Métal hurlant Science-Fiction Comics (Mœbius, Druillet & Les Humanoïdes Associés)

• Draw with a fine pen and spend the detail where it builds a world: costume, machinery, rock and alien flesh rendered closely in line, hatching and stipple, then left to stand in open, quiet ground.
• Make scale the drama: set a lone rider or explorer against an empty desert, a cliff of stone or a city-sized ship, low on the page and dwarfed by sky.
• Break the panel grid when the vision demands it: explode the page into a single full-page or double-page tableau, let colossal architecture run through the borders, and use circular or radiating frames instead of the regular rows of the weekly comic.
• Colour for atmosphere, not for code: pale, luminous tints and modulated skies laid on by hand, deepening into black space and saturated jewel tones for the cosmic scenes; never the flat primaries of the four-colour newsstand comic.
• Let the pictures carry the story through long silent sequences and, at the extreme, whole stories without a word (as in Arzach), and follow a dream logic: improvised, non-linear episodes, metamorphosing creatures, mysticism, sex and violence told for adult readers.

Paris: the comics magazine Métal hurlant, created in December 1974 by two cartoonists, a writer and a financial director (Jean Giraud, or Mœbius; Philippe Druillet; Jean-Pierre Dionnet; Bernard Farkas), who called themselves Les Humanoïdes Associés (also the publisher's name). The first issue appeared in January 1975 as a 68-page quarterly with only 16 pages in colour; it became bimonthly with no. 7 and monthly with no. 9, and its writer-founder edited it until 1985 (Dionnet). The original run ended with no. 133 in July 1987. Heavy Metal, an American edition launched in April 1977 as a glossy full-colour monthly (founded by Leonard Mogel and published by HM Communications, a subsidiary of Twenty First Century Communications, the publisher of National Lampoon), carried the look to North America, and a German edition, Schwermetall, followed

