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127-643: The series spawned out of the 1963 Fort Navajo comics series, originally intended as an ensemble narrative, but which quickly gravitated around the breakout character "Blueberry" as the main and central character after the first two stories, causing the series to continue under his name later on. The older stories, released under the Fort Navajo moniker, were ultimately reissued under the name Blueberry as well in later reprint runs. Two spin-off , or rather, sub-series, La Jeunesse de Blueberry ( Young Blueberry ) and Marshal Blueberry , were created pursuant

254-464: A break in tradition, Dargaud also started to occasionally farm out special, one-time only, series licenses to other Francophone publishers, which besides the aforementioned 2013/14 with editorial pages enhanced all-series "La Collection Blueberry" from Hachette, already included the French book club France Loisirs  [ fr ] for its 2003 main series releases. Another Francophone publisher who

381-409: A cliff-hanger with "Angel Face", resulting in an insatiable demand for more, putting the pressure on Dargaud. Whenever Georges Dargaud asked Charlier for a next Blueberry adventure, repeatedly, Charlier was now able to respond that he was "devoid of inspiration". As a matter of fact, Giraud was dying to leave Pilote and Blueberry , partly because he was tired of the stifling publication pressure he

508-432: A collection had already been in the works in conjuncture with Giraud himself prior to his death, but not as a general release as eventually realized, but rather as a to 10–12,000 copies one-time-only limited "collector's edition" Francophone market exclusive. As Dargaud deputy manager Philippe Ostermann had explained in the quote box on the right, an economic necessity for a general intégrale release had not yet materialized by

635-401: A concern for Giraud when he visited his longtime co-worker six months before his death: "He was a work bulimic! There were always seven to eight scenarios underway. His life was a true path of self-destruction. You should have seen him working at his desk! Six months before his passing, I advised him to slow down. Very artistically, he replied: No, I have chosen this! " Charlier, having been of

762-504: A conflict of interest, since he was then a tenured artist at Spirou , a competing comic magazine, which published his own Western comic Jerry Spring , and in which he was very much invested. In his stead, Jijé proposed his protégé Giraud as the artist. A happy coincidence was that Giraud was also intimately familiar with the landscapes that had inspired Charlier, as he already had been on an extended stay of nine months in Mexico in 1956, where

889-477: A cost, as his scripts frequently contained continuity errors on the detail level, and which included those of Blueberry , such as in his above cited instance of his hero's first name. Charlier has cited the Blueberry titles "La mine de l'allemand perdu" ("The Lost Dutchman's Mine") through "L'homme qui valait 500 000 $ " ("The Half-a-Million Dollar Man") as his favorites for their "potency", both story and artwise,

1016-462: A decade for new Blueberry titles to firstly German publisher Koralle-Verlag  [ de ] and subsequently to Belgian publisher Novedi  [ fr ] , as a result from a conflict with the creators over Blueberry royalties, the series has seen, predominantly one-time only, French pre-publication in such comic magazines as Métal Hurlant , L'Écho des savanes and Super As  [ fr ] . Other European countries followed

1143-404: A frequent basis, as he was consistently and notoriously late with his piecemeal provided script pages, including Giraud at the start of his Blueberry career. However, as he recognized quite early on that Blueberry occupied a special place in his body of work, he later made sure that (only) his Blueberry artists were provided with scripts in a timely fashion. Charlier's method of working came at

1270-426: A good little soldier who follows orders and does what he is instructed to do. Blueberry is the exact opposite of that; he is undisciplined, cynical and hates authority." —Charlier, 1989, on making Blueberry intentionally the opposite of the comic heroes he had hitherto created. "[The idea of giving Blueberry Belmondo's face] originated from the both of us. That came about this way: To have Blueberry come across as

1397-412: A heart condition after a short illness. By all accounts Charlier had been a workaholic throughout his career, working simultaneously on as much as a dozen projects at any given time, steadily increasing his workload as he grew older. His heart condition had already troubled him in his later years and his death, while sudden, was not entirely a surprise. Charlier's penchant for hard work increasingly became

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1524-408: A hero. That kind of character had, in my opinion, already been done to death. That is why I made Blueberry the very opposite of these classic heroic archetypes. He is dirty, ugly, and bad-tempered. He drinks, smokes, gambles and swears. And also, to make him even more different from the other characters, who are more the wandering kind, I decided to make him a soldier. But again, I did not want him to be

1651-667: A last ditch effort to spell out to Dargaud that the creators had other options. Dargaud still would not budge. It was then that it became clear to Charlier, that he was left with no other option than to leave, and this he did taking all his other co-creations with him, to wit Redbeard and Tanguy et Laverdure , which, while not as popular as Blueberry , were steady money making properties for Dargaud nonetheless. Though they were still contractually obligated to leave their most recent Blueberry title, "Nez Cassé", at Dargaud for book publication, Charlier and Giraud then threw in their lot with German publisher Koralle-Verlag – incidentally

1778-475: A law degree, stipulated an exemption clause for magazine (pre-)publications of his own (co-)creations. Though never intended as such, the hitherto dormant exemption clause now served him well in his conflict with Dargaud, without having to fear for any legal ramifications on Dargaud's part. Yet, Georges Dargaud refused to take the bait and the creators subsequently put forward the Jim Cutlass western comic as

1905-410: A magazine published by Radio-Luxembourg . Pilote was promoted by Radio-Luxembourg and featured editorials written by well-known personalities of the era. The first issue of Pilote was met with overwhelming demand, selling out all 300,000 copies in a single day. Unlike Belgian competitive magazines, such as Tintin and Spirou , the magazine was positioned to target an adolescent audience from

2032-566: A new western series for publication in Pilote , the just by Charlier co-launched legendary French comic magazine. Charlier refused on that occasion, claiming he never felt much empathy for the genre. Biographer Gilles Ratier  [ fr ] though, has noted that Charlier, when he felt he was preaching to the choir, had the tendency to "take liberties" with actual events for dramatic effect. Charlier had in effect already written several Westerns, both comics and illustrated short prose stories, in

