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From a Galaxy (Where Credit is) Far, Far Away: The Unsung Work of Jean-Claude Mézières

By Rain Noe - August 25, 2014

When you think of knockout sci-fi concept designers, you probably think of Syd Mead and/or Doug Chiang. Between Blade Runner, Tron, Terminator 2 and the later Star Wars films, both men have gotten their due. Their names also ring a little sweeter to us because both majored in Industrial Design, Mead at Art Center, Chiang at CCS. But for fans of this genre, there's another man whose name you may not know and whose work you should look at: Jean-Claude Mézières, whose background was not in industrial design but in illustration. And if you have seen the original Star Wars trilogy, you have seen the largely uncredited influence of his work (further down in this entry are the most egregious examples).

Mézières' background is as wonderfully confusing as it is interesting: Born and raised in Paris of the 1930s and '40s, entered an art academy at the age of 15. After graduation he did two years in the French army, seeing action in Algeria, and briefly worked as an illustrator upon his discharge. Then he became so fascinated by the American West that he hitchhiked across America in the 1960s to fulfill his lifelong ambition of becoming an actual working cowboy in Utah.

After wrapping up his cowboy gig and American adventures, Mézières returned to France—and started an influential science-fiction comic book, at a time when sci-fi was about as popular in France as being a hitchhiking cowboy was.

But Valérian and Laureline, the series Mézières started with childhood friend Pierre Christin, became wildly popular. It followed a time-traveling "spatio-temporal" agent and a female medieval peasant, cruising around having adventures in the 28th Century. Begun in 1967, it developed into a "space opera" with clear influences on Star Wars (as fanboys like this one and that one will tell you).

Valérian and Laureline continued for decades. One fan of the books was director Luc Besson, who contacted Mézières in the '90s to create renderings of a futuristic NYC for a movie project. The renderings reportedly inspired the production design of The Fifth Element, which heavily features the flying taxis drawn by Mézières for one of his Valérian books.

But Mézières was not hired as the production designer, and instead seems to have served only as an uncredited concept artist. Hollywood never came knocking on his door. Nor did Star Wars fans ever really give him a nod for his influence, nor hear of Valérian and Laureline.

In 1983, after having seen all three of the original Star Wars flicks and a fair bit of what he had inspired, Mézières released this single-frame comic in the French magazine Pilote. Sharing a table at a Star-Wars-Cantina-like bar are Princess Leia and Luke opposite Valérian and Laureline.

Leia: "Fancy meeting you here."

Laureline: "Oh, we've been around this place for a while."

Rain Noe

Rain Noe is a writer and industrial designer based in New York City.

7 Comments

Elon Leor

3 years ago

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Brandon Graham ("King City", "Prophet") recently tweeted this video (featuring some nice panels by Mézières): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK8B10_oY5g The similarities between some drawings by Mézières and some designs for Star Wars are pretty obvious.

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Elon Leor

3 years ago

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK8B10_oY5g

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lifemare

4 years ago

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Discussions of copyright aside, it's just a huge tragic shame that so many many people have never heard of ValÃ©rian.
The efforts to translate and publish this amazing work into the english language have been met with failure time after time since the early 80's. Just recently (in 2004) and thanks to Cinebook (UK) has the english-speaking public been finally introduced to what is arguably the greatest science-fiction graphic novel ever produced.
Jodorowsky's Incal is another masterpiece that just recently got published, unfortunately the original was completely reworked and censored to cater to american tastes and prejudices.
Sadly, 90% of european comics have yet to receive such attention... It's like having this map to a buried treasure filled with countless riches and no one will sell you a damn shovel.
And like this wasn't all depressing enough, remember that it's because of this ignorance of an european tradition of comic book production aimed at an adult audience, that we today, still have this preconception of comics being juvenile empty things, filled with super-heroes, teenage themes and ridiculous action plots. Thanks a lot Marvel!
Imagine a world where you're one of the few people that ever read Tolkien's work, and having to discuss Fantasy Literature with people that only ever read Harry Potter.... Now add to that personal hell the knowledge that because so many people never heard of LotR you'll never get to watch Peter Jackson's dream on screen, while having to endure all the fangirling hype around JK "Dan-Brown-Does-Merlin" Rowling. Yeah, that's how i feel every time i see another X-man or Spiderman movie come out.
tl;dr: sorry about that...
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- Joshua Terrell
  
  2 years ago
  
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  How does an English speaker like myself get into untranslated Euro comics? Is there a community for them?
  
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  - Rain Noe
    
    Joshua Terrell
    
    2 years ago
    
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    https://www.amazon.com/Valerian-Trilogy-Frontiers-Weapons-Circles/dp/1596878347It's been translated into English:
    
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  - Rain Noe
    
    Joshua Terrell
    
    2 years ago
    
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    It's been translated into English: https://www.amazon.com/Valerian-Trilogy-Frontiers-Weapons-Circles/dp/1596878347
    
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Rob Wilkey

4 years ago

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Thank you for posting this and giving credit where credit is due, even though no one else did. I loved The Fifth Element and I'm happy to say that now I know who did the concept art for that (and whatever this 'Star Wars' thing is...)
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