Jean Henri Gaston Giraud (8 May 1938 - 10 March 2012; Paris, France and USA)
Born in Paris, in the 1960s Jean Giraud (also known as "Moebius" and "Gir") worked with Jije on the Western character Jerry Spring. When he teamed up with Jean Michel Charlier, they created the hugely popular Lt Blueberry series, which have been successfully translated into English editions. Moebius has long been a Sci Fi fan, and began drawing in a more experimental style under the name Moebius. In the 1970s, the ground-breaking French magazine Métal Hurlant (later an English language version Heavy Metal) proved to be the perfect vehicle for this new style of art and story-telling, including his famous Arzach.

He moved to Tahiti, and then to America, and has been involved with movie storyboards and animation. Much of his work has been translated into English, both as regular priced soft cover editions and deluxe limited collectors' editions. Many extremely high quality lithographs and prints have been produced over the years, especially by Starwatcher Graphics and Stardom. Never has a pen-name been so apt: like the half-twisted Möbius strip he took his pen-name from, Jean Giraud seemingly had two sides which, when examined carefully, proved to be aspects of a single creative mind. As Gir, co-creator of Blueberry, one of France's most popular comic strips, selling out print-runs of a quarter million copies with each new album, his brushwork was detailed and realistic; as Moebius he used intricate, visually arresting pen-work to explore his subconscious in the pages of Arzach, The Airtight Garage and The Incal.

Giraud had an impact on the visual arts that went beyond comic books. He was seen as a figurehead linking the bande dessinés with Modernism and the nouveau réalisme (although he denied any conscious effort to do so); as co-creator of Métal Hurlant magazine, he took comics to an older, more literate audience; and, in cinema, his fans ranged from Federico Fellini to Hayao Miyazaki and his style influenced dozens of others, including Ridley Scott, George Lucas, James Cameron and Luc Besson.

Giraud was modest about his talents, acknowledging the influences of others, notably Joseph Gillain on his work as Gir, and Alexander Jodorowsky, whom he credited with unchaining his vision and allowing it to fly free to create the surreal worlds of Moebius. Even as the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain held a five-month retrospective—“Moebius Trance-form”—of his work, Giraud told Le Figaro that the act of creating images was not as romantic as often portrayed and that it was something rather ordinary; speaking to the LA Times in 2011, he admitted to feeling happy and amazed when he was told by young fans that his work had changed their lives and read statements like “Moebius is a legendary artist”. “A legend—now I am like a unicorn,” he responded.

Born in Nogent-sur-Marve, a suburb of Paris, on 8 May 1938, Jean Henri Gaston Giraud's parents divorced when he was three and he grew up in Fontenay-sous-Bois with his grandparents. He began drawing illustrations and comic strips—mostly featuring cowboys and indians, inspired by Hollywood westerns—as a way to pass melancholic hours whilst his mother was out working; at 14 he was introduced by his father to the science fiction magazine Fiction and he became a regular reader of both Fiction and Galaxie for the next twenty-five years. He sold his first story to publisher Jacques Dumas (Marijac) at the age of 15.

At 16 he began training at the École des arts appliqués in rue Dupetit-Thouars, Paris, and earned a diploma in applied arts after two years. At the age of 18 he began producing artwork for advertising and fashion and his first substantial comic strip, 'Les aventures de Frank et Jérémie' for Far West magazine. He then devoted himself to comic strips, drawing for Fripounet et Marisette, Cœurs villants and Sitting-Bull.

When his mother moved to Mexico to remarry, Giraud joined her for nine months, returning to France to undertake his military service, drawing for the military newspaper 5/5 Forces Françaises whilst stationed in Germany and Algeria. On his release, he visited Belgian artist Joseph (Jijé) Gillain, whom he had met prior to joining the army, at his home near Paris, who hired him as an assistant. Gillain had absorbed the qualities of American storytelling during a long sabbatical to the USA, and introduced Giraud to the works of Milton Caniff and others whose style was highly realistic. Gillain was then drawing Jerry Spring for Spirou and Giraud became his inker on the story La Route de Coronado, published in 1961 and collected as an album in 1962.