1. Wikipedia: 'Métal hurlant' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Métal_hurlant: created in December 1974 by Jean Giraud, Philippe Druillet, Jean-Pierre Dionnet and Bernard Farkas as Les Humanoïdes Associés; originally quarterly, 68 pages with only 16 in colour, bimonthly from no. 7 and monthly from no. 9; December 1974 to July 1987, 133 issues; 'complex graphics, cinematic imagery and surreal storylines'; one of the first mature expressions of adult comics; German edition Schwermetall)
2. Wikipédia: 'Métal hurlant' (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Métal_hurlant: first issue January 1975; Arzach and Druillet's Gaïl in the first issue; Dionnet editor 1975–1985; contributors including Richard Corben, Yves Chaland, Serge Clerc, Frank Margerin and François Schuiten; Heavy Metal from April 1977; last original issue no. 133, July 1987; tone 'contre-culturel, déjanté et érotique'; inspired the look of Alien, Blade Runner and Le Cinquième Élément)
3. Wikipedia: 'Mœbius' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mœbius: born 8 May 1938, died 10 March 2012; co-founded Les Humanoïdes Associés in December 1974; Métal hurlant from January 1975, Heavy Metal from April 1977; Arzach 'entirely devoid of captions, speech balloons and written sound effects' and 'executed directly in color'; The Airtight Garage from no. 6, 1976; The Long Tomorrow in nos. 7–8, 1976; The Incal from no. 58, 1980; a pen for work signed Mœbius, a brush for Gir; Alien crew attire and spacesuits; Tron storyboards and production design; Ridley Scott cited The Long Tomorrow for Blade Runner; Miyazaki on directing Nausicaä under Mœbius's influence)
4. Lambiek Comiclopedia, 'Jean Giraud (Moebius)' (https://www.lambiek.net/artists/g/giraud.htm: Arzach in Métal hurlant, collected in 1976, with no balloons, captions or onomatopoeia; Le Garage Hermétique from 1 March 1976 to 1 June 1979, black-and-white book Major Fatal, 1979; The Incal from December 1980, six books 1981–1988; his switch from brush to pen gave more open drawings influenced by the clear line; the Moebius work's themes 'highly influenced by philosophical writings and hallucinogenic drugs'; Arzach 'a surreal and psychedelic reading experience'; influences including Robert Crumb)
5. Wikipedia: 'Arzach' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arzach: four wordless short stories, the title respelled in each: Arzach, Harzach, Arzak, Harzakc; a strange, desolate landscape)
6. Wikipedia: 'The Airtight Garage' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Airtight_Garage: Métal hurlant nos. 6–41, 1976–1979, in two-to-four-page episodes; the French book with the original black-and-white art; improvised 'in a deliberately whimsical or capricious manner'; styles 'from exquisite illustrative rendering to big-foot cartooning')
7. La Revue des livres pour enfants no. 264 (Centre national de la littérature pour la jeunesse, BnF, April 2012), 'Jean Giraud-Moebius, le bout de la piste' (https://cnlj.bnf.fr/sites/default/files/revues_document_joint/PUBLICATION_8522.pdf: founder of Métal Hurlant (1975) and the Humanoïdes associés with Dionnet and Druillet; an adult comic 'affranchie de la censure, abordant le sexe, la drogue, la psychanalyse et les jeux littéraires'; where Gir saturates the panels, Moebius's drawing is pared down to an expressive economy of means; costumes for Alien, storyboards for Tron)
8. Encyclopædia Universalis, 'Druillet Philippe (1944- )' (https://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/philippe-druillet/: born in Toulouse on 28 June 1944; Lone Sloane from 1966, continued in Pilote from 1970, with a baroque graphic style, grandiose architecture and a 'mise en page éclatée' that broke the regular order of panels; co-founder of Les Humanoïdes associés and Métal hurlant in 1975; Salammbô, 1980–1986)
9. Wikipedia: 'Philippe Druillet' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Druillet: bold page designs; backdrops of huge structures drawn from Art Nouveau, indigenous architecture and Gothic cathedrals, earning the nickname 'space architect') and Lambiek Comiclopedia, 'Philippe Druillet' (https://www.lambiek.net/artists/d/druillet.htm: 'innovative page-setting and contrasted colors'; Gail in Métal hurlant)
10. Wikipédia: 'Lone Sloane' (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Sloane: albums Gaïl, 1978; Salammbô, Les Humanoïdes Associés, 1980; Carthage, 1982; Matho, 1986) and 'Philippe Druillet' (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Druillet: Salammbô in a style close to painting, with double-page battle scenes)
11. Wikipédia: 'Exterminateur 17' (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exterminateur_17: script by Jean-Pierre Dionnet, art by Enki Bilal, colours by Patricia Bilal; serialised in Métal hurlant nos. 11–19, 1976–1977; album Les Humanoïdes Associés, March 1979) and Lambiek Comiclopedia, 'Jean-Pierre Dionnet' (https://www.lambiek.net/artists/d/dionnet_jean-pierre.htm: born 25 November 1947; editor-in-chief until 1985)
12. Wikipedia: 'Heavy Metal (magazine)' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Metal_(magazine): first issue April 1977 from HM Communications, Inc., 'a subsidiary of Matty Simmons' Twenty First Century Communications, Inc.', with the cover line 'From the people who bring you the National Lampoon'; the parent company renamed National Lampoon Inc. in late 1979; Mogel called the magazine's founder; founded by Leonard Mogel after a September 1976 trip to France; the first issue mostly reprinted Métal hurlant; a glossy, full-colour monthly whose format allowed sex and violence not seen in American comic books; introduced Mœbius, Druillet, Caza, Bilal and Manara to Anglophone readers)
13. Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana, 'Moebius' (https://www.enciclopedia.cat/gran-enciclopedia-catalana/moebius: co-founder of Métal hurlant in 1975; Arzach told without text, entirely through images; a hyperrealistic drawing of great virtuosity)
14. Wikipedia: 'National Lampoon (magazine)' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lampoon_(magazine): owned and published by Twenty First Century Communications, Inc., whose president was Leonard Mogel; Heavy Metal published from April 1977 by its subsidiary HM Communications, Inc.)
15. Tom Lennon, 'Philippe Druillet Comics in English' (https://tomlennon.com/?p=9665: in 1980 Druillet moved Flaubert's Salammbô from ancient Carthage into 'his own psychedelic sci-fi playground', with Lone Sloane as its hero)
16. Wikipedia: 'Solarpunk' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk: examples of the aesthetic include 'some Studio Ghibli movies, particularly Castle in the Sky and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind')

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