THE MAJOR 

I too was a bit puzzled about the print quality but it mostly shows on the cover. The pages were completely acceptable in my opinion. Also, to be noted that the original edition was a small notebook 4 times smaller than this Dark Horse edition. The second french edition doubled it and then this English edition doubled it again. So the reproduction we are seeing is probably due to the upscaling (still this does not justify the poor quality cover).

First of all thank you for your good channel and the nice books you publish. And also thank you for pointing out the production issues with this book. I picked up the book a few weeks ago and was quite taken aback by the very poor reproduction of the line artwork. It’s so bad it’s bordering on making this book unreadable for someone who is into Moebius’ art. (The full color art is however mostly fine.) Working with book production myself I have tried to figure out what has gone wrong. Going so far as comparing this edition with a Spanish edition using a loupe. Even after doing this I’m unsure what exactly has happened. I suspect the files Dark Horse has recieved from the Moebius Estate might be the problem. The Spanish edition is printed on a very rough uncoated paper quality. And more importantly the size is about half the size of the Dark Horse edition. This effectivly doubles the the resolution. Combined with the matt paperstock this largely solves the issues plaguing this larger Dark Horse version printed on glossy paper. Dark Horses ”Inside Moebius” editions also suffer from similar issues, albeit not to the same degree. Once again the orginal french editions are printed on a matt paperstock and at a smaller size. This leads me to belive the problem is with the source files supplied by the Moebius Estate. All this said, this book and the ”Inside Moebius” books have very decent appendices, explaining references that will probably be obscure for 99% of any non french native. For a long time Moebius fan who is not french, this makes this purchase almost worthwhile. Although at a steep price … And yes, the the sequence in which Dark Horse are publishing Moebius’ work is unfortunate. I can only assume that this is the result of contractual demands from the Moebius Estate. The best work is yet to come (hopefully).

DH is putting out such random latter works that it seems unlikely most new fans would be able to understand what they're reading. I bought the old Epic versions in English years ago, plus the DH-printed Man from the Ciguri, so having this volume finally in English is very welcome. Just need Chasseur de Prime to be translated. No doubt DH would much rather be printing the earlier works first, though. One thing on the resolution... Moebius drew this one in a much smaller sketchbook size, similar to his 40 Days in the Desert (possibly my favorite of his art), and the French version of The Major is printed at that smaller size, so DH might've not had access to better scans of the smaller originals when they enlarged the pages for this one. I do enjoy seeing him grapple with his creations in this and Inside Moebius. He had health problems for most of the years he was working on those and perhaps his mortality being up front pushed him to explore in this manner. It's kind of a rare thing to see that semi-Proustian reflection in a major comic book artist. Of course, his near-impenetrable French plus New Age sort of introspection can be a bit alien.

Hi Carson, just leaving a suggestion for you to see what you think of it "Land of The Lustrous" (Don't want to tell you without spoiling anything why it could make YOU have some interesting insight). It's a finished manga, 13 volumes (I think last volume is still to come out on japan).

Carson, you have a very distinct way of pronouncing his pen name?

Was the 80s translation of Airtight Garage not complete?

that image bottom right at 5:00 looks like it was made with AI lol.