GIRAUD - Lot 130

GIRAUD JEAN GIRAUD ◊ BLUEBERRY La Piste des Navajos (T.5), Dargaud 1969 Original plate no. 14, prepublished in Le Journal de Pilote no. 322, December 23, 1965. India ink on paper 38.2 × 48.3 cm (15.04 × 19.02 in.) This is a crucial scene in Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean Giraud's fifth Blueberry. Giraud is beginning to free himself from the tutelage of his mentor Jijé, with a drawing style that is gaining in power: this will make him the best Western cartoonist of his time. Blueberry understands that Crowe has been murdered by Qanah, who really wants the Apaches to stay on the warpath, while their chief Cochise is ready to negotiate if he doesn't have the guns to fight his enemies on equal terms. In just one page, the plot thickens: Blueberry guesses where the weapons are and sets out to destroy them... And far from resting in a transitional sequence, Gir remains virtuoso, in his cutting and drawing of the scenery and horses. Right up to the cliffhanger at the end of the panel: the symbiosis between Charlier and Gir is total.