Giraud - Lot 1

Giraud JEAN GIRAUD BLUEBERRY Le Cavalier perdu (T.4), Dargaud 1968 Original album cover from the screenplay by Jean-Michel Charlier. Signed. Gouache on paper 33.2 × 46.5 cm (13.07 × 18.31 in.) This is a museum piece, a true masterpiece. Let's start by situating it historically: the episode Le Cavalier perdu was prepublished in Pilote magazine from no. 360 (June 8, 1967) to no. 395 (February 1, 1968), before being published as an album by Dargaud the same year, 1968. This publication follows on from the first Fort Navajo cycle, conceived as a series of independent episodes. They are set during the American Civil War, i.e. between 1861 and 1865, or more precisely around 1864, when the war between the North and South began to move westwards, into the still unstable territories of Arizona and New Mexico. It was against this backdrop that Lieutenant Mike Steve Blueberry, a Union cavalry officer, was assigned to Fort Navajo, an outpost charged with keeping the peace between settlers and Indian tribes, while the regular army was mobilized on the eastern fronts. The young lieutenant soon becomes embroiled - otherwise there would be no adventure - in an accusation of treason. Involved in a murky affair involving Indians, renegade soldiers and arms dealers, he finds himself alone in the face of conflicting interests, torn between his military duty and his moral conscience. The result is a modern Western comic strip in which Giraud, initially under the tutelage of Jijé, rises to a level of graphic perfection that makes this the best Western in the world, in step with the best film directors of his time, from Sam Peckinpah to Sergio Leone. This cover is a demonstration of that mastery: it captures the moment of a furious cavalcade. Blueberry, leaning forward, gallops at full gallop through a harsh, mineral desert. The image is split in two, following the horizon, in a play of contrasts: the burning brightness of the ground contrasts with the dark mass of the sky, where stormy clouds gather. Everything points to a storm, whether meteorological or dramatic. The character, anonymous and tense, embodies the very essence of the Western: man alone in the face of immensity. His faded blue shirt, yellow scarf and white hat form a triad of bold colors (Lucky Luke's!) that stand out against the organic landscape of mauve rocks and blue sky blackened by the rumbling storm. Giraud, heir to Jijé and fellow student of Mézières who, like him, lived in the United States, is not yet the Moebius who will emerge from his chrysalis in a few years' time. Here, he displays a rare pictorial mastery, worthy of the greatest painters and illustrators in the history of the Western, in the rugged, virile tradition of Frederic Regminton, for example. But beyond the graphic feat, this cover reflects Blueberry's slide towards a harsh, almost existential realism: the lost horseman is Blueberry himself, a traditional Western hero à la Tom Mix or John Wayne, whose statue of command is gradually cracked, revealing a character who is a little less ideal. In a single drawing, Gir manages to transform a mythological icon into a deconstructed character. With its vigor, tension and savage beauty, this cover alone sums up the tragic grandeur of the Blueberry myth: that of a man lost in the infinity of his faults and his horizons. Didier Pasamonik