2159-488: A non-conformist, I described him right from the start as uncombed, disheveled, unshaven, broken nosed, etc. After he had read that, Jean exclaimed to me, "That's Belmondo!" " —Charlier, 1978, on conceiving the initial countenance of Blueberry. Blueberry was first published in the October 31, 1963 issue of Pilote magazine – hence Charlier's corresponding October 30 birth-date for his fictional character, when

2286-507: A non-issue in native France), typically with a one to two year lag. In French, (Young) Blueberry has firstly seen serialized pre-publication in Pilote (issue 210, 31 October 1963 – issue 720, 23 August 1973) and Super Pocket Pilote  [ fr ] (issue 1, 1 July 1969 – issue 9, 19 October 1970) from publisher Dargaud, the parent and main publisher of Blueberry , with Giraud frequently creating original Blueberry art for

2413-439: A previous generation, conservative in nature and wary of science fiction in general, had never understood what his younger colleague tried to achieve as "Mœbius". Nonetheless, he never tried to hinder Giraud in the least, as he understood that an artist of Giraud's caliber needed a "mental shower" from time to time. Furthermore, Charlier was very appreciative of the graphic innovations Giraud ported over from his work as "Mœbius" into

2540-459: A publishing home. It were not only the Blueberry creators that were left in a pickle, as Koralle had managed to convince other well known Franco-Belgian comic artists to switch sides. Aside from Giraud's old mentor Jijé (who, having abandoned his own Jerry Spring Western comic, was now penciling Charlier's revitalized Redbeard and Tanguy et Laverdure ), these predominantly concerned artists from publishing house Le Lombard. The most prominent of

2667-405: A result, Dargaud reduced Pilote ’s publication schedule from weekly to monthly in 1974, and René Goscinny was replaced as editor-in-chief. At this time, a new generation of artists also started publishing in Pilote , namely Caza , Lauzier , and F'Murr . Their comics reflected the new, more adult direction. Sales initially improved but a steady erosion took place through the 1980s as interest in

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2794-516: A separate section and separately negotiated for with Giraud's own publisher, Mœbius Production. Nor were the one-time only special licenses limited to Francophone publishers alone; twice Italian La Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper acquired one as well for their 2014/16 overall genre 90-volume softcover "Collana Western" (encompassing 51 titles of the three Blueberry series), and their 2022/23 Blueberry -specific 54-volume hardcover followup "Collana Blueberry" releases – though in both cases lacking

2921-525: A transient nature, as he represented everything that Charlier was personally opposed to in private life, quite strongly so according to biographer Ratier. Due to the fact that Blueberry became the most popular character so early on in the Fort Navajo story-arc, Charlier was forced to do an about-face and started to write out the other main characters, including lieutenant Graig, he had in place in order to make room for Blueberry. However, in one instance that had an unexpected side effect; when Charlier killed off

3048-602: A very rare case of cross-fertilization, Altaya started in 2021 to release an into French translated version of the "Edición Coleccionista" on the French home market as the "Edition Collector", at a time when reprint runs of individual titles were all but terminated on the home market for reasons explained below . Jean-Michel Charlier has never witnessed the return of his creations to the parent publisher, nor has he ever mended fences with George Dargaud – for whose publishing house Charlier had made signature contributions after all – and who followed Charlier in death almost to

3175-437: A whole had everything to do with the intense, below-explained animosity she harbored towards Philippe Charlier. Breakout character A breakout character is a character in serial fiction , especially a member of an ensemble cast , who becomes much more prominent, popular, discussed, or imitated than expected by the creators. A breakout character may equal or overtake the other characters in popularity, including

3302-468: Is there where Blueberry has remained ever since. The for Dargaud joyous occasion of now having acquired the copyrights of all Blueberry comic incarnations, was reason enough to ask Giraud – now serving as the sole main series artist – to embark on a new story-arc, which eventually resulted in the OK Corral cycle, the last one of the main series as it turned out to be. How thrilled Dargaud

3429-487: The Belgian comics magazine Spirou (" La Route de Coronado  [ fr ] ", issues 1192 – 1213, 1961), aside from his subsequent Western contributions to Benoit Gillian's (son of Jijé) short-lived comic magazine Bonux-Boy (1960/61). Directly before he started his apprenticeship at Jijé, Jean Giraud had already approached Jean-Michel Charlier on his own accord, asking him if he was interested in writing scripts for

3556-462: The Frank et Jeremie shorts, which were drawn for Far West magazine when he was only 18 – also having been his first sales as free-lancer – and the by Joseph "Jijé" Gillain heavily inspired Western short stories he created for the magazines from French publisher Fleurus  [ fr ] (his first professional tenured employment as comic artist in the period 1956–1958), in particular

3683-497: The Mexican Revolution that he gained inspiration for his below-mentioned Les Gringos Western comic series, which started its run in 1979 at Koralle. It was the first time that Giraud wrote for Blueberry by himself, and was, considering Charlier's easy acceptance of Giraud's writing, also testament to the close, and trusting working relationship both men had cultivated by that time. Incidentally, Giraud intimated that

3810-463: The OK Corral story arc), until his own death in 2012. Additionally, Giraud also scripted the intermezzo series Marshal Blueberry (1991-2000), but had no creative input for the La Jeunesse de Blueberry prequel series, after the first three, original volumes. By the time Giraud embarked on the OK Corral cycle, publishing rights had returned to Dargaud, and that publisher decided to revitalize

3937-431: The protagonist . Prominent breakout characters will often make cameo appearances in expanded franchises or feature as main characters in spin-off installments of their own. Pilote Pilote ( French: [pilɔt] ), for a while subtitled the magazine of Asterix and Obelix (French: Le Journal D’Astérix et D’Obélix ) was a French comics magazine published from 1959 to 1989. Showcasing most of

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4064-430: The "L'ExpressMag" appendix of the non-comic weekly news magazine L'Express . The mere fact that serious newspapers and magazines were by then vying for the opportunity to run Blueberry in their publications first (aside from the above-mentioned publications, the newspaper France-Soir had already run the first two outings of the revitalized La Jeunesse de Blueberry series in 1985 and 1987 – see below ),

