Moebius 1938-2012

So, another monumental artist gone-the formative influences of my childhood rapidly becoming dust.

Not quite, if a footprint on the cultural psyche is all an artist can ever hope for, then mister Giraud has left quite an indent. And whilst the collective elegy will celebrate him for Blueberry, the Metal Hurlant stuff, his work on Alien and Tron, it's work he did with his former Dune collaborator Jadorowsky that changed my life.It was 'The Eyes of the Cat', which I first saw in Taboo #4, -the fusion of silent, futurist, surreal horror and the minimalism of avant garde storytelling all beautifully rendered and designed with the craftsmanship of a modern Albrecht Durer, that savaged any naive ambitions I had of being a force in comics. Quite simply,there was no place left for me to go in that genre.



Gladly, the awe I felt upon first glimpsing those images still enthralls and eclipses any former disappointments I might have clung to.

All the Presidents Men

It's Presidents day here in the US, distinguishable for myself as an extra day spent with the misses. I'd like to say that we have plans, perhaps a road trip to the snow capped hills of Julian, or a wander around Borders before it disappears into the same dusty realm as Hollywood Video and Music Trader, except a week on, I am still nursing some horrible lurgy.

In lieu of anything remotely newsworthy, here then is a rather apt cover expressing my disposition, from that 80's DC classic- 'Shade the Changing Man'. Conjured by Brendan McCarthy who may have been on some psychotropic experimental drug or merely necking Benedryl-but whatever he was on-sadly, you don't see comic book covers like that anymore.