In 1961-62, Giraud also worked with Jean-Claude Mézières on the collection L'Histoire des civilisations for Hachette whilst also producing illustrations for the satirical magazine Hara-Kiri where he first began using 'Moebius' as a signature.

Giraud met Jean-Michel Charlier, editor-in-chief of the newly founded Pilote magazine and was invited to draw Charlier's new western strip featuring Lieutenant Blueberry, one of the most popular comic strips to appear throughout Europe. Blueberry was the nickname of Mike Donovan, a lieutenant in the US Cavalry based at Fort Navajo where he faced constant battles against gunrunners and local Indian tribes. Charlier travelled to the USA to research his scripts and filled them with historical detail, matched by Giraud's highly detailed artwork.

Drawing, and sometimes colouring, Blueberry filled most of Giraud's time for the next decade, with each new storyline in Pilote quickly released in album form; sixteen stories had appeared by 1973. Giraud was able to use the time—and the royalties generated by Blueberry—to his own advantage and began exploring new territories. He contributed a number of short stories to Pilote, notably 'La déviation' (1973) and 'L'homme est-il bon?' (1974), exploring different styles of storytelling and letting his imagination roam free.

Other artists were also trying to break free of the constraints of comics: L'Echo des Savanes was launched in 1972 by former Pilote creators Marcel Gotlib, Claire Bretécher and Nikita Mandryka, marking a new direction for the bande desinees in France.

After one further volume of Blueberry, Giraud teamed up with writer Jean-Pierre Dionnet, artist Philippe Druillet and financial director Bernard Farkas to found Le Humanoides Associés and publish Métal Hurlant (Screaming Metal). Initially conceived as a French answer to American underground 'comix', Heavy Metal (as it became in translation) was the launching pad for Giraud's Arzach and Druillet's Lone Sloane and very quickly attracted the likes of Richard Corben, Jacques Tardi, Vaughn Bode, Serge Clerc, Enki Bilal and many others. It was in the pages of Métal Hurlant that Moebius experimented with non-narrative (Arzach, 1975) and non-linear (Le garage hermétique de Jerry Cornélius, 1976-79) stories, developing many of the iconic images that were to make Moebius such an influence—the figure of Arzach flying over a barren alien landscape on a pterodactyl or the pith-helmeted Major Grubert, first introduced in 'Les vacances du Major' (France-Soir, 1974) and reintroduced in 'Le major fatal' in Métal Hurlant before taking a central role in The Airtight Garage.

It was Giraud's experimental stories that attracted the attention of film-maker Alejandro Jodorowsky, who, in 1975, was attempting to adapt Frank Herbert's political, ecological and religious science fiction epic, Dune. Although the film eventually came to nothing, it was central to Giraud's future influence on film-makers. During the pre-production of Dune, Giraud met visual effects supervisor Dan O'Bannon and the two collaborated on the short serial 'The Long Tomorrow' for Métal Hurlant. O'Bannon, left penniless after the collapse of Dune, returned to the USA where he roomed with Ronald Shusett, picking up the threads of a screenplay they had begun working on some years before about the crew of a spaceship, whose voyage is interrupted by a mayday signal. The script was offered to Ridley Scott, who used many of the creative team assembled by Jodorowsky—including Giraud, Chris Foss and H. R. Giger—to design the SF/horror classic Alien, released in 1979.

Giraud was now able to split his time between his various personae: Gir was able to take up the reigns of Blueberry once again, re-teaming with Charlier to produce six further albums. With Charlier's death in 1989, Giraud turned to writing the series as well as drawing, producing another five volumes between 1995 and 2005. At the same time, he also penned four volumes (1991-97) featuring another western hero Jim Cutlass (another Charlier/Gir creation who had made a single appearance in Pilote in 1976) with artwork by Christian Rossi.