4191-444: The 1974-1979 Pilote -era because of the royalties issue – but created the new Western comic, Les Gringos (art by Victor de la Fuente ), as well. Yet, for all Charlier's business acumen, he had failed to recognize that Koralle's exuberant expansion drive had essentially been a do-or-die effort on their part. In 1978 Koralle was on the verge of bankruptcy, and a scheme was devised to stave off this fate; international expansion. In

4318-805: The 28th volume published seven years ago". —Philippe Ostermann, Deputy Managing Director Dargaud, December 2012, on the lack of the economic incentive for releasing a general "intégrale" on the Francophone market before Giraud's death. Shortly after Jean Giraud had died on 10 March 2012 as well, Dargaud embarked in November that year on the release of the Blueberry main series 9-volume "Intégrale" anthology/omnibus collection, completed in December 2019. Though there had been several (international) "Intégrale" versions released before, this version, each volume collecting either three or four individual volumes of

4445-709: The Belgian comics world at those times, and who had actually gathered the stable of artists for Koralle – willing for Axel Springer to pass the torch to. As a token of goodwill, a relieved Springer, as they now could turn over the current contractual obligations without much further ado, even allowed the French-language version of Zack , Super As , to run for a few issues longer in order to allow as many series as possible to complete their magazine run, which included "La longue marche". De Kezel's new publishing house "Les Nouvelles Editions Internationales S.A." (Novedi)

4572-483: The Blueberry's breakout popularity, had been his rebellious, anti-establishment character traits he had been intentionally and uncharacteristically endowed with by co-creator Charlier and very much the opposite of the other law abiding, squeaky clean comic heroes, Charlier had usually created up until then. This was however, in line with the prevailing mood of the counterculture of the 1960s , influences from which even

4699-522: The British comics magazine Eagle such as Fraser l'Africain ( Fraser of Africa ) and Winston Churchill by Frank Bellamy. Attempts were made in the 1970s to update the magazine with material of more interest to adults, but many artists like Druillet and Giraud felt Pilote was no longer the appropriate vehicle for their aspirations and left to found new magazines such as Métal Hurlant (the French original that inspired Heavy Metal ). Partly as

4826-539: The European comics world that was a rather novel idea at the time and Koralle did expand beyond the German border into large parts of Europe with variants of their main publication Zack magazine, with the revived Blueberry as its flagship, accompanied with comic book releases. It did not pay off however, as the holding company already pulled the plug in 1980, leaving Blueberry and the others quite unexpectedly without

4953-419: The German and Danish editions were remarkable in this respect in that these countries had already seen their aforementioned and relatively recent 2006-2011/17 Egmont omnibus editions (which had themselves already been quite elaborate as well), constituting an enduring testament to the continuing popularity of Giraud's Blueberry in those countries, Germany in particular. It turned out a half year later that such

5080-672: The Native-American lieutenant Crowe in the fifth and last installment of the story-arc, "La piste des Navajos" ("Trail of the Navajo"), the editorial offices of Pilote received many angry letters from readers accusing Charlier of murdering a sympathetic protagonist. Taken aback, Charlier later stated: "It was too late to do anything about it, it was done. A strange experience, Giraud in particular took it very hard". Still, while all characters slated for prominence were written out, Blueberry excepted, one major, recurrent secondary character

5207-664: The Trail") and "Arizona Love" became main series titles to see serialized pre-publication elsewhere, neither were serialized as such in France itself, where "La tribu fantôme" ("The Ghost Tribe") had previously become the last Blueberry title pre-published as such in L'Écho des savanes . Henceforth, new Blueberry titles were until 1997 directly released in album format, starting with the 1990 La Jeunesse de Blueberry ( Young Blueberry ) title, "Le raid infernal". Any subsequent French magazine, or newspaper serialized publication occurred after

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5334-465: The aforementioned unique special license releases – in some countries, such as Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden, individual volume reprint runs of the main series had already been suspended indefinitely long before the release in those territories of the intégrale edition. The German edition of the collection, carries the subtitle "Collector's Edition", as a reminder of the original intent of

5461-412: The album publisher for "La longue marche". After Novedi had become operational, the business model was adopted by them and it was decided to continue with Giraud's other alma mater Hachette for France with the subsequent titles in the Blueberry (and other) series in recognition of the help Édi-Monde had provided. Hachette incidentally, later acquired a special, one-time-only license from Dargaud to reissue

5588-498: The author in his final year. The relatively short tenure at Alpen saw the release of "Arizona Love", which was actually started under the aegis of Novedi, but for which Charlier had not yet contracted with the publisher because of his hunch, thus leaving the title legally "free" for JMC Aventures to be signed with Alpen, according to Giger, adding that this had the "full and immediate blessing" from Giraud. The artist himself though, taken completely unawares and having had little choice in

5715-412: The books were from the start executed as hard cover editions. Favorably received and though not being the first, the hard cover format became the norm in France definitively, where henceforth all comic albums were executed in the format – becoming indeed generally accepted as a mature part of French culture eventually – whereas the vast majority of the other European countries continued to employ

5842-524: The brink of the American Civil War , Donovan is forced to flee north after being framed for the murder of his fiancée Harriet Tucker's father, a plantation owner. On his flight toward the Kentucky border, he is saved by Long Sam, a fugitive African-American slave from his father's estate, who paid with his life for his act of altruism. Inspired when he sees a blueberry bush, Donovan chooses

5969-417: The central and primary character, even though the series' (sub-)title Fort Navajo, une Aventure du Lieutenant Blueberry was maintained for a decade by original publisher Dargaud for the numerous reprint, and international, runs, before the "Fort Navajo" (sub-)moniker was finally dropped in 1973 with the book publication of "L'homme qui valait 500 000 $ " ("The Half-a-Million Dollar Man"). Charlier came up with

6096-534: The collection, aside from distinguishing it from their Egmont edition. However though, and just as had been the case with the Egmont edition (see below ), a glaring omission in the Dargaud collection remained the "Three Black Birds" short story, excepting a single page for illustrative purposes in the editorial of volume 8 only. That Isabelle Giraud had chosen not sign off on the collection publication of that story as

