Celebrating MOEBIUS with Guest Host GEOF DARROW! The LONG TOMORROW, the Birth of CYBERPUNK 

According to Moebius in the afterword of the Epic printing of The Long Tomorrow in Moebius 4: […]Dan is a very good artist. He could have become a great comic artist with more practice. […]So, one day, he showed me a story that he had just finished drawing. It was The Long Tomorrow, a kind of classic detective story, but set in the future. I immediately became enthusiastic. I loved the way he had handled it. When we try to do stories like that in Europe, parodies or imitations of the Golden Age American detective story, it always looks fake. If the French are doing it, it looks French. If the Italians do it, it looks Italian. Somehow, the national peculiarities always come back to haunt the final product. But in The Long Tomorrow, there was no such thing. It was pure. Suddenly, I was reading a pastiche that was not a pastiche, but something even more original than the original source material.

One thing that amazes me about the MASTER is his absolute lack or raccord. Just check the walls and paintings in the room, they change all the time, from one panel to the next one. And it does'nt matter at all. In fact, the changing colours and details just add to the story. I'm sure it's not a conciuss decission by him. He just changed what needed to be changed so the story works better.

I was thinking "I wonder what the guys will post on my birthday?" and it turns out to be this?! Thank you fellas! Except, I didn't like the prices on The Long Tomorrow *before* ya'll kayfabed it, so now I'm really screwed.🙃 Darrow is one of the Greats. I met him at a con about 25 years ago and he was so generous with his time. He did little doodles on everything he signed, including my issues of one of my all-time favorites, Hard Boiled. I asked him to sign a copy of the Star Wars card he drew and he said "oh cool, I haven't seen the final version of this yet!" and I told him he should keep it. He gave me a Big Guy and Rusty poster in thanks, which is hanging about 2 feet from me right now.

I just discovered this story literally yesterday! It was in a special new "Metal Hurlant" publication celebrating the creation of the legendary magazine. To answer some questions asked in this interview: yes, Dan O'Bannon did do a storyboard for the script, which is much less interesting than the final artwork, but still pretty close in terms of narration (there is an example in the magazine I read). Apparently the guys at Metal Hurmant spent years trying to convince O'Bannon to write more comics stories for them, but he was crushed by the Dune debacle and later went on to a successful movie screenwriter career. As is very obvious, this is the style Moebius continued to use in the Incal after he convinced Jodorowsky to abandon fil for comics post-Dune. I know the director of the Jodorowsky's Dune documentary personally, and he told me one of the reasons the film tanked was that Moebius' widow blocked the release for years because she didn't want the original storyboards by her late husband displayed.

Geof Darrow is the GOAT!

I got to see some originals from The Long Tomorrow in an art gallery a few years ago. The first page of the story was on of them. They were drawn in pretty much the same size as the printed book. Almost the size of an A4 paper. Dan O'Bannon talks about the story in the Moebius Redux documentary. He had made some drawings for it himself, but Moebius changed it a lot. He also removed some of the text. In the panel where the woman is transforming Dan O'Bannon's originally had a thought bubble above his head where we could read his reaction. But Moebius removed the text and instead curled his toes. There was also a few Arzak originals there. Some of them were from the short story with the car. They were drawn in the same small format and were colored in with watercolor. There were no traces of whiteout or anything similar anywhere. There was also some pages from the latest Arzak book. They were also drawn in the same small size, but with a wider margin around the edge of the paper. They were some of, if not the most impressing drawings I have ever seen. One thought that have really stuck in my head ever since is "I really have to get my act together".

There's a comparison between O'Bannon's original sketches and Moebius' final work here: facebook.com/MetalHurlantOfficiel/photos/pcb.10159635537156737/10159635535161737 Unfortunately that's the only page that seems to have been published, I'd love to see the whole thing. In his postscript to the story in "the long tomorrow and other science fiction stories" Moebius states that he would have liked to have the two stories printed side-by-side for comparison (and also that O'Bannon could have been a great comic artist with more practice.)

its funny geof talks about drawing people in a box for perspective, kim jung gi does the same thing when explaining how he can draw in fish eyed lenses

I was in Paris a couple years ago and was able to get a Moebius print from an art gallery. Was so hyped. Keep the content coming boys!

I’m so thankful for your channel! All this great content is getting me excited about comics again. Keep up the good work! Darrow is my absolute favorite and I was just flabbergasted when I saw the update

Love the mention of the De Luca effect. I didn't know that the stuff Gianni De Luca did in his comics had a name but his work in Il Giornano is very cool looking and hopefully you guys can cover something by him one day (although unfortunately I'm not sure if his comics have been translated to english)

I was planning on just having this on in the background. I had to give it 100% of my attention. Thank you.

