Very happy to have added another Moebius page to the collection. I consider Le Monde Edena (World of Edena) to be an absolute masterpiece by the one of the masters of the medium. It started as a commission from Citroen to advertise their automobiles. Moebius realized they would give him total freedom to let his creativity fully flow. He actually laid out an entire 40pg story in one sitting:
"At first, I wanted 'Upon A Star' to be drawn by two of my friends,” Moebius explained. I would have done some pushed pencils and they would have inked. But one day when I was with them in their studio to talk about the project, I started to do some sketches and there something strange happened: the story just happened. Page after page, it began to grow on its own: ten, twenty, thirty, forty plates! In fact, in less than two hours, I had drawn the whole strip, very quickly, in crobard form. When I was done I realized they were looking at me in awe and one of them said: This is the full forty page story for Citroën."
Of course this inspired a continuation over the course of the following 20 years or so to become "The World of Edena" or "The Edena Cycle." Hard to describe all of the themes that Moebius brings us through, including gender, love, society, nature. A word that comes to mind when I think about it is purity.
Obviously, the Citroen no longer becomes an influence on the story after this initial burst. I really wanted a page with the Citroen Traction Avant (there are only 7) as it was really the inspiration and genesis for something that became so much more majestic and epic. This first story and a for a large portion of the story, Moebius used ligne-claire:
"Forcing myself to draw 'Upon A Star' as stripped down and pure as possible, I could no longer seek refuge in the luxuriance of detail. I had to work a lot on my line and each line was important. […] It protected me from this endless and completely neurotic overabundance which characterized some of my boards until then… And which was my way of making interesting what would never have been a very mediocre image without it.."
I love the simplicity of the page and scene. Stel and Atan in an unknown planet which appears to just be unending land. The sun setting, casting long shadows while they settle for the night next to their newly discovered Earth vehicle. This mirrors the readers journey with open space and mystery ahead, and boy what a journey would that go on to become.