6223-415: The comic journal BoDoï (issue 24, 1999). Furthermore, per French law, Charlier's widow Christine remained entitled to 10 percent of the revenues from the existing and subsequent post-Charlier Blueberry titles, which provided her with a "decent" living standard, according to son Philippe, effectively contradicting his own claim on the very same occasion. As for Giraud, having to work without a safety net for

6350-475: The cooperation with Blueberry did not seem to pan out either. Even though Dupuis did reissue all the (Young) Blueberry titles of the EDI-3-BD/Novedi era (but none from Alpen Publishers, or indeed any of the other Charlier creations) under its own imprint in their "Repérages" collection, no new titles were released during the equally short 1992-1993 tenure of Blueberry at that publisher. "Everything

6477-601: The day one year later on July 18, 1990. To a large extent the publication wanderings of Blueberry has been mirrored in other European countries as well, particularly in Germany (where the era was referred to as "Der 'heimatlose' Blueberry" – "The 'homeless' Blueberry") and the Scandinavian countries (the Danes referring to the era as "Blueberrys Lange March" – "Blueberry's Long March"), where every publisher change

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6604-485: The decade. It again left Blueberry and the others without a publishing home. "I have twenty completed pages, the rest consists of annotations and loose ideas...I was not quite on board with the development of the story yet, we still had not decided upon anything. There were some great ideas, which needed to be finalized". —Giraud, August 1989, on the script status of "Arizona Love" at the time of Charlier's death. On 10 July 1989, Jean-Michel Charlier passed away from

6731-430: The deteriorating circumstances at Pilote had already left its mark on him before he left: "The story was started in 1972/73 but remained shelved until 1975 [sic.]. Yet, I think one can not discern its difficult birth; there are good scenes, pages I really poured heart and soul into. It is true that [the art for] "Le hors-la-loi" ("The Outlaw") had been quite weak, but "Angel Face" made up for it". Five years later, Giraud

6858-428: The editorial modernization of Pilote , which resulted from the 1968 revolt at the editorial offices staged by key artists, chief among them Giraud (see also: " Giraud on his part in the uprising at Pilote "). Though Charlier continued to provide his younger colleague with scripts (but not his other artists), he started working as documentary maker for French television. It was while he was working on two documentaries on

6985-407: The editorials. A similar license has followed suit when one was extended to Spanish publisher Planeta DeAgostini , in conjuncture with partwork specialist Ediciones Altaya  [ es ] , for their 2017/19 54-volume "Blueberry Edición Coleccionista", very similar in concept to the earlier Hachette collection, but with the editorials written by Spanish comics author/historian Jorge Garcia. In

7112-427: The endless blue skies and unending flat plains of Mexico's northern deserts had "cracked open his mind". "Charlier, together with Goscinny the editors-in-chief, wanted a western. He already had outlines in mind, but asked me to come up with a name. He suggested a couple of names, which sounded not bad, but I wanted something softer for this rough and basic character. It was then that I saw that somebody had signed with

7239-417: The entire series, and later we would be stuck with that silly name!" In an anecdote, Charlier related how caught off guard he had been: "My memory is a somewhat like a sieve. In the first album, Blueberry was called Steve. I forgot that first name and then I named him Mike. So, in order to get things straight, I coined him Mike Steve Blueberry eventually; this kind of forgetfulness happens to me often". Part of

7366-488: The entirety of the Blueberry series in 2013-2014 as the 52 volume La Collection Blueberry anthology, each volume augmented with a six-page illustrated editorial. For a decade Blueberry resided in calm waters at Novedi. The 1980s saw three additions to the main series (completing the Rehabilitation story arc) as well as four new titles in the newly created La Jeunesse de Blueberry series. Nevertheless, despite

7493-494: The existing and future Blueberry series, intent on cutting the Charlier family out, which was incongruous as Novedi was already heading toward receivership, aside from the fact that Giraud has never even hinted at such alleged dealings and that not a single corroborating rumor has ever surfaced elsewhere in the otherwise tight-knit Franco-Belgian comic community, save for the claim Charlier Jr. himself made on that sole occasion in

7620-406: The expenses of maintaining magazine editorial offices. Any still existing comic magazine elsewhere, willing to publish serialized comic series after the initial book releases, was merely considered an added bonus. Still, it took some time for the new publisher to get up and running, and some sort of stop-gap resolution had to be found for the intervening 1979-1980 period in order to secure income for

7747-557: The first German language Blueberry book publisher back in the early 1970s – a subsidiary at the time of German media giant Axel Springer SE , for their next publication, "La longue marche" ("The Long March"). The choice for the German publisher was made for their very ambitious international expansion strategy they had in place at that time. Fully subscribing to the publisher's strategy, Charlier not only revitalized his Redbeard and Tanguy et Laverdure comic series – having been equally "devoid of inspiration" for these as well in

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7874-506: The first Jodorowsky/Mœbius collaboration. Very eager to return to Los Angeles as Jodorowsky requested his presence again, Giraud – who had returned to France for his other work during one of the lulls in the Dune production – greatly accelerated his work on "Angel Face", then underway, breaking his "absolute record speed-drawing", as he had coined it, and sheared off weeks from its originally intended completion date. Giraud in overdrive

8001-476: The first half of the 1970s when he felt smothered by his co-creation. Yet, the whole business surrounding Blueberry residuals itself remained unresolved, and in order to drive home the point the pe-publication of the eagerly awaited "Nez Cassé" ("Broken Nose") story was farmed out to Métal Hurlant magazine (published by Les Humanoïdes Associés , co-founded by Giraud in 1974, and in the US released as Heavy Metal in

8128-399: The first place, and had to this end already arranged his old friend Guy Vidal  [ fr ] from his Pilote days to be hired as editor-in-chief at the new publisher, incidentally in the process doing exactly what his son would later accuse Giraud/Novedi of. Giger disclosed in 2008 that it was on the occasion of his subsequent dealings with Philippe that the "JMC Aventures" foundation

8255-453: The first time, came initially with bouts of self-doubt and second-guessing, as Colin Wilson (by then the new La Jeunesse de Blueberry artist) testified to, after a visit to Giraud in this period: " Janet  [ fr ] and I visited Jean when he was working on "Arizona Love" – around May 1989 [sic.] I think. Some of the first pages he showed us then were radically different from

