By Comix
The French have released some of the gnarliest horror the world has ever seen. Works like Martyrs, Haute Tension and Inside have forced many fans to question not only their own morality, but the twisted notions of the creators themselves. Though the current wave of horror movies is relatively new to our coasts, the French are absolutely no strangers when it comes to stirring up artistic controversy. Perhaps it’s the different temperament with regards artistic expression or perhaps they just suffer from a particularly stubborn case of ennui, but France has never had a problem with nudity, gore, or even defying the laws of gravity in their works and while we sit disgusted and enthralled with their brutality, they are already on the next wave, riding a spaceship to the stars. This, of course, is not intended to insult art work from any other countries, being more of an homage to a country that, in a way, saved American horror comics, helped re-invent horror and sci-fi art, and gave us the grail of sci-fi magazines, Heavy Metal.
The three artists that I have chosen for this article were all part of the French Heavy Metal (Métal Hurlant) Magazine. If you remember, Heavy Metal came to the States at a time when horror comics were suffering under the Comic Code Authority and were heavily censored. Thanks to the magazine, horror and sci-fi – along with all the boobs and blood you could want – were once again beyond the reach of the censors, free to roam the wild unknown. The three following artists were some of most influential artists to have emerged from the 1970s French sci-fi boom. They were the Frank Frazettas, the Richard Corbins, the strangest of the strange, the iconic, the unique and most of all, the immortal.
Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud
Jean Giraud is one of the most well-known comic artists to have ever emerged from France. His art has influenced creators from Stan Lee to Hayao Miyazaki and has become an iconic symbol of French alternative art. One of the founders of Métal Hurlant, he is better known under his pen-name Moebius and, to a lesser degree, Gir. Born on the outskirts of Paris, he was initially drawn to Western comics and illustrated his own cowboy tales for several French publications. As it was his first foray into comics, his drawing style had yet to develop and he mostly stuck to a more standard comic illustration style that was prevalent in the 1950s. It wasn’t until 1963, with a comic titled Blueberry, did a new style begin to emerge, a mix of heavy pens and sharp details. After Blueberry and a short sci-fi stint, it would be another decade before Giraud would return to comics, this time under the name Moebius.
It was at this time when Moebius, with the release of Métal Hurlant in 1975, would become a staple of the sci-fi genre. What exactly he was up to in the ten-year-plus interim is up for debate (some say drugs and New Age fun) but what we do know is that his return changed the European comic market. His artwork had evolved from a darker, albeit pretty normal style, to one of full blown color, details, and bizarre creatures and landscapes. He began playing with various mediums such as etchings and watercolors, but became most famous for fine-lined pen work mixed with ink or paint. He also started to explore different worlds and creatures, along with attempting to express thought and enlightenment in a visual world. His work exploded with movement and shape while it played with the concept of inner and outer existence.
On top of doing his own comic work, he also collaborated with many other creators over the years. Stan Lee invited him to come to the States where he illustrated a two-part Silver Surfer comic, for which he won an Eisner, and he also did design work on 5th Element and Alien, amongst others. He’s also had several works translated into English, most notably an eleven volume collection of random comics titled The Collected Fantasies of Jean Giraud. Unfortunately, Giraud passed away in 2012 after a battle with cancer, but his work still lives on in various galleries and the hearts of fans across the world. His over-the-top designs and alien landscapes have long since established him as an unparalleled artist and talent, one that every comic fan should have the pleasure of knowing.
Philippe Druillet
Though less known than his counterpart Giraud, Philippe Druillet was the other creative half of the founders of Métal Hurlant. With a strong visual style and a hard passion for H.P. Lovecraft, he took the things that scared and inspired him and smashed them down onto the canvas with the force of a thousand suns. Born in France, he spent the majority of his childhood in Spain, and returned to France a hardened man. He originally started out as a photographer, but under the tutelage of artist Jean Boullet, he began to draw professionally with his first work out in 1966 titled “The Mystery of the Abyss.” In it, he introduces his long time character Lone Sloane, a space rogue forced to survive in an alien dimension after his spaceship crashes in a desolate landscape. The series continued in the French publication Pilot from 1970-71 and, after various works, he left the publication altogether in 1974.
