandro gave me these books, and the reading was a great shock, a monumental shock. I was captivated, I discovered another life, a new way of thinking. It of course already landed in fertile ground, but because of Jodorowsky, all the more so. It was his way, by giving me these books, to influence me. One influences each other in daily work, one disagrees with each other. But with these books, he hit the nail on the head, these texts moved me to the core! And I let myself be affected. I find myself in a curious phase ... I believe I'm on a turning point in my life. I experienced something similar when I read "[[Steppenwolf (novel)|Steppenwolf]]" by [[Hermann Hesse]]: I could then accept much of what I suppressed until then, or did not even acknowledge, even if they were fundamental truths in reality. In Castaneda's books, reality is constantly questioned &ndash; and that's shocking, earth-shattering. The same experience is possibly experienced when one reads the early Christian texts, or some other mystic text: Enlightenment can be found through anything, through [[Zen]], [[Nazism]] even. I found it through Castaneda.<ref>[[#Sources|Sadoul, 1991, pp. 39-40]]</ref>}}<ref>[[#Sources|Sadoul, 1991, pp. 39-45]]</ref> Yet, unbeknownst to writer Charlier, he did already sneak in some Castaneda elements in "Nez Cassé".<ref name="burns">{{cite news |last1=Burns |first1=Mal |last2=Friedrich |first2=Mike |title=Gir/Mœbius: Interview met Jean Giraud |date=Winter 1978–1979 |publisher=Uitgeverij De Meulder|location=[[Assen]] |work=Striprofiel |issue=36 |pages=19–21 |language=nl}}; Interviewer Friedrich double-checked with Les Humanoïdes Associés publishing editor [[Jean-Pierre Dionnet]], and was told that a Mœbius album did 40,000-50,000 copies per title at the time, contrary to the 10,000 Giraud claimed.</ref> Castaneda's influence reasserted itself in full in Giraud's later life, having worked in elements more openly after Charlier's death in his 1999 ''Blueberry'' outing "Geronimo l'Apache", and was to become a major element for his ''[[Blueberry (comics)#Sequel: Blueberry 1900|Blueberry 1900]]''-project, which however, had refused to come to fruition for extraneous reasons.<ref name="fueri">{{cite news |last=Fuéri |first=Jean-Pierre |title=Au nom du père, du fils et de St Blueberry |date=November 1999 |publisher=LZ Publications|location=Paris |work=BoDoï |issue=24 |pages=35–36, 38 |language=fr}}</ref><ref>[[#Sources|Svane, 2003, p 35]]; [[#Sources|Sadoul, 2015, p. 220]]</ref>

Even though Giraud had vainly tried to introduce his ''Blueberry'' co-worker to the writings of Castaneda, Charlier, being of a previous generation, conservative in nature and wary of science fiction in general, never understood what his younger colleague tried to achieve as "Mœbius". Nonetheless, he never tried to hinder Giraud in the least, as he understood that an artist of Giraud's caliber needed a "mental shower" from time to time. Furthermore, Charlier was very appreciative of the graphic innovations Giraud ported over from his work as "Mœbius" into the mainstream ''Blueberry'' series, most specifically "Nez Cassé", making him "one of the all-time greatest artists in the comic medium," as Charlier himself put it in 1982.<ref>[[#Sources|de Bree, 1982, pp. 23, 41-43]]</ref> Artist {{ill|Michel Rouge|fr}}, who was taken on by Giraud in 1980 for the inks of "La longue marche" ("The Long March") painted a slightly different picture though. Already recognizing that the two men were living in different worlds, he noted that Charlier was not pleased with Giraud taking on an assistant, afraid that it might have been a prelude to his leaving the series in order to pursue his "experimentations" as Mœbius further. While Charlier was willing to overlook Giraud's "philandering" in his case only, he was otherwise of the firm conviction that artists, especially his own, should totally and wholeheartedly devote themselves to their craft, as Charlier had always considered the medium.<ref>[[#Sources|Svane, 2003, p. 69]]</ref> Even Giraud was in later life led to believe that Charlier apparently "detested" his other work, looking upon it as something akin to "treason", though his personal experiences with the author was that he had kept an "open mind" in this regard, at least in his case. According to Giraud, Charlier's purported stance negatively influenced his son Philippe, causing ''their'' relationship to rapidly deteriorate into open animosity, after the death of his father.<ref name="fueri"/><ref name="Sadoul 2015, pp. 220-226">[[#Sources|Sadoul, 2015, pp. 220-226]]</ref>