8382-474: The growing popularity of Blueberry came the increasing disenchantment over financial remunerations of the series. Already in 1974, Charlier made his displeasure known in this regard, when he had "Angel Face" pre-published in Nouveau Tintin of industry competitor Le Lombard, the first time a Blueberry adventure was not serialized in Pilote – nor would it ever be again in hindsight. The magazine

8509-638: The initial book release while Blueberry was housed at Novedi and its successor, Swiss publisher Alpen Publishers  [ fr ] , and which had actually already included "Angel Face" in Nouveau Tintin , and "La dernière carte" ("The Last Card") in Spirou previously, both having been serialized after their respective book releases. After Charlier had died on 10 July 1989, Giraud, aside from completing "Arizona Love" on his own, wrote and drew five albums, from "Mister Blueberry" to "Dust" (constituting

8636-452: The initial intention was to have the entire body of work of Charlier published at Alpen, the corporation with the publisher did not pan out for undisclosed reasons – though Giger had mentioned increasingly difficult copyright negotiations with other copyright holders, predominantly heirs of other artists who had worked with Charlier, the widow of Jijé in particular, who had successfully taken Giger and Charlier Jr. to court. The relationship

8763-772: The last in the main Blueberry series, as creating comics became increasingly difficult for Giraud because his eyesight started to fail him in his last years, he did continue to create single-piece Blueberry art on larger canvases on either commission basis (such as for the aforementioned Le Soir editions) or under the aegis of Mœbius Production until his own death in 2012, much of which sold for considerable prices from 2005 onward, alongside older original Blueberry art Giraud still had in his possession, in specialized comic auctions at such auction houses like Artcurial , Hôtel Drouot and Millon & Associés. "About 2,000 copies of each title are sold every year. It's pretty good, although there has been unfortunately nothing new since "Dust",

8890-430: The late Guy Vidal became a true series editor-in-chief, active, pugnacious, committed to continuous series. When I did ask to start, along came Mister Blueberry , followed suit by Tombstone and Geronimo ... I do the best I can. I'm not saying it's all entirely successful. I do recognize that there are some surprising issues at the script or drawing level, but it has the merit of not being routine!" —Giraud, 2010, on

9017-470: The later OK Corral -cycle, which Philippe had issues with (see below ). Additional Alpen releases included the La Jeunesse de Blueberry title "Trois hommes pour Atlanta", as well as the inception of the spin-off series Marshal Blueberry with two titles, aside from additions to the Les Gringos and Redbeard series, taken over by other artists after both Jijé and Charlier Sr. had passed away. While

9144-415: The latter making him the co-winner of his 1973 American comic award . The script being one-thirds ready at the time of Charlier's passing, the completion of "Arizona Love" was postponed as Giraud needed time to come to terms with that fact. Due to his intimate twenty-five year familiarity with both the series and its writer, it was a foregone conclusion that Giraud would from then on take on the scripting of

9271-420: The latter was Hermann Huppen with his new post-apocalyptic Western Jeremiah for which he had abandoned that other famed 1970s Franco-Belgian Western, Comanche  [ fr ] (written by Greg ), second only in renown after Blueberry at the time. Tapping into his substantial social Franco-Belgian comic network, Charlier found Jacques de Kezel – a highly influential behind-the-scenes figure of

9398-679: The magazine covers and illustrations for editorials, aside from creating on occasion summarizing, introduction plates, none of which reprinted in the original book editions. Nonetheless, much of this material did find its way in later reprint variations, particularly in the editorials of the 2012-2019 main series anthology, or omnibus, collection – invariably called "integral(e)s" in the respective languages of mainland Europe – of parent publisher Dargaud, and in those of their licensees such as Egmont for their earlier German/Danish/Norwegian 2006-2017 all -series integral edition collection The first (French) Blueberry comic album, "Fort Navajo",

9525-557: The magazine sent Charlier on a reporting assignment around the world for its editorials, and one of his last 1963 ports of call was Edwards Airforce Base in the Mojave Desert , California. He took the opportunity to (re-)discover the American West, returning to France with a strong urge to write a western. First he asked Jijé to draw the series, but Jijé, a lifelong friend and collaborator of Charlier, thought there would be

9652-501: The magazine serialized pre-publication format as part of their marketing effort on behalf of Blueberry ' s return (see below ), albeit with a twist; As Dargaud no longer had a comic magazine of their own ( Pilote had become defunct in 1989), it was decided to farm out pre-publication to parties who showed the most interest, resulting in that Blueberry titles in that cycle became serialized in different publications, not all necessarily comic-related by origin. The summer of 1997 saw

9779-433: The magazine was bought out by Dargaud publishers. Dargaud expanded the magazine with several new series, including Charlier and Giraud’s Blueberry and Greg's Achille Tallon in 1963. In 1967 the popular science-fiction series Valérian et Laureline debuted and in 1968 the popular Western comedy Lucky Luke (by Morris) was transferred to Pilote from Spirou magazine. Other notable appearances included series from

9906-401: The magazine was printed and ready for dissemination. Initially titled "Fort Navajo", the story grew into 46 pages over the following issues. In this series Blueberry – whose physical appearance was inspired by French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo – was only one of many protagonists; the series was originally intended to be an assemble narrative, but quickly gravitated towards Blueberry as

10033-412: The main series as well, especially since it was already agreed upon in the "contracts signed with Jean-Michel" that "the survivor would take over the series". It was this circumstance that has led Philippe Charlier, son of the deceased author and now the heir and steward of his father's bande dessinée legacy, to make the unsubstantiated claim that Novedi was surreptitiously negotiating with Giraud only for

10160-456: The main series reaching its peak in popularity in the early 1980s. It has been remarked that during the 1960s, Blueberry "was as much a staple in French comics as, say, The Avengers or The Flash here [in the USA]". Born on 30 October 1843 on Redwood Plantation near Augusta, Georgia , Michael Steven Donovan is the son of a rich Southern planter and starts out life as a decided racist. On

