Dovetailing nicely into Bladerunner comes some of the original visual inspiration for that film – ‘The Long Tomorrow’ – a 1976 Proto-Cyberpunk Comic with art By French Artist Mobieus and a script from Dan (Alien) O’Bannon. Many Thanks to Dick Hogg for putting me onto this, and supplying the scans.
Read much more about ‘The Long Tomorrow’ and the birth of Cyberpunk here: http://www.brmovie.com/FAQs/BR_FAQ_BR_Influence.htm
Obviously reminds me some pages of its Incal.
pretty amazing stuff of course – I was thinking though with this bright colour palette maybe Luc Beson’s Fifth Element is the truer rip-off..
Yeah, I completely forgot about this but I remember that I was totally blown away when it came out in Heavy Metal magazine over 20 years ago. Now that I look at it, it does seem Blade Runner-esque not to mention Fifth Element-y. It is a shame that Mobius was so widely unknown in the US; he had a certain style which was so instantly recognizable. I also seem to recall that he did the concept art for the space suits in Alien. (Note the association with Dan O’Bannon on this as well).
hey – yeah he certainly had an idiosyncratic style – I know he did some concept work for dune, not sure which version – I think it might of been the abandoned 70s version – I will research this…. I posted his Alien concept early on the Blog BTW
http://blog.kierankelly.net/category/artist/moebius-artist/
Moebius not Mobieus.
thanks
Whoops. thanks for pointing that out!