Comic artist Jean-Claude Mézières has died

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Drawn extraterrestrial cultures and worlds: Comic artist Jean-Claude Mézières

Photo:

Julien Faure / opale.photo / ddp

He became popular with the comic series »Valerian & Veronique« and developed the design for the movie »The Fifth Element«.

Now the French comic artist Jean-Claude Mézières is dead. He died on Sunday night at the age of 83, as reported by the AFP news agency.

cowboys and comics

Mezieres was born in Paris in 1938.

While studying art at the École des Arts Appliqués, he drew for various French comic magazines, including »Coeurs Vaillant« and »Spirou«.

In 1965 he went to the USA and worked as a cowboy.

There he also met his childhood friend and later colleague Pierre Christin, who taught at the University of Utah.

Mézières finally became popular thanks to »Valerian & Veronique«: the comic series is considered one of the most important Franco-Belgian science fiction comics.

Mézières developed them together with Christin.

The drawn adventures offered action, exciting aliens, breathtaking extraterrestrial cultures and worlds.

In 1984, Mézières was awarded the Grand Prize at the Angoulême Festival for this work.

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Jean-Claude Mézières 1984: Legendary Pictures

Photo: Olivier BOITET / Gamma-Rapho / Getty Images

He developed the design for the film »The Fifth Element« by director Luc Besson together with Jean Giraud, the French comic artist and scenario artist, also known as Möbius.

But other science fiction films were also inspired by his fabulous images: many motifs from »Star Wars« have already been found in Mézière's comic books.

In 2017, the film adaptation of his science fiction epic »Valerian«, also by Luc Besson, was released.

A year later, Mézières received the Max and Moritz Prize for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement.

evh/AFP