McQuarrie & Moebius

A couple of artist have passed away in the last couple of weeks and I felt like I should say something about them because of their influence in both pop culture and myself. 

My favorite ship from Star Wars, the Millenium Falcon.

Star Wars concept artist Ralph McQuarrie passed away last week. Although I wasn't a huge fan of his art, it certainly left an impact in popular culture and me with the design of Darth Vader, Chewbacca, C3PO, Stormtroopers, R2D2, and the look of the Star Wars universe. McQuarrie also worked on a barrage of popular movies such as "Close Encounters", "Battlestar Galactica", "Star Trek", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and "E.T.".


http://www.ralphmcquarrie.com/
http://starwars.com/news/ralph_mcquarrie_remembered.html

My 1st Moebius book

French comic artist Jean Giraud, known as Moebius, has passed away this weekend. He created the famed comic western "Blueberry", was one of the founders of the alternative comic magazine "Metal Hurlant" ("Heavy Metal" in the US), and was a visionary concept artist for film. I was always amazed at his comic work, my introduction to it was Marvel's Epic 3rd Moebius collection ("The Airtight Garage") and the Silver Surfer book he did with Stan Lee. In film his presence was felt in SciFi classics like "Alien", "Tron", "The Abyss" and "The 5th Element". One of his stories became the inspiration for "Blade Runner". Giraud also influenced another hero of mine, Hayao Miyazaki, especially in his "Nausicaä of The Valley of the Wind" manga series and animated movie. I felt a kinship since we shared a last name, love of comics, and being an artist. Secretly, I wished we were related. Heidi MacDonald has a lot of Moebius material over at her blog "The Beat" here.


http://www.moebius.fr/
http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/giraud.htm


Rest In Peace both and thank you for your amazing contributions to popular culture and the art world.