During his time with Pilot, Druillet began to truly develop his style. Not only did he break away from conventional comic dynamics, but he scrapped panels altogether, opting instead for full pages of stark colors and images. In 1975, when he and Giraud formed Métal Hurlant, he got unrestrained freedom to play around with his imagination. His artwork became darker and more detailed, heavy with paint and probably a touch of crazy. It became immersed in Lovecraftian creatures and multiple dimensions; his work at this time was almost a type of pre-cursor to the DC/Vertigo line that would emerge in the late 80s. From bug-eyed creatures to sweeping fortresses, he created a world that never gave up pushing the limits of exploration, both in space and time.
After Métal Hurlant, Druillet developed several other series along with Loan Sloane, such as La Nuit and the strange character Vuzz. Most of his work ended up peaking in the late seventies and once the eighties arrived, readers saw a distinct drop in his production, though the quality was still definitely there. He produced a three part graphic novel based on the French book Salammbo and a comic called Nosferatu in 1989 before he stopped developing comics completely. He still produces art for various publications, but is more or less retired. There are two works that have been translated by Heavy Metal: Loan Sloane and Chaos, and another, Yragael-Urm, which is available through A&W Publishing (and costs about $100). Otherwise, if you ever visit France, drop by one of their comic conventions where he’s occasionally spotted and say hello. I hear he’s very nice.
Philippe “Caza” Cazaumayou
Philippe Cazaumayou, or Caza to his fans, was a heavy contributor to Métal Hurlant and another distinctive face in the world of French sci-fi. His art, as beautiful as it is deadly, helped redefine sexuality in alternative culture while playing with unique color combinations and hellish worlds. There is not much known about Caza (at least not in English), but we do know that he originally started his career in advertising and in 1970, began to create comics for the Franco-Belgian audience with his first release, Kris Kool. In 1971, he put out When Costumes Have Teeth, a comic released through Pilot magazine, along with several other works. He continued to work with them for another four years until he signed up with Métal Hurlant in 1975, switching over to sci-fi.
Caza’s art style had gone through some very interesting changes during his time at Métal Hurlant. While he adapted very well to the new genre, it would be his techniques that grew the most. In the first couple of years, Caza stuck very closely to black and white interior drawings, focusing more on fine line art and refined shadow placement than color work. Not only did he perfect linear movement but he also developed a very involved ink-dot style where, instead of lines, he literally did entire pieces with ink dots. After the ink-dot style proved to be insufficient, he decided to switch over to the painted medium which later began to dominate his style. He took what he learned while penning and applied it to color, creating a visual world over-run with dystopian elements and human sexuality. He explored the human body in reference to landscape, dreams, and mechanics, while playing with god-like creatures in the presence of man.
After Métal Hurlant, he went on to make several more comics, such as the three part Scenes from a Suburban Life in 1977-79, Arkhe in ’82, and Lailah in ’88, but slowly began to reduce his output in the late 80s, with the exception of The World Arkadi that ran from ’89-2004. A couple of collected works re-appeared recently, but The World Arkadi marked the last work Caza would do in its entirety. In 2002-03, he was also found working on an animated film titled The Rain Children. Despite his respite from hard sci-fi, he was still illustrating newspaper comics up until 2009 and released a book about Adam and Eve in 2012. Sad to say, there are not a lot of translated works out by him; NBM Publishing Company released Scenes from a Suburban Life (retitled as Escape from Suburbia) and Heavy Metal released the Age of Darkness. Otherwise, he’s still semi-active in art, so keep your eyes peeled for more work.
Afterword
Métal Hurlant is one of the magazines that not only helped solidify strange, new genres of sci-fi but, like 2000 AD, also unleashed an incredible amount of talent onto the world. Though I have only listed three creators here, there is a whole spectrum of artists and writers that have emerged from its pages; young, hungry, and with imaginations as big as the sky. Next time you’re flipping through a Heavy Metal magazine, don’t underestimate the amount of skill and determination that went into making it. If it wasn’t for them, who knows where we would be.