Deconstructing the Jodoverse

About Alejandro Jodorowsky

Born February 7th 1929 in Tocopilla Chile of a Jewish Ukrainian immigrant family. Jodorowsky was multi-talented from an early age becoming skilled in puppetry and mime in addition to writing by his late teens. He traveled with a pantomime troupe in the 1950s and within a couple years had made his way to Paris where he collaborated with the world-renowned mime Marcel Marceau. In the 1960s Jodorowsky ventured further into the world of theater creating in Mexico the Panic Movement. This innovative artistic movement allowed him to creatively participate in over a 100 theater productions. The 1970s saw him transition into the world of film where he quickly put a defining stamp on all his cinematic works. He directed several cult films namely the infamous El Topo a Midnight movie favorite. Shortly thereafter Jodorowsky became attached to direct the adaptation of the famous Frank Herbert sci-fi epic novel Dune. At the preparation stage of the film he brilliantly assembled a team of extremely diverse and gifted artists such as HR Giger Chris Foss Dan O'Bannon and Moebius all of who would later be hired as concept artists on Ridley Scott's Alien. The development of Dune came to a halt due to financial problems but Jodorowsky having been exposed to such immense visual talent propelled himself into writing graphic novels pairing up with the artist Moebius. This collaboration resulted in what many consider to be one of the most creative European sci-fi graphic novel series of all time The Incal which went on to sell millions of copies worldwide. Since penning The Incal Jodorowsky continued writing top selling comic books with a wide variety of Europe's most talented artists such as The White Lama (with Bess) The Metabarons (with Gimenez) The Technopriests (with Janjetov) and most recently Bouncer (with Boucq). Along with nurturing his many other talents Jodorowsky remains a unique storyteller whose published contributions have secured his status as one of the world's most prolific graphic novel writers.When he was little Christophe Quillien dreamed of being a superhero. Alas he quickly realized that life had given him a single super-power: writing. Since then he has busied himself by writing books on comics. He published Grandes aventurières et femmes fatales de la bande dessinée (Huginn & Muninn) Méchants crapules et autres vilains de la bande dessinée (Huginn & Muninn) La Bande dessinée (Gallimard Jeunesse) Le Guide des 100 bandes dessinées incontournables (Librio) La Bande dessinée à Paris (Parigramme). Il a aussi écrit des articles sur la BD (et dautres sujets moins sérieux) dans la presse: The Good Life Rolling Stone Epok Le Magazine Littéraire Le Monde Les Inrockuptibles Télérama Sortir He has also written articles about comics (and other less serious topics) in the press: The Good Life Rolling Stone Epok The Literary Magazine The World Inrockuptibles Télérama Sortir ...Jean Annestay is a comics writer editor and publisher who has issued volumes by such noted creators as Moebius Frank Miller Geof Darrow Liberatore and many more. He has also collaborated with various publishing houses such as Futuropolis  Humanoïdes Associés  Dargaud and Albin Michel. In the early 90s he adapted Paul-Loup Sulitzer as a comic book for the Dupuis editions at the same time as he co- wrote with Moebius  Icare a river manga for Jiro Taniguchi for the Kodansha editions (French edition by Kana in 2006) . After having translated several comics from Italian and English during the 1980s he translated the Hindu art historian and metaphysician Ananda Coomaraswamy and the Islamologist William Chittick for Dervy editions where he created in 2008 in collaboration with Abdallah Penot Hikma a collection specializing in Sufism and oriental traditions. In 2009 with Abdallah Penot he founded and co-directed the Hikma collection specializing in Sufism at Entrelacs editions.Jean Mbius Giraud was a French artist cartoonist and writer who worked in the Franco-Belgian bandes dessinées tradition. Giraud garnered worldwide acclaim predominantly under the pseudonym Mbius and to a lesser extent under the name Gir which he used for the Blueberry series and his paintings. Mbius' most famous work was The Incal written by Alejandro Jodorowsky. He also contributed storyboards and concept designs to numerous science fiction and fantasy films such as Alien Tron The Fifth Element and The Abyss.Born November 26th 1943 in Mendoza Argentina. Gimenez finished his high school education as an industrial design major and advanced his artistic education by attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona Spain where he studied drawing. For the next few years he dedicated himself to the drawing of comic books both back in his native Argentina with such publishers as Colomba and Record as well as in Spain contributing to magazines such as Zona 84 and Comix International. By this point Gimenez had made quite a name for himself for his extremely detailed renditions of machinery chiefly in the war and science fiction genres. His art further propelled him to international collaborations and it was in 1979 that he was first published in France with a series of titles including Leo Roa which he also wrote. The following year he participated as a creative designer on a segment of the film Heavy Metal. For the next decade he continued his work in comic book magazines notably the French comics anthology Metal Hurlant and the Italian L'Eternauta. The 1990s saw him strengthening his fan base as he was repetitively voted best artist by European audiences a recognition that was mirrored in the festival and critical realms with such awards as the Gaudi award at the Feria Internacional del Comics de Barcelone in 1990. In 1992 he meets Alejandro Jodorowsky for the first time and the two began work on The Metabarons a sci-fi saga of epic proportions in both art and story. It is to this day regarded as one of the true graphic novel classic of the genre and it continues successful sales around the world. Gimenez currently maintains a consistent yet varied workload lending his talents as illustrator to covers for CD albums and novels as well as serving as a concept artist on video games and motion pictures. He also remains in high demand as a graphic novel artist collaborating with some of Europe's most acclaimed authors such as Carlos Trillo Emilio Balcarce and Roberto Dal Prà when he is not writing his own stories as he successfully continues to do as with The Fourth Power collection. On April 2nd 2020 he passed away in his home province of Mendoza Argentina from COVID-19 complications. Web sites:+ http://www.juangimenez.com/Zoran Janjetov is among the most prominent comics creators of former Yugoslavia and has been published worldwide. He is best known as the illustrator of Before The Incal also written by Alexandro Jodorowsky.Travis Charest was born in Leduc a small town in the Canadian province of Alberta. He discovered his first comic book at his grandmothers house which inspired him to start drawing. He submitted his work to DC Comics and based on his early work for them was asked by Jim Lee to come to California and join the Wildstorm Studios for whom he drew the Wild CATS revamp. He eventually travelled to Paris to collaborate on a one-off graphic novel taking place within the famed universe of The Metabarons created by Alejandro Jodorowsky. The project also involved Before The Incal and The Technopriests artist Zoran Janjetov and would come to be known as Weapons of the Metabaron. By 2007 Charest had settled in California and developed his own webcomic Spacegirl of which a collected book version was self-published in 2008.