I want to draw like...

THIS!!!

That's the late Jean Girard, aka Moebius, aka His High Surreal Majesty. He died earlier this year. This guy was a great influencer of Hayao Miyazaki, if you can't tell, as well as many other artists, filmmakers, and comic book writers. His work with Alejandro Jodorowsky also "influenced" Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, resulting in a bit of a lawsuit (although I'm not complaining - TFE is one of my favorite movies of all time).

Enough talk. Here's more:

And more:

And MORE:

Okay, just one more:

That last one is from his wordless comic masterwork, Azarch. Perhaps it's a reaction to my own cartoony style, but I love his very European graphical approach: spare lines, flattened surfaces, luminous colors. The second-from-last image recalls my favorite computer games of all time, Homeworld (1999); you can see the amount of influence Moebius has had on video games and comics throughout his career.

I suppose I'm doing the great man a disservice by skipping over his work with Marvel, as well as some of his other masterpieces, but I'll allow other bloggers to cover these works. I just wanted to show the images that most influence my own art. With any luck I'll be able to track down an edition of Azarch for my own collection, hopefully to spend hours drooling over it and wishing I could approach his level of art.

I'll leave you with one more image:

Wow.

RIP Moebius, 1938-2012.

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