Starwatcher

Moebius: Starwatcher (1986)
Éditions Aedena/Dargaud

24.5 x 29.7cm, 104 pages

An androgynous, pointed hat stargazer, sitting with a book of Jack Vance’s Tschaï and holding in their hands a mysterious box… The eponymous Starwatcher is another of Moebius’ iconic creations that has gripped the imagination of comic book readers alike just as Arzach did a decade before.

Moebius: Starwatcher is a magnificent art book collecting Moebius’ oeuvre during the 1980s and also some lesser known works Jean Giraud made during a period he was briefly in Tahiti when part of a commune/cult set up by Jean-Paul Appel-Guéry (to distinguish these works apart from Moebius he usually penned them under “Jean Gir”). Starwatcher was released under Moebius’ newly founded French publishing house Éditions Aedena, named after the The Aedena Cycle (later known as The World of Edena) story arc that Moebius was in the middle of drawing at the time that follows the interstellar journey of repairmen Atan and Stel. Éditions Aedena would later expand its operations into the US market and would rebrand this new anglophone publishing venture as: Starwatcher Graphics.

Moebius: Starwatcher collects the book La Mémoire du Futur (The Memory of the Future) first published in 1983 under Éditions Gentiane (Jean Giraud’s earlier publishing entity which predominantly published work from his other alter ego “Gir”) as well as gathering together work from his portfolios of the time and is divided into the following sections:

Autobiographie (Autobiography),
La Mémoire du Futur (The Memory of the Future),
Futurs Magiques (Future Magic),
Un Après-Midi a Pharagonescia (An Afternoon in Pharagonesia),
Destin 3 Pour Edena (Destiny 3 for Edena),
Starwatcher.

Such was the enduring appeal of Moebius’ Starwatcher character that a short 5 and a half minute 3D animated pilot film Starwatcher (1991) was made which had accompanying music written by pioneering Greek composer Vangelis (known for his timeless score to Blade Runner (1982)) for a planned Starwatcher feature length film (years before Pixar would later make that breakthrough with their first 3D animated feature film Toy Story (1995)) and also had Blade Runner’s director Ridley Scott attached to it too. Alas the untimely passing the following year of Alain Guiot the executive producer and founder of Starwatcher’s French production studio Videosystem/Medialab and then it’s subsequent acquisition by Canal+ sadly put an end to the dream project.