Jean-Claude Mézières – a cartoon hero

Jean-Claude Mezieres is one of my heroes, and as a kid reading science fiction comics, he inspired me immensely as a comics artist. (Now usually called Graphic Novels.) His drawings and inspiring way of drawing science fiction, did not only inspired myself, he also inspired many others.. for example the people doing the Star Wars movie in the beginning, and as a consequent of course through all the movies in the series. Because of this inspiration Jean-Claude Mezieres draw a funny sequence in his Linda & Valerian comic, when Linda and Valerian, the heroes in his and Pierre Christin Sci-Fi cartoon “Valerian”, met up with Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and the rest of the gang at a bar on a planet somewhere in the universe.

Its a bit funny to read that Linda And Valerian (Linda & Valentin in Sweden), don’t seem to be so well known in US-America. Especially knowing how it was an inspiration for the Star Wars movie, as well as being a really great Science Fiction cartoon/ graphic novel. But then the sci-fi cartoons, graphic novels coming from the US was very much about super heroes, in contrast to the subject matters in European sci-fi comics. And then I mean the giants French and Belgian comics.

To quote myself in my post about Jean Giraud: You should really take the time to read the wikipedia presentation on his work, you will be surprised, especially if you are a non-european having not read European comics/graphic novels.

Stefan Lindblad

Illustrator & artist