10287-517: The main series, was intended to become the definitive one and each volume was greatly enhanced with elaborate and richly illustrated editorials, written by France's preeminent comics scholars such as José-Louis Bocquet  [ fr ] , Patrick Gaumer  [ fr ] or Gilles Ratier, among others. It quickly evolved into an international release as it has by 2023 become translated into Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, (Brazilian) Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, and Swedish. Launched in 2019,

10414-447: The mainstream Blueberry series, most specifically "Nez Cassé", making him "one of the all-time greatest artists in the comic medium", as Charlier himself worded it in 1982. Artist Michel Rouge  [ fr ] , who was taken on by Giraud in 1980 for the inks of "La longue marche" ("The Long March") painted a slightly different picture though. Already recognizing that the two men were living in different worlds, he noted that Charlier

10541-674: The major French or Belgian comics talents of its day the magazine introduced major series such as Astérix , Barbe-Rouge , Blueberry , Achille Talon , and Valérian et Laureline . Major comics writers like René Goscinny , Jean-Michel Charlier , Greg , Pierre Christin and Jacques Lob were featured in the magazine, as were artists such as Jijé , Morris , Albert Uderzo , Jean (Mœbius) Giraud , Enki Bilal , Jean-Claude Mézières , Jacques Tardi , Philippe Druillet , Marcel Gotlib , Alexis , and Annie Goetzinger . Pilote also published several international talents such as Hugo Pratt , Frank Bellamy and Robert Crumb . Following

10668-421: The matter, has later expressed a slightly different opinion, where it was implied that he was not as happy with the behind-the-scenes machinations as Giger made it out to be, especially since his late script partner had kept him out of the loop in 1988. Ironically, it was Philippe Charlier himself who indirectly conceded that particular point when he accused Giraud of wanting "to settle scores" with Charlier Sr. with

10795-584: The mid-1970s, though the story was not run in the American version), instead of Pilote . That Charlier was able to repeat this ploy after "Angel Face" stemmed from the proviso he had built in when he signed over the publication, and copyrights of his syndication agency EdiFrance/EdiPresse – co-established in 1955 with Victor Hubinon , Albert Uderzo , and René Goscinny for the express purpose to syndicate their own and other artist's comic creations – to Dargaud in 1960. On that occasion Charlier, owning

10922-560: The name "Blueberry" in Geographic Magazine , which was lying opened in front of me, purely by coincident. That was the right choice, and Charlier liked the name as well. For the hero's facial traits, I chose Belmondo, as he was at the time something of an art symbol for guys my age". —Giraud, 1975, on his claim of inventing the name Blueberry. "From the very beginning, I did not want the classic type of fearless lawman like Red Ryder , The Lone Ranger or Jerry Spring as

11049-528: The name during his American trip: "When I was traveling throughout the West, I was accompanied by a fellow journalist who was just in love with blueberry jam, so much in love, in fact, that I had nicknamed him 'Blueberry'. When I began to create the new series, and everything started to fall into place, I decided to reuse my friend's nickname, because I liked it and thought it was funny. [...] I had no idea that he would prove so popular that he would eventually take over

11176-510: The new album – the documentary therefore itself one such instance – among others by having many Parisian metro stations plastered with huge Blueberry posters. Aside from this, Dargaud made use of the opportunity to clean up the by then muddied release chronology, by formalizing the establishment of the three series and restarting the album numbering for each in reprint runs. Concurrently, all international licenses were renegotiated. Apart from foreign language publishers and constituting

11303-423: The ones ultimately published in the album later on. I did not had the time to read the scripts for those pages he had shown us, but I know that Jean redid several pages entirely anew, before the album was eventually released". The by Giraud rejected pages were published as a bonus in the 1995 deluxe limited edition of "Mister Blueberry", a joint publication of Dargaud and Giraud's publishing house Stardom. Stunned by

11430-406: The other intended major characters of the Fort Navajo series had been Blueberry's friend and colleague lieutenant Graig , who was very much a classic Charlier comics hero, law abiding, a stickler for rules and regulations, unquestioning in his blind obedience to, and acceptance of, authority, and so on. Charlier had apparently expected the presence of the Blueberry character in his creation to be of

11557-634: The period 1949-1959 for various previous magazines. One such short entailed the text comic " Cochise " in Jeannot magazine, July 1957, dealing with the historical " Bascom Affair ", which six years later would become the apotheosis of the first Blueberry story, "Fort Navajo". Furthermore, Charlier had already visited the South-West of the United States in 1960, resulting in several Native-American themed educational Pilote editorials. In 1962,

11684-421: The plate vacated by Novedi. Yet, Giraud undertook no further action himself, partly because he was still residing in the United States, too preoccupied with his own projects and the wrapping up of his affairs over there before his return to France (and thus too busy to be engaged in secret negotiations with Novedi), and partly because his marriage to his first wife Claudine was in the early stages of falling apart at

11811-424: The release of a teaser, issue number 0, on June 1, Pilote officially launched on October 29, 1959. The magazine was founded by experienced comic book writers Goscinny and Charlier, and artists Albert Uderzo and Jean Hébrard. Previously this team had worked together on several other projects, creating Le Supplément Illustré , a cartoon supplement for stuff like newspapers, and providing cartoons for Radio-Télé ,

11938-411: The releases in the collection, were, aside from Blueberry , titles from other comic series he had co-created. After "Fort Navajo", the collection was suspended and each comic hero hitherto featured therein, spun off in book series of their own, including Blueberry or rather Fort Navajo, une Aventure du Lieutenant Blueberry as it was then still coined. After Dargaud had lost publishing rights for over

12065-563: The return to Dargaud, being the sole artist on Blueberry , and somewhat contradicting his prior 1993 statement Tiring of Giraud's inaction, Philippe Charlier ultimately took matters into his own hand, and had all his father's co-creations return to parent publisher Dargaud at the end of 1993 without apparent objections from Giraud (though he had stipulated an exemption for non-comic Blueberry art, produced either on personal title and/or for his own publishing houses Gentiane/Aedena , Starwatcher Graphics, and Stardom – see below ), and it