Moebius, meanwhile, embarked on the multi-volume story of L'Incal, which debuted in Métal Hurlant in 1980. Written by Jodorowsky, the story is set in a dystopian galactic empire where rulers, rebels and aliens are all seeking an energy crystal which has fallen into the hands of a shambolic private eye, John Difool. This simple premise underpins an endlessly inventive masterpiece, a relentlessly-paced galaxy-spanning adventure, which, at the same time, charts Difool's philosophical and spiritual evolution.

Meanwhile, Jean Giraud was in demand from the film industry as a concept designer, storyboard artist and even director. His films included the animated Les Maîtres du temps (Time Masters) and Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, live-action SF/fantasy movies TRON, Masters of the Universe, Willow, The Abyss and The Fifth Element, and the hybrid live action/cartoon Space Jam. For French TV he directed the animated Arzak Rhapsody and La Planète Encore. The story 'Cauchemar blanc' (L'Echo des Savanes, 1974) was filmed by Matthieu Kassowitz in 1991; a Blueberry movie starring Vincent Cassel in the title role was released in Europe in 2004 (in America it went straight to DVD under the title Renegade).

In the 1980s, Giraud spent much of his time in America (and briefly in Tahiti and Japan) where, championed by Jean Marc and Randy Lofficier, many of his best works began appearing in translation, some—like the Marvel/Epic edition of The Airtight Garage—newly coloured. His connections with Marvel led him to illustrate the two-part Silver Surfer: Parable, written by Stan Lee.

The series won the 1989 Eisner Award for best finite series and Giraud (along with collaborators Paul Chadwick and Charles Vess) picked up a second Eisner for the story 'Concrete Celebrates Earth Day' in 1991. Translations of Giraud's work won the Harvey Award for Best American Edition of Foreign Material in 1988, 1989 and 1991. Giraud had long been recognised for his work, taking major prizes at Lucca (Italy), Angoulême (France) comic festivals and the Salón Internacional del Cómic (Spain). In 1985 he was decorated with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by French president François Mitterrand.

In 1992, he again collaborated with Jodorowsky on Le Coeur Couronné (The Crowned Heart), which ran for three albums (La Folle du Sacré-Coeur, 1992, Le Piège de l'irrationnel, 1993, and Le Fou de la Sorbonne, 1998), and again in 1994 with Griffes d'Ange (Angel Claws).

A sequel to The Airtight Garage, L'Homme de Ciguri, appeared in 1995 and Giraud, despite being kept busy with his scripts and artwork for Blueberry and Jim Cutlass, still managed to produce further Moebius works, including an Incal sequel, Le Nouveau rêve (2000), and Ikaru (Icarus, 2001) drawn by Jiro Taniguchi.

Giraud died in Paris on 10 March 2012, aged 73, after a long battle with cancer and is survived by his wife, Isabelle and two children, Helene and Julien, from an earlier marriage.

Geof Darrow (born 21 October 1955; Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA)
Geofrey "Geof" Darrow is an American comic book artist, best known for his work on comic series Shaolin Cowboy, Hard Boiled and The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, which was adapted into an animated television series of the same name, as well as his contributions to The Matrix series of films. Darrow's approach to comics and art has been cited as an influence by a multitude of artists including Peter Chung, Frank Quitely, Seth Fisher, Eric Powell, Frank Cho, Juan José Ryp, James Stokoe, Chris Burnham, Aaron Kuder, Nick Pitarra.

Geof Darrow was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He attended a Catholic school for thirteen years. Darrow read comics, mostly DC, from an early age, but he only decided to pursue a career in illustartion after first seeing Jack Kirby's work in Fantastic Four Annual #3. As a teenager, he encountered Maurice Horn's The World Encyclopedia of Comics, which contained excerpts from Lieutenant Blueberry illustrated by Jean Giraud, whose art further affected his outlook on comics. Darrow ordered all available Blueberry volumes, gradually moving to other European works, such as Jean-Claude Mézières' Valérian and Greg and Hermann's Bernard Prince.

