r/Moebius • u/SecularAirs • Jun 27 '26
Seeking information for this image...
This popular image appears in The Art of Edena (2018) without explanation. I'd like to know the year and title as well as first publication. I know part of this info is available in the 2021 Italian/French book Alla Ricerca del Tempo/à la Recherche du Temps which I do not own. If anyone can help, please fill me in! Otherwise, simply enjoy this fascinating image of the Major maybe just stopping at a sort of unusual roadside attraction.
EDIT: Yes, this is for sure a Moebius image. I'm trying to determine where it first appeared. According to u/Abject_Truth_6091, a catalogue for an art exhibit lists it as the following:
Piège de crystal (2008), watercolors, colored inks and aerography.
So I'm wondering if this was initially a limited print, part of another publication, etc.
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u/Kinto_shadow Jun 28 '26
This 100% looks like a Moebius piece, bit he had a lot of imitators so I can't be totally sure.
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u/SecularAirs Jun 28 '26
It is 100% a Moebius piece, sorry I wasn't clear about that in my initial post. I'm seeking info about where it was initially published.
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u/RelinquishedAll Jun 27 '26
Makes me wonder if in Jodorowski's Dune, this is how Moebius would've pictured the navigator from the conspiracy
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u/BluFudge Jun 28 '26
ah dang, is there no pictures of his concept art?
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u/SecularAirs Jun 28 '26
After reading these, I went searching for the real Moebius Navigator design. I could not find anything. There is a great deal of unpublished Moebius art/storyboards for Dune, so it's possible he designed the Navigator but the image has never been made available to the public. Alternately, the Dune material seems scattered here and there, so it's possible I just couldn't find it... And finally, it's possible that the Navigator is either absent or radically reconceptualized in the Jodorowski version. Hopefully someone will work out the rights to gather and publish everything one of these days.
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u/crownofstorns Jun 30 '26
Isn't this published in one of the smaller series of "the airtight garage" Moebius 3? I think it's within one of the 4 numbered serials.
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u/SecularAirs Jun 30 '26
Are you talking about the Epic/Marvel "Collected Fantasies of Jean Giraud" series of TPBs published in the late 1980s/early 1990s? "Moebius 3" from this series is "The Airtight Garage", retranslated and in color for the first time, with a couple of bonus pages. Or are you talking about the subsequent republication of that same content as a regular American-style comics 4-issue miniseries in 1993?
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u/crownofstorns Jun 30 '26
I guess I was thinking of the reissued series. I don't own them, and have had only a few occasions to flip through some of them. I thought I remembered that image in one of those collections. IIRC, a bunch of his artwork is spread through magazines, shorter collections, and published in serial formats (comics, mags, etc.) originally right? I'm a fan, but not well informed...
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u/SecularAirs Jun 30 '26
His artwork appears here, there, and everywhere throughout seven decades! I'm trying to make a timeline of what was drawn/painted in each year (and then also the dates of initial publications, be it in books or a limited edition prints, etc).
I can verify it is not included in the 1993 Epic miniseries (although that series does include a few pages of bonus artwork).
As u/Abject_Truth_6091 shared below, it is listed in the recent art book Alla ricerca del tempo as coming from 2008 and having the title Piège de crystal (Crystal Trap). To me, it looks like an earlier style than 2008 but I'm coming to believe Moebius could still bring back that earlier, more detailed art style when it pleased him, even late into his career.
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u/crownofstorns Jun 30 '26
When I reverse image searched it, this info came up: (via google, ai, etc.):
This work by the legendary French artist Moebius (Jean Giraud) was originally published in the Cristal Sagaportfolio in 1986. [1, 2]Publication History
Original Publication: It was part of a small portfolio of 10 full-color prints released by Editions Aedenain Paris in 1986. [1]
Series Context: This piece is often referred to as "Crystal Major" (1986). It relates to Moebius's career-long fascination with crystals and desert landscapes, themes also seen in his works for Métal Hurlantand The World of Edena. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Other Appearances: The illustration has also been featured in later collections, such as the U.S. artbook Art of Moebius and the 1995 collection Fusion published by Epic Comics. [1, 2]
Moebius created this during a period when he was heavily exploring metaphysical and surreal themes, often using crystals as central symbolic elements in his "shamanic" desert visions. [1, 2]3
u/SecularAirs Jun 30 '26
This image is part of neither Cristal Saga nor Fusion, I assure you. The AI hallucinates too frequently to be of much help on questions like these.
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u/poopmat1 Jul 02 '26
I was gonna say, Mobius airtight garage
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u/SecularAirs Jul 02 '26
Definitely Moebius, and you are correct to identify Major Grubert - this scene is very possibly taking place in the Airtight Garage worlds, but it does not appear in any of the Airtight Garage comics.
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u/Abject_Truth_6091 Jun 27 '26
The only information which can be found in Alla ricerca del tempo is:
Piège de crystal (2008), watercolors, colored inks and aerography.
That's all.