Originally published at: Let's celebrate the life of Franco Belgian comic legend Jean-Claude Mézières | Boing Boing
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I was one of those people who really enjoyed the Valerian movie. For all its flaws I felt that is was based on something worth looking into. Eventually I bought the whole collection in digital form and I haven’t been disappointed. Because life keeps finding new ways to interfere I still haven’t finished all of them, but I have read the majority.
If you have ever considered looking into Franco-Belgian comics, this may be an excellent and very accessible starting point.
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I did too, though it dropped off immensely after the first 5 minutes. The intro had me convinced it was going to be an all-time classic.
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Yes, the opening scene was too good for their own good.
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I never saw the Valerian movie, I’m sorry to say… is it still around on any streaming service, or on DVD?
I was a comic-book fiend during the 1970s and 1980s, and had a bunch of hardbacks from France. I have four Valerian books on the shelf behind me as I type, and one of them is the Heroes of the Equinox, the first example pictured in the article. These are English translations. The Fifth book was in French, and was part of a series - the others were complete stories. The fifth has gone after one of my “gun-to-my-head” clear-outs. The fact that it wasn’t a complete story was the clincher, although I did cherish it for its depiction of Laureline in full English riding gear. OOOOOH! 
Wonderful artwork, wonderful stories!
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That’s exactly how I felt. I really dug the first five minutes, but I just kinda enjoyed the rest of the film.
I had fun with it, but the opening set the bar WAY too high.
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It has been acknowledged that Valerian was an influence for Star Wars, but I thought Leia’s Huttslayer costume was based on Franzetta’s works, according to the costume designer. Though a similar concept was in Valerian, I think that style was already a trope in fantasy art pre-dating the book.
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There was actually a Valerian and Lauraline anime series that came out a while ago. “Time Jam: Valerian & Laureline” came out in 2007. I think crunchyroll still has it in their back catalog.
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Such hope and optimism in that sequence; astronauts are siblings under the skin, no matter the country, or planet of origin.
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No mention of the appearance in Heavy Metal?
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He’ll be missed! I (slowly) read French comics as a way to improve my lousy French (and because I love them), and I’m glad that there’s still such a massive pile of Valerian comics waiting for me to read them.
Mezieres and Mobius both contributed to the production design of The Fifth Element, and if you can get hold of a version with the DVD extras there’s a really great interview with the two artists. It’s very clear that they’re old friends, and it’s a pleasure to watch them together.
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I did not hate the movie, though I thought the Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevigne were terribly miscast. I was first introduced to them via Heavy Metal and have a couple of the albums in dead tree format. They’re wonderful comics. Between them and Moebius I’m sorry I don’t read French.
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Unless you’re a comics fanatic- or if you were lucky enough to be born French- Valerian is a hidden gem in the world of science fiction despite its far-reaching influence.
You don’t need to be ‘born french’, that’s way too narrow, just, you know, be born somewhere in Europe. Valerian (or: Ravian in the Netherlands) was a mainstay in every comic shop or library. There’s a whole mainstream culture of comic art here that you’d probably find quite hidden gemmish.
Not as big as it used to be, sadly. But still.
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It’s visually good, but I don’t really like how it makes humans a lot more important than in the comics where we are just the newest members of a very old galactic civilization, with the impatience of children.
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That is really a loss. Another great one gone.
I have read the Valérian and Laureline comic since my childhood and enjoyed the immense worldbuilding in them.
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Absolutely, being a 50 something years old French reader of BD (comics in French), I would like to point out the luck we had to have this school of comics grouping The Netherlands, Belgium and France.
We grew up on magazines such as Spirou, Tintin, later on moved to Pilote, Métal Hurlant (The inspiration for Heavy Metal Magazine), À Suivre, L’Écho des Savanes, Fluide Glacial and Psikopat. All of those publishing many of the great artists who influenced our view of what makes good narration. They have a very different approach to the medium of graphical story telling. More akin to graphic novels from Will Eisner or Art Spiegelman than Marvel or DC Comics.
Mézières, Mœbius (Jean Claude Giraud), Philippe Druillet, Enki Bilal, Jean-Claude Forest, François Schuiten, and many others set the tone for sci-fi or dystopia.
Others were more on the humorous side, while others were pushing stylistically the medium in new directions (Serge Clerc, Frank Margerin, Denis Sire, Luc Cornillon, Yves Chaland, Alejandro Jodorowsky (with Mœbius), Jean-Louis Floch).
All this, just to say that Europe, as other continents, has its own comics eco system well worth a read ! And don’t get me started on Tintin, Asterix and Spirou !
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I watched it resently on Amazon Prime and had a pretty good time. I went in without any preconceptions, and was given a visually rich sci-fi romp.
We had most of them available in our local public library. In Germany. We all read those as teenagers. There was some Marvel and DC stuff too, but not nearly as much, and I found it rather bland in comparison.
But maybe most of that was never translated to English? I remember my friends in UK had never heard of any of them.
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The Apollo astronauts got a congratulation from Hergé with a picture of Tintin and the others on the moon. They had no idea who he was, even if they thought the drawing was rather good.
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I also very much enjoyed the Valerian movie, because I enjoyed the original comics (thanks to one of my uncles who intoduced me to great comics from the late 60s and early 70s, such as Luc Orient). The only parts that I did not appreciate were the casting of the main protagonist. I was actually very underwhelmed by the choice of Valerian for the film. Laureline was perfect, thank goodness. The other part was Rihanna as the polymorph. Nice adaptation but the original in the comic is more… amorphous. All in all better than 2/3 of the Star Wars franchise. RIP Mézières. Merci pour tout. Tu nous manqueras.
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