After graduating from Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, Darrow worked as a freelance illustrator for various advertising agencies. In the late 1970s, he moved to Los Angeles and joined Hanna-Barbera, where he worked as a character designer on a number of cartoon series, most notably Super Friends in its various incarnations. During his time in animation, Darrow became acquainted with such comic and animation industry figures as Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Tex Avery and Dave Stevens. In 1982, Darrow met French comic book creator and his artistic idol Mœbius, who was staying in Los Angeles while working on Tron for Disney. Upon learning that Darrow is an artist interested in creating comics, Mœbius arranged a meeting for him with Les Humanoïdes Associés, the publisher of French science fiction anthology Métal Hurlant, and offered to collaborate on some sort of project.

Eventually, Darrow moved to France to be able to work with Giraud more closely as the two were planning to produce a comic strip written by Mœbius and drawn by Darrow, but Giraud left France for Tahiti two weeks after Darrow's arrival. Despite that, they were able to produce an art portfolio titled La Cité Feu, penciled by Darrow, inked and colored by Mœbius, published in 1984 by Éditions Ædena. The meeting with Les Humanoïdes Associés resulted in Darrow's first published comics work which was also the debut of his character Bourbon Thret. The following year, the story was reprinted in Geof Darrow Comics and Stories along with a new one, also starring Bourbon Thret, and several pin-ups colored by Mœbius, Tanino Liberatore and François Boucq. The volume was also released as a limited edition accompanied by Darrow Magazine, which mostly consisted of illustrated private jokes from various French comic artists. Mistaking the Magazine for an actual periodical publication, a number of artists contacted Darrow and sent him their portfolios in hopes of doing artwork for the magazine.

During one of their stays in Los Angeles, Mœbius introduced Darrow to Frank Miller, which led to a friendship and a number of comics collaborations. Darrow, Miller and Steve Gerber started developing a Superman series as part of the Metropolis proposal, then after the idea fell through, Miller offered Darrow to work on a Daredevil story he was writing that would delve into the character's origin.

Miller realized he didn't want to be the person to bring Darrow into the world of Big Two artist-for-hire, and the two focused on developing their own story. As Darrow had never worked with a writer before, he often strayed from the script, prompting Miller to make a number of significant changes to the story. Between 1990 and 1992, Dark Horse published the three-issue mini-series titled Hard Boiled, which earned Miller and Darrow the 1991 Eisner Award in the "Best Writer/Artist Team" category. After Hard Boiled, Darrow wanted to do a superhero story, specifically, an Iron Man story, although Marvel wasn't interested. Miller and Darrow started developing the concept into their next project, The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot. This time, they worked in the so-called "Marvel style": Miller wrote a few paragraphs describing the general plot, from which Darrow drew the eighty-page story, which Miller then wrote the dialogue over. Between 1993 and the series' first issue, released in 1995, the characters of Big Guy and Rusty appeared in a number of Darrow-illustrated posters and pin-ups, occasionally crossing over with other creator-owned characters such as Spawn and Ash.

In 1994, Dark Horse started a new imprint titled Legend, spear-headed by Frank Miller and John Byrne and encompassing works by various creators including Art Adams, Mike Mignola and Darrow. The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot was published in two issues in 1995 and 1996 under the Legend imprint. The characters also appeared in two issues of Mike Allred's Madman, and the comic book was later adapted into a 26-episode animated series of the same name, produced by Columbia TriStar Television and Dark Horse Entertainment, airing for two seasons from 1999 to 2001.

After finishing Big Guy and Rusty, Darrow decided to return to his Bourbon Thret character but felt he needed to "adapt" him for the American audience. In Geof's words:

I've always liked the character, and I wanted to do it again, but I thought "well, that's an odd name. No one in the United States will like it, it's just too odd. What can I call him?" I like Westerns and I like martial arts movies, so it's like taking a page from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's an odd two things to put together, so that's what I decided to call him. Shaolin Cowboy instead of Bourbon Thret. <...> I told Frank Miller I wanted to do something like a western, and Frank says "whatever you do, don't put cowboy in the title! That doesn't sell!" So of course I followed his advice.