I LOVE TO SEE THE TITLE OF THIS VIDEO BECAUSE I ALWAYS SAY THAT THE LONG TOMORROW IS THE BIRTH OF CYBERPUNK IN 1975, HALF A DECADE BEFORE AKIRA, BLADE RUNNER AND NEUROMANCER.

What a treat, thank you! I really appreciated Goef Darrow's insight on this classic. I draw boxes around my characters all the time, hopefully one day I won't need to anymore.

I came, I saw, I conquered. I think this was on O'Bannon's mind when ending this story.

heeeeellll yeaaaaaahH!!!!!!!!! All my comic book dreams are coming true right... You guys are the freakin best

We (I) want to hear you guys talk about the Airtight Garage :) (Moebius said it was, in part, some sort of hommage to american super-heroes).

James Bond novel Colonel Sun was by Kingsley Amis.

This is exactly what I needed. Really appreciate all of you digging into this.

Geoff’s Metal Hurlant copy still has the vibrant colors that the Heavy Metal copy shown here does not anymore..

i was a kid when this stuff was coming out. i was heavily into reading old science fiction books then. i had nothing but contempt for all those super hero comic books that most kids were crazy for. but i saw moebius and those other artists in heavy metal magazine and that was it, there was nothing else like it, before or since

Man, I was literally sitting at work today, looking at some pages by Moebius. His work reminds of how much there is to learn

Have The Long Tomorrow in a comic called L'Homme est -il bon? contains 6 stories.. all crafted by Moebius .. The dead woman on the bed is a "page turner" in this volumen.

24:15, that panel of the Mouna Bar also blew my mind! Yes so Tokyo and BladeRunner (Yokohama in the rain!). So powerful image. I need to frame it!

Proud to own the Darrow/Moebius collaboration "The City of Fire" portfolio. A reprint is long overdue.

These interview/walkthrough segments have been the coolest

I specifically preordered the new Shaolin Cowboy series because of Uncle Geoff's previous appearance. Really looking forward to diving into them!

Thanks for the work you do guys!

One of my absolute favorite episodes.

Geof seems like a very sweet guy

Love Geof Darrow!

"All bets are off when you have a cthulhu head fuckin' wrapped around your dingus." So true, so true.

The World Encyclopedia of Comics - Maurice Horn. Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amiss. Dan O'bannon had written The Long Tomorrow as a film script, and he had story boarded it too. Moebius used the storyboards as a jumping off point... The Probot in The Long Tomorrow is a tip of the hat to Chris Foss, and his book cover design for 'The Last Continent' by Edmund Cooper

Enjoyed this one a lot.

Intrigued to see what comes of this “Hard Boiled Collection” I heard Geof mention briefly here. The past editions are quite pricey, one of the few Darrow I’m missing

1:16:16 I IMMEDIATELY thought of Frank Quietly lol a lot of his faces, especially female, look IDENTICAL to this. The Superman story he did was cool, though I can't say I'm a Giant fan of his work

Making my Friday night thanks guys!

Colonel Sun was written by Kingsley Amis under the pseudonym Robert Markham.

Chris Foss is on youtube. I think its his daughter filming and running the channel.

I like this channel so much.

LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS!!!!!!

Uncle Geof!

Coupla those Warren William Perry Mason flicks rip

Mr Darrow, your French is fine! Very easy to understand!

In any field of human endeavour... there're very few 'singular geniuses'. Where the impossibility of creating something new... somehow seems effortless to them. In sports, the arts, the sciences, entrepreneurial Capitalists... in all occupations- you'll find the same formula. There're only a very select few that 'effortlessly' rise to the very top. Out of an entire generation, three or maybe four people maximum - achieve this. The rest are those that love the topic and are at heart...just 'fans' and their expertise comes, only from patience, hard work and huge amount of practice. They may make niches for themselves, practice does have a 'pay-off' - but they're forever dilettantes. Whatever the gains from their hard work and practice, they instinctively know they're still second rate. That's the ultimate different between Jean Giraud and Geof Darrow.

yes.

oh lovely

In an interview I heard Moebius say that O"Bannon drew the whole comic in rough, and he loved it, but he lost the pages so redrew everything from memory as best he could remember then O'Bannon rewrote the comic to match, since it was mostly completely different.

Yo now this is a Friday!

Kingsley Amis wrote the 1st non fleming james bond

hi