12192-500: The right-wing conservative Charlier could not escape entirely. It has enticed him to indulge in a little creative experimentation with the Blueberry character, having become somewhat bored and fed up with his own squeaky clean comic heroes, the military ones like Buck Danny in particular – Charlier usually reserved foibles for his secondary main characters to provide his creations with some levity and humanity, such as Blueberry's flawed friend Jimmy McClure. In stark contrast, one of

12319-627: The rights of Native Americans . He starts his adventures in the Far West as a lieutenant in the United States Cavalry shortly after the war. On his many travels in the West, Blueberry is frequently accompanied by his trusted companions, the hard-drinking deputy Jimmy McClure, and later also by "Red Neck" Wooley, a rugged pioneer and army scout. In his youth, Giraud had been a passionate fan of American Westerns and Blueberry has its roots in his earlier Western -themed works such as

12446-483: The same template with local magazines. However, the format, for decades a staple in Europe and shaping entire generations of comic readers, went out of vogue in the late 1980s/early 1990s and the vast majority of European comic magazines have since then become defunct by the mid-1990s, including those from Belgium, the country were the phenomenon was born in the late 1930s. Ironically, while "Le bout de la piste" ("The End of

12573-493: The scripts of his senior colleague. In post-war Europe, it has been tradition to release comics in "pre-publication" as serialized magazine episodes, before publication as a comic book, or rather comic album (in North-American understanding though, " graphic novel " is the more applicable terminology in this case, particularly where the physical properties of the book format are concerned, the distinction being otherwise

12700-412: The serialization of "Ombres sur Tombstone" in the French daily newspaper Le Monde , followed by the pre-publication of "Géronimo l'Apache" in the monthly BoDoï  [ fr ] comic magazine, directly before the album release in October 1999 as part of Dargaud's substantial marketing campaign for the album. The next title, "OK Corral", was published in a similar manner in the summer of 2003 in

12827-460: The series of short Western comics featuring the same protagonist Art Howell which can be considered as Giraud's de facto first realistic Western series (and thus a precursor to Blueberry ), as he himself did in effect, since he, save the first one, endowed these stories with the subtitle " Un aventure d'Art Howell". This was followed by his collaboration with Jijé himself on an episode of the latter's Jerry Spring series in 1960, which appeared in

12954-432: The soft cover format for decades to come, somewhat reflecting the status comic books held in their respective societies at the time. These included for the time being French-Belgium as well, Charlier's native country, where the exact same collection was concurrently licensed to, and released by Le Lombard , albeit as soft cover only. Charlier's initiative was not entirely devoid of a healthy dose of self-interest, as over half

13081-462: The stable of comic artists. On recommendation of Charlier, who has had previous dealings with the publisher, the catalog was legally, but temporarily, housed at the French publishing house Édi-Monde  [ fr ] of the Hachette group, who for the occasion established the equally temporary EDI-3-BD imprint, though making use of Koralle's infrastructure – allowed to continue to exist for

13208-731: The sudden death of his longtime co-worker, it took Giraud nearly five years before he could bring himself to embark on Blueberry again as artist, after completing "Arizona Love". Giraud stated that the series had lost its "father", and that the "mother needed time to mourn". Charlier's death coincided by chance with the growing problems at Novedi, and Giraud suggested to Philippe Charlier, the heir and steward of his father's legacy, to move all his fathers co-creations to Les Humanoïdes Associés (with whom Giraud maintained close personal and creative ties after his Métal Hurlant days – which had included "Nez Cassé" – among others by having them publish his acclaimed L'Incal series), to step up to

13335-616: The surname " Blueberry " as an alias when rescued from his Southern pursuers by a Union cavalry patrol (during his flight war had broken out between the States). After enlisting in the Union Army , he becomes an enemy of discrimination of all kinds, fighting against the Confederates (although being a Southerner himself, first enlisting as a bugler in order to avoid having to fire upon his former countrymen), later trying to protect

13462-420: The time Giraud died. After Giraud's death though and pursuant securing the blessings of both his and Charlier's heirs, it was decided with the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of the series in mind to turn the project into a general release after all, which effectively terminated the reprint runs of the individual volumes of the main series in each of the language territories where the collection was released, save for

13589-523: The time being by Axel Springer – in regard to printing and distribution. As impromptu publisher, EDI-3-BD published around two dozen album titles, including "La longue marche", before turning the copyrights of these over to Novedi, which started publishing themselves in 1981. EDI-3-BD published their books for Belgium and the Netherlands themselves, but farmed out licenses for other countries, including France somewhat surprisingly, where Giraud's former alma mater and Hachette competitor Fleurus firstly became

13716-406: The time of its launch. Charlier and Goscinny handled most of the initial writing. Although Charlier came up with two popular series, Tanguy et Laverdure with Albert Uderzo and Barbe-Rouge ( Redbeard ) with Victor Hubinon , it was Goscinny and Uderzo’s Astérix le Gaulois which was the biggest hit and the magazine’s initial mainstay. Financial problems arose in 1960, but were resolved when

13843-564: The time. Charlier Jr. approached Fabrice Giger , who had bought the by Giraud co-founded publisher previously in early 1989, but did not choose for that publishing house eventually, but rather go with Giger's original, founding publishing house, Alpen Publishers, the latter had set up in 1988 in Switzerland – even though comic artists themselves, due to the close entanglement of Alpen and Humanoïdes, always referred to Alpen as "Humanos" ( see quote boxes below ). It turned out that Philippe

13970-400: The two Blueberry incarnations and Jeremiah being the top selling series for the publisher, it appeared that the financial base was too narrow for even a publisher the modest size of Novedi, as the publisher went out of business in 1990, after having published approximately 120 album titles, and despite having taken over the book publications for France themselves as well in the latter half of

14097-424: Was actually picking up where his father had left off. Around the time he had established Alpen and unbeknownst to Giraud, Giger was already approached by Charlier Sr. in 1988. The veteran Charlier had already sensed the writings on the wall at Novedi and discussed plans with Giger to have all his comic creations moved over to the new publisher, arguably the very reason for the then 23-year old Giger to set up Alpen in

