Today i read an oldy that is a goody. I have a long time love and respect for the work of Moebius, but I had never read his Blueberry work. I decided to finally read the first of many volumes of his fine collaboration with Jean-Michel Charlier – Chihauhua Pearl. This book follows the intrepid hero on his journey for a half million dollars worth of confederate gold. Blueberry lives in world very similar to the Leone spaghetti westerns. None of the characters are good people and even the protagonist himself is fault with faults of his own. Moebius takes you through a messy dirty mexico filled with back stabbers, greedy confederate deserters and much more. Don’t expect a western along the lines of Deadwood though.
There are all sorts of little touches of Moebius’s work that he throws in that I love. Blueberry looks obviously filthy and you can see how he is getting more and more run down as the story progresses. His characterization is great, he is not a completely likeable hero, but at the same time, he steers away from being a Han Solo type of anti-hero. He is bit of an idiot sometimes even, which is a nice touch that alot of creators don’t use nearly often enough(except Johnny Ryan, but all of his characters are idiots).
The way the book is put together, it seems that the series was originally published as half page segments in a newspaper, but it doesn’t ruin the pacing at all. I think 99% of webcomics folks that are trying to do extend stories should read this, just to see how a master does it and take extensive notes. I know that this book will be hard as hell to come by, but if you get the chance, do yourself a favor and go hunt it down. I have even seen some Blueberry stuff on ebay for a decent price recently.
And make sure you check out Moebius’s site, it is AMAZING!1!!1!!!!!!
Man! He has a website… didn’t know…. deh!
That guy has been around ever since my comics reading life, like a granpa that has been there always and looks the same since you met him, but will always teach you new things. He has all kinds of stuff done, in every genre there is in comics. Whenever I thought that’s it, there is something else from him to discover.
Something for the sci-fi kiddy, novelist action for the growning teen. Yuk! – perverse monster porn for whoever. The list goes on. Superheros… Western, millions of things and drawings. He is one of those classic guys, someone that can draw everything and tell a story in many ways, making it look effortless.
I´m almost sure Blueberry was originally published in a weekly comic magazine called Pilote. There was two new pages by issue, I think.
When a story was completely published in Pilote it was collected in a 46 pages hardcover.
I didn’t find any source for it but this was the way all comics were published in France and Belgium at the time as far as I know.
I enjoy your show a lot, by the way.
That sounds right!