Hermetic Colony: A Colonization Metaphor in Moebius’ Work

• • 
  • Presentation speakers
    • Delmo de Oliveira Arguelhes, UniEURO, Brasilia, Brazil

  Abstract:

  An artistic lifestyle and a political movement, without a clear ideology or well know leaders, the Counterculture provoked – between Jack Kerouack’s On the road (1957) and the French’s May 68 – the questioning of middle and upper class’ youth about various social institutions, as the family, the patriarchal system, the economics, the war among states and the domination of men, by men. Several minorities claimed equality. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, the comic books, although with the fame of being a childish entertainment, began to use cultural and political elements and statements. In the U.S., authors like Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton wrote underground comics – Mr. Natural and Freak brothers, among others titles. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Frenchmen start to publish the famous Pilote and Métal Hùrlant. One of the well known French authors was Jean Giraud, aka Moebius. Giraud had a regular job, drawing the scripts of Jean Charlier for the comic Lieutenant Blueberry. During the nights, Giraud produced solo a lot of underground comics for Pilote and Métal Hùrlant, under the pseudonym of Moebius. In his comics, such as Fatal Major, Trip to Pharagonescia, The Dumb Lascivious and – our object – The Hermetic Garage, Moebius explored, in his own words, a variety of questions using science fiction themes. His main character, Major Grubert is a deep space explorer. Beneath that surface, the whole scenario is a colonial one. Grubert, besides being a spaceship commander, uses typical white man stereotypes in African clothes, including the colonial helmet. He keeps the Hermetic Garage as his own reservoir of adventures. The goal of this paper is to proceed to a Hermetic Garage’s grammar under the view of colonization. How the memories of French’s colonies are perceived in Moebius’ work? Which concepts can be traced from this story?

 

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