u/SecularAirs

New scanlation. From Coeurs Vaillants #30 (1957 07 28). Thanks for u/Abject_Truth_6091 for helping me figure out the third panel.

Une enigme policiere dans l’ouest: Le tireur solitaire (2 pages, 1966 10 13)

(“A Police Mystery in the West: The Lone Gunman”)

Writer: George Fronval

Pilote #364 (1966 10 13)

Gir Oeuvres T2: Le Tireur Solitaire (1983 05) (b&w)

Blueberry Intégrales 3 (2015 11 27) (color, but printed ¼ size)

Oringal title: "L'épopée de Larsen et de Nordenskjöld"

Original publication: Coeurs Vaillants #24 (1958 06 15)

Recently collected in De Gir a Moebius: Le lac des emeraudes (2019)

Thanks to u/Abject_Truth_6091 for translating two of the dialogue balloons that stumped me (well, really they stumped Google Translate). Sometimes in language, the meaning of words doesn't really correspond to their literal meaning and Google Translate sometimes fails to pick up on this distinction.

This was a special "April Fish" issue of Pilote, with the fish-theme throughout and the fish border around the "prank" episodes of the various comic strips.

Gir usually numbered his pages multiple times as they were drawn in tiers, so there would be 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, etc (sometimes including a C tier as well). This prank page is numbered 43Y and 43Z, a nice detail. Also I should note that the story here picks up seamlessly from page 42, so eager readers who rushed right to Fort Navajo may have been fooled.

If you follow the instructions at the bottom of the page, you reach a note on page 47 that reads: "How could you believe such a thing? April Fools!”

Thanks to u/Abject_Truth_6091 for providing the source material and translating the second panel. Thanks to u/JethroQ47 for a quick tip on how to easily piece images together.

This initially appeared in a fanzine. I couldn't find much info on it but I did find the front cover and what I assume is the back cover. I will post those in the comments.

This strip appeared in the inner gatefold sleeve of Eddy Mitchell's album 7 colts pour Schmoll. Giraud did additional artwork for the album which I will post in the comments below.

I've read conflicting dates for the year of publication: Gir Oeuvres T2 has it as 1964 in several places, while both Discogs and French Wikipedia have it as 1968. I don't know how it was in France, but for the USA record market in the 1960s, elaborate gatefold artwork was much more of a thing in 1968 than in 1964. There was a huge shift toward presenting rock LPs as art objects beginning circa 1966 that I believe really hit the mainstream in 1967 with Sgt Pepper.

Thanks to u/Abject_Truth_6091 for sending me the French pages!

I've previously read the Blueberry volumes published by Marvel/Epic and Graphitti Designs, but recently decided to use fan scanlations to go back and read the entire series (at least all the episodes drawn by Giraud). While reading volume 4 (The Lost Rider aka Mission to Mexico), I discovered this page was missing.

I made this scanlation not remembering there is already an official English version (Fort Navajo vol 4: Mission to Mexico, published in 1978). That volume is hard to find so I understand why people resort to scanlation versions.

Anyway, the work is done. A lot happens on a single page of early Blueberry! The first five volumes make one continuing narrative and I hope they'll eventually be retranslated and collected with great image reproduction, etc. Those of us who can only read English tend to be dreamers when it comes to Blueberry!

Thanks as usual to u/Abject_Truth_6091 for help understanding some of the French phrases.

Thanks to u/Abject_Truth_6091 for posting the original French pages a while back. As noted in that post, "La guerre des Mikes was first published in Pilote 2008 Special, and it's available also in the ninth Dargaud intégrale of Blueberry and in the 2022 boxset of Inside Moebius, published by Moebius Production."

Thanks to u/Abject_Truth_6091 for providing the French pages.

If anyone really knows their 1970s international economic policy politics, please share your thoughts about this strip. It is from before my time and nothing people around me have ever spoken about. My understanding is this is kind of a cautionary speculative fiction story about how events might unfold. With the benefit of hindsight, how accurate were these predictions? What was different in real life? Some of the political issues in this strip are still present in the opinions sections of newspapers today, for example the issue of whether or not to allow foreign governments to invest in companies is still written about in the New York Times, although I don't remember the specifics or the reasons for the concerns.

1. Metal Hurlant 3 (1975)
2. & 3. Heavy Metal Presents Moebius (1978)
3. Chaos (1991)

This page was later used as the cover of Deconstructing the Incal.

