MOEBIUS ◊ - Lot 65

MOEBIUS ◊ MAJOR FATAL Les Humanoïdes Associés 1979 Original plate from Garage hermétique by Jerry Cornélius, prepublished in Métal Hurlant no. 16, April 1977. Signed. India ink and white gouache on paper 23 × 27 cm (9.06 × 10.63 in.) "Major Fatal is too good to be true. You're never sure you're going to get in. And yet you can't get out. A vicious circle. A drug!" wrote Le Monde critic Jacques Goimard, then pope of the nascent French science fiction scene. He was fascinated, even stunned, to discover a comic strip applying to the letter the method used by Breton and Soupault in Les Champs magnétiques in 1919: automatic writing. For three years, in Métal Hurlant, Moebius would explore the unconscious in a freewheeling fashion, unwinding his thread in a story without beginning or end, like the perpetual ring of Möbius, his inspiration. Jean Giraud's spare, uniquely musical double-sided drawing soothes the reader like the peaceful progress of a philosophical conversation. It runs for dozens of pages and collects tricks, oddities and sibylline plots. For the first time, thanks to him, we're taking another look at comics.