Meanwhile, the then-unknown Wachowski siblings, impressed by Darrow's art for Hard Boiled, wanted to work with him on their production of The Matrix. Warner Bros. contacted Darrow, and after reading the script he agreed to work on the film. Wachowskis also brought comic book artist Steve Skroce from their short stint on Epic Comics' Ectokid, and the two proceeded to work on the concepts and storyboards which, when finished, played a pivotal role in getting the movie greenlit and financed. The Wachowskis later brought in Darrow as the conceptual designer on Speed Racer, although his contributions were significantly smaller compared to The Matrix trilogy. In 1999, shortly after the release of the first Matrix film, the Wachowskis announced they'll be working on an animated adaptation of Hard Boiled but the project was cancelled due to Miller not wanting to see his creation as an animated film. In 2019, Warner Bros. announced that Darrow and Skorce will be returning as storyboard artists and concept designers for the production of the fourth installment of The Matrix.

After finishing work on The Matrix trilogy, the Wachowskis set up a publishing house, Burlyman Entertainment, for which Darrow provided the logo illustration. Burlyman's output consisted of two paperbacks of The Matrix Comics collecting the short comic stories from The Matrix website, as well as seven issues of Darrow's Shaolin Cowboy, published between 2005 and 2007, and six issues of Doc Frankenstein, a Wachowskis-written and Skroce-drawn series originating from a concept developed by Darrow, which he described as "Doc Savage meets Citizen Kane".

In 2009, it was announced that the Wachowskis and Circle of Confusion were producing an animated feature of Shaolin Cowboy, subtitled Tomb of Doom, written and co-directed by Darrow, and animated by Madhouse. Darrow spent a year living in Japan and working on the production which was halted after the American financers, The Weinstein Company, backed out. Around half of the footage was finished, and some of the completed scenes and pencil tests were shown at San Diego ComicCon in 2012 and Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo in 2015. The film was supposed to feature a sequence animated by Masaaki Yuasa. In 2012, Shaolin Cowboy resumed publication at Dark Horse with a 96-page book stylized as a pulp magazine containing a Shaolin Cowboy prose story written by Andrew Vachss (with whom Darrow has had a working relationship dating back to the early 90s) with spot illustrations by Darrow, a prose story by Michael A. Black with spot illustrations by Gary Gianni and one-page strips written and drawn by Darrow. The book was followed by The Shaolin Cowboy, a four-issue mini-series subtitled Shemp Buffet for the collected edition, and The Shaolin Cowboy: Who Will Stop the Reign?, another four-issue mini-series, which incorporated some the visual ideas from the unfinished animated feature.

In 2015, DC Comics announced Darrow as the artist for the supplemental mini-comic to the third issue of Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello's The Dark Knight III: The Master Race, as well as the variant covers for issues 3 and 4, though none of his contributions were ultimately realized. Meanwhile, Dark Horse issued a press release announcing the first English-language collection of the Bourbon Thret strips, to be partially re-colored by Dave Stewart. Since then, Dark Horse has re-released Hard Boiled and The Big Guy and Risty the Boy Robot with new coloring by Stewart as well as the entirety of Shaolin Cowboy in a uniform format. As of 2019, the Bourbon Thret collection still hasn't been released.

Over the course of his career, Darrow has contributed storyboards and conceptual designs for a number film productions, many of which ended up cancelled, including J. J. Abrams' Superman: Flyby, an animated feature by Ridley Scott, one of Hollywood's attempts at adapting Akira, and Alex Proyas' adaptation of Paradise Lost. Outside of comics and film, Darrow has contributed artwork to a number of trading card series, including Magic: The Gathering, Star Wars Galaxy, Witchblade, The Shadow and Madman, as well as promotional posters, CD covers and role-playing games. Darrow also serves on the national advisory board of PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children.