Thanks to u/Abject_Truth_6091 for help with the translation.

Originally published in a two-page layout in Far West (1956). Reconfigured in a six page digest format for Sitting Bull (1970). This is the same version used for De Gir a Moebius: Le Lac des émeraudes (1981, 2019).

I'm posting three versions of this initially-untitled single-page strip. This one was part of Grubert's world from the very beginning (see the second piece of dialogue in the first panel).

Full title from Elsewhere Prince 4: “A First Hand Report of an Incident during Major Grubert's Third Campaign against the Smies of the Second Level”

1. Metal Hurlant 14 (1977 02) (b&w) (first publication)

2. Heavy Metal 23 (1979 02) (b&w) (first English translation)

3. Elsewhere Prince 4 (1990 08) (color)

This page created a lot of confusion for me because there is a 2-page strip from 1974 also called "Les merveilles de l'univers" (the first appearance of Grubert in a faux travelogue).

Here is the info I have gathered on this 1977 page:

Les Merveilles de l’Univers - Un famille de nageurs (1 page, single-panel, versions with and without text, 1977)

Nouvel-Observateur (1977) - I don't have a scan of this.

l’ Homme est-il Bon? (1977) as “Une famille de nageurs” (“A family of swimmers”)

Heavy Metal 11 (1978 02) - “Marvels of the Universe” (“A typical ‘family’ of swimmers…)

Heavy Metal presents Is Man Good (1978) (same colors/translation as HM entry above)

If you send in additional appearances of this page (preferably with an image of that version of the page), I will add them to my bibliography.

1967, the French magazine Rock and Folk serialized a series of articles about the career of Elvis Presley up to that point (I assume). These two full-page illustrations by Gir show Elvis in his early rockabilly days. Gir's style is very reminiscent of the artwork in MAD magazine movie parodies. I don't see much "Moebius" here but I do enjoy this style.

There is a story of "Moebius vs Blueberry" in Bang! #2 pictured here... I think it is relatively cheap to obtain if you live in Europe. If you are willing to get some high quality scans from this, I will help pay for the magazine, which will then be yours to keep! Let me know. I want to do a scanlation of the story, which as far as I know has never appeared in English.

(I have to mention that I am a big Chris Ware fan here, so of course I love the cover. Not often that I can mention Ware in a Moebius forum.)

EDIT: I ended up finding a cheap-enough copy of this online, so I purchased myself. But the hunt continues! I'm continually looking for Moebius work in magazines and anthologies that never got published in the USA. I will eventually post a want list, but please get in touch if you have something you think I might want!

Thanks to u/Abject_Truth_6091 for sending me this strip. Another one I didn't know existed!

This was for a condom-theme album with various artists doing strips promoting safe sex. I was trying to find any new artwork published by Moebius in the year 1991 and this was the only thing I found. There is probably more, though. (He had plenty of collections coming out that year featuring older material or else things he wrote but didn't illustrate.)

I did the best I could presenting the fragments of the image. As is so often the case, it was spread across two pages so part of the image was lost in the gutter. Does anyone know if the entire image was later published elsewhere?

Thanks to u/Abject_Truth_6091 for help with translation, thanks to u/JethroQ47 for help making the black backgrounds perfectly black.

This is a mysterious page, as it is signed Gir and dated 1971, yet appears in Metal Hurlant in 1976. I am trying to locate definitive proof that this appeared in an earlier publication. My lead so far is that it may have appeared in an Italian calendar for the year 1972. If anyone knows what I am talking about and can verify (ideally sharing a photo and more info about the calendar), I will be grateful!

Here is a bibliography entry (in French) related to the calendar - or actually calendars, plural - There were apparently two: One for 1972, one for 1973. This seems to indicate both are in color and both are signed Moebius. I believe one of them is "Images of Hunting Long Before and Long After Buffalo Bill" which was reprinted in Metal Hurlant #3. Is this strip the other one? Was it in color?

Calendriers couleurs :

2 pl., signées Moebius, in calendrier italien, en 1972 et 1973. La fre est reprise in Métal Hurlant, n° 3

Elsewhere in the same bibliography, here is an entry from Metal Hurlant #3:

« Images de chasse bien avant et bien apres Buffalo Bill », 1 pl. coul. reprise d'un calendrier italien de 72.