14224-404: Was bought back by Dargaud, halfway through [ Marshal Blueberry ]. It was not that bad; At Dargaud, they are more active on the editorial level. During the entire time I was at Humanos, I had not received a single call to start a new project. I profited from it... life profited from it for that matter... If Blueberry had remained with Humanos, there still would not have been a new album! At Dargaud,

14351-815: Was ended in 1992, shortly thereafter followed by the demise of Alpen itself in 1994 with Guy Vidal moving over, or rather returning, to Dargaud (having taken on the writing for Les Gringos after his friend's death, until his own death in 2002), though Giger himself became successful with Humanoïdes, expanding into the United States as "Humanoids Publishing Ltd." in 1999, in the process reissuing much of Giraud's "Mœbius" science fiction work. As Belgian publisher Dupuis had already shown interest, when they serialized "La dernière carte" in their Spirou magazine in 1983, Charlier Jr. now decided to try his luck at that publishing house in 1992, as Hermann had already done previously with his Jeremiah for that matter. While Jeremiah has remained with Dupuis ever since, for again unknown reasons

14478-487: Was established in November 1980 with its seat in Brussels, Belgium. Part of their strategy was to forego on a magazine of their own and instead release titles directly in album format, as it was noticed that the serialized comic magazine format had already started to wane in Europe as a format (and actually one of the main reasons for Axel Springer to pull the plug on Koralle), resulting in the advantage of not having to incur

14605-408: Was established, intended to safeguard the commercial and artistic legacy of Charlier's body of work. Giger stated: "After the death of Jean-Michel, a project was born between his son, Philippe, his mother, and us, to create a structure dedicated to the continuation of the series co-created by Charlier, JMC Aventures. We were shareholders with the Charlier family", confirming the preliminary dealings with

14732-469: Was followed suit by similar changes among local publishers in those territories as well. How confusing this era had been, was exemplified by the aforementioned "La longue marche" title, which has been released in French by no less than six publishers in the time period 1980–2003, or even seven, if one is to include the Super As serialized magazine publication as well. Though the 2007 "Apaches" title became

14859-421: Was forced to drop the announcement page it had prepared for the story. Unfazed, Dargaud founder and owner Georges Dargaud , unwilling to give in, countered by having the book released before Nouveau Tintin had even had the chance to run the story. Then Giraud left on his own accord. While Charlier had no influence on this whatsoever, it did serve a purpose as far as he was concerned. Giraud had left Blueberry on

14986-629: Was granted a special license for the main series only was the French-Belgian newspaper Le Soir who released its "Blueberry Intégrale" in two editions, the fifteen-volume edition of 2009, and the sixteen-volume edition of 2015. Like the France Loisirs release, each volume, save three in the end, collected two of the original albums and was only offered to newspaper readers and subscribers. The three single album volumes (No's 8, 15 and 16) were augmented with new Blueberry art, featured in

15113-461: Was not pleased with Giraud taking on an assistant, afraid that it might have been a prelude to him leaving the series in order to pursue his "experimentations" as Mœbius further. Even Giraud was in later life led to believe that Charlier apparently "detested" his other work, looking upon it as something akin to "treason", though his personal experiences with the author was that he had kept an "open mind" in this regard, at least in his case. While Charlier

15240-432: Was ready to return to Blueberry , at long last feeling the urge again to do so, but not into the employ of Pilote /Dargaud, as he had formally terminated his position in 1974 with no intention whatsoever to return, instead plying his Blueberry trade as a freelancer : "Publishers were waving with those fat checks, so we started again. But it is no longer the same. I won't be taken in by Blueberry anymore!", referring to

15367-540: Was released in September 1965 and originally appeared as the 17th (and last) volume of the La Collection Pilote series. Actually, this collection had been an initiative of Charlier himself in his function as publishing co-editor, and the 17 titles in the collection were in effect Dargaud's first comic album releases, and an influential release at that. In order to give these releases a more "mature" image,

15494-560: Was so fast that he even overtook Charlier's script pages (Charlier habitually fed his artists piecemeal with script pages, usually a couple at the time), forcing him to write ten pages of the story on his own, as Charlier was at that time on documentary assignment in the United States for French television. Upon his return, Charlier took one look at the pages completed in his absence, and continued where Giraud had left off without further much ado. Charlier himself had actually already left Dargaud in 1972, because he additionally felt ill at ease with

15621-493: Was testament to the status Blueberry and its creator(s) had by then attained in Francophone Europe. "That was a coincidence all right. It coincided with the break between Jean-Michel and Dargaud, where questionable issues in regard to authors' rights were in play". —Giraud, 1988, when asked if the format change of Pilote from a weekly to monthly magazine had anything to do with the creators leaving. With

15748-421: Was to have reacquired Blueberry was amply demonstrated – aside from their decision to revitalize the serialized pre-publication format for Blueberry as already mentioned – in the 2000 documentary Mister Gir & Mike S. Blueberry made on the occasion of the release of "Geronimo l'Apache", in which instances were shown of the considerable marketing efforts the publisher undertook in order to promote

15875-674: Was under in order to produce the series, partly because of the royalties conflict, but mostly because he wanted to further explore and develop his artistic "Mœbius" alter ego. For Giraud the conflict was actually a godsend: "At that moment Charlier and I also had a financial conflict with Dargaud which came at the exact right time, because it provided me with an alibi [to leave]". The latter reason for him to leave, took on an urgency after Alejandro Jodorowsky , impressed by his Blueberry art, had already invited Giraud to come over to Los Angeles to work as concept designer and storyboard artist on his Dune movie project earlier that year, constituting

16002-450: Was willing to overlook Giraud's wanderings in his case only, he was otherwise of the firm conviction that artists, especially his own, should totally and wholeheartedly devote themselves to their craft – as Charlier always had considered the comic medium – but which was somewhat incongruous on his part as he himself was habitually engaged in several divergent projects at any given time. This has caused many of his artists problems on

16129-446: Was written in over the course of the story arc in "Le cavalier perdu" ("Mission to Mexico"), Blueberry's friend and sidekick Jimmy McClure. Actually, and by his own admission, Charlier had originally written McClure as a temporary, minor background character, but Giraud was so taken with the character that he asked Charlier to expand his role in the series, and which stands out as the earliest known instance of Giraud exercising influence on

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