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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
Discussing or explaining this book requires more time and patience than most people would be willing to give a book that wasn't required reading for an academic class. Reading this book felt like an academic class. But one where the teacher lets the students lead the discussions. And most of the students are pretentious blowhards who love to pepper their commentary with shock value statements.
The focus of this book is that Moebius has decided to give up smoking weed, and wonders how this will affect his writing. To discuss this with himself, he draws himself at his current age having conversations with himself when he was younger, as well as with other characters from his writing, and, eventually with Osama Bin Laden (this story having been written in 2001, you almost want to scream into the book "TOO SOON!").
There is a lot to unpack in this book. It's self-examination. It's examination of beliefs. It's examination of self-examination. It's examination of the writing process. It's examination of the toxicities of reading, writing, masculinity, self, religion, morality, and more. It's meta self-examination of meta self-examination. And it all takes place in a desert that happens to be homophonous with "weeding out a garden" in French. Because he's quitting weed. Because he's weeding his stories out of his experience. Because.
I would recommend this for people looking for intense, complex reflection, fans of Moebius with a vast knowledge of his work, and people who like to continually ask "The fuck?" when turning pages of a graphic novel. It wasn't, at all, for me, but not everything has to be.
The focus of this book is that Moebius has decided to give up smoking weed, and wonders how this will affect his writing. To discuss this with himself, he draws himself at his current age having conversations with himself when he was younger, as well as with other characters from his writing, and, eventually with Osama Bin Laden (this story having been written in 2001, you almost want to scream into the book "TOO SOON!").
There is a lot to unpack in this book. It's self-examination. It's examination of beliefs. It's examination of self-examination. It's examination of the writing process. It's examination of the toxicities of reading, writing, masculinity, self, religion, morality, and more. It's meta self-examination of meta self-examination. And it all takes place in a desert that happens to be homophonous with "weeding out a garden" in French. Because he's quitting weed. Because he's weeding his stories out of his experience. Because.
I would recommend this for people looking for intense, complex reflection, fans of Moebius with a vast knowledge of his work, and people who like to continually ask "The fuck?" when turning pages of a graphic novel. It wasn't, at all, for me, but not everything has to be.
Extremely ambitious, and often up to its ambitions.
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
The creator interrogating their process is something I've seen and read so many times I've tired of it. But this is highly original. Peppering it with beloved characters from many of his titles gives it all an extra layer of fun. The Osama Bin Laden arrival was a shock and gave it a surprising depth. Will definitely read the rest of these.
I found these books to be such a treat. Simple but clever, surprisingly inventive, warm, fun work. Perfect quarantine reading.
In the middle of Desert B, Moebius encounters his characters and versions of himself...
The Incal and World of Edena were marvelous so I decided to grab this one. I kind of wish I hadn't.
This book was started as a journal by Moebius when he decided to stop smoking weed. Since it was just after 9/11, 9/11 also factors into things. Anyway, there's no story as such. It's mostly Moebius interacting with his characters, plus Osama Bin Ladin and Geronimo, having existential conversations.
It's still Moebius, though, right? Well, it is but since most of the book takes place in a desert, it lacks a certain Moebius-ness. Gone are the hyper-detailed backgrounds and, frankly, some of the remaining art doesn't really measure up to Moebius' high standards set in other books.
Further more, I question the wisdom of Dark Horse including this in the Moebius library so early in its existence since their version of Arzak is long out of print and they don't have any Blueberry or stories featuring The Major in print either.
At the end, though, bad Moebius is like bad sex. It's still pretty good. I'll probably still read the next two volumes of Inside Moebius at some point but I'll probably read some of the Moebius stuff Humanoids is doing first. Three out of five stars.
The Incal and World of Edena were marvelous so I decided to grab this one. I kind of wish I hadn't.
This book was started as a journal by Moebius when he decided to stop smoking weed. Since it was just after 9/11, 9/11 also factors into things. Anyway, there's no story as such. It's mostly Moebius interacting with his characters, plus Osama Bin Ladin and Geronimo, having existential conversations.
It's still Moebius, though, right? Well, it is but since most of the book takes place in a desert, it lacks a certain Moebius-ness. Gone are the hyper-detailed backgrounds and, frankly, some of the remaining art doesn't really measure up to Moebius' high standards set in other books.
Further more, I question the wisdom of Dark Horse including this in the Moebius library so early in its existence since their version of Arzak is long out of print and they don't have any Blueberry or stories featuring The Major in print either.
At the end, though, bad Moebius is like bad sex. It's still pretty good. I'll probably still read the next two volumes of Inside Moebius at some point but I'll probably read some of the Moebius stuff Humanoids is doing first. Three out of five stars.
"What good is this comic if it's not dictated by love?" the author's avatar asks in this masterful graphic memoir/meditation/manifesto. It's a question that I think every comics creator should ask themselves, and to see Mœbius struggling with it even at the end proves what an amazing artist he was.
Tentative rating here until I've read the rest of the series. My initial impression of it as a fan-only thing is a bit premature I think. While it no doubt deepens the reading to be familiar with Moebius'/Jean Giraud's work there's a lot else going on here; formal playfulness, philosophical musings leavened with breezy self-deprecating humour and fun digressions, insight into artistic process and so on. It's cool to see Moebius playing with the auto-bio comics genre and it's hard to imagine that he wasn't aware of other english language examples, there's a familiar self-aware tone seen in, for example, some of Robert Crumb's precedent setting work. I'm looking forward to reading the next 2 books.
Tried something new, it wasn't for me. That's all on this one.