My introduction to Eurocomics came from The Comics Journal, a magazine that was readily available in my Iowa hometown while many of those comics were not.
This led to a odd experience, repeated time and again, of reading about a comic years before reading the comic itself.
I thought of this over the weekend when I made a find at Half Price Books. Get a load of this:
That, my friend, is Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean “Moebius” Giraud’s cowboy classic, Blueberry. Marvel’s Epic Comics imprint did this run in a series of paperbacks in the late-1980s and early-1990s.
Unfortunately for me, the books were at close to market prices, which are steep considering this stuff is long out of print. I ended up buying just one.
I suppose I am holding out for a high-quality hardcover series that must be just around the corner. Right? Anyone?
As has been noted elsewhere, “We are at peak reprint,” and that certainly applies to European comics translated into English. I can get a great editions of Valerian and Laureline. Moebius’ sci-fi material is being collected by Dark Horse and it looks outstanding. Dean Mullaney is doing yeoman’s work with his EuroComics imprint at IDW. And, I must mention Fantagraphics, for many titles, including lots of Tardi.
In this embarrassment of riches, I still need to search for Blueberry, the pulpy genre work of two European guys telling the story of an American. The character, Mike S. Blueberry, is familiar: He is good with a gun, doesn’t play by the rules, and operates with a sense of personal honor. The wonder of these comics is how much the creators do within this framework.
Until the next reprint series of Blueberry, here is some of what’s out there:
• The Blueberry Saga: Confederate Gold, 1996, MoJo Press. This undersized, black-and-white paperback contains five stories and runs 288 pages. It can be had online for about $40. The print quality is hit or miss. I like being able to see the art in black and white, but the fact that it is being presented at less than its intended size is a problem, especially on highly detailed pages. By the way, this was the first Blueberry book I owned, and it seemed great to me at the time. The black-and-white illustration above appears in the introduction to this edition. (This book contains five full-length stories: Chihuahua Pearl, The Half-a-Million Dollar Man, Ballad for a Coffin, The Outlaw and Angel Face; plus a short story, Three Black Birds.)
• Epic Graphic Novel series, 1989-91, Marvel Comics. This color, paperback series has 10.8-inch by 8.1-inch pages, which is larger than a typical American comic book. I count nine volumes, most of which have two-full length stories, putting them at about 100 pages each. The exceptions are the The Iron Horse and Steelfingers, which are 46 pages each. These are all out of print. If you see one for less than $30, buy it.
• Graphitti Designs’ Moebius series, 1989-91, Graphitti Designs. I have never seen any of these color, hardcover books in the wild, but they are evidently still available from the publisher for about $40 to $50, depending on the volume. There are four books of Blueberry stories, plus others that contain Moebius sci-fi stories. The first Blueberry book, MOEBIUS 4, has four stories, starting with Chihuahua Pearl; the second book, MOEBIUS 5, has six stories, starting with Angel Face; the third book, MOEBIUS 6, has four stories, starting with The Iron Horse; the fifth book, MOEBIUS 9 has two stories, starting with The Lost Dutchman’s Mine.
I would suggest starting with Chihuahua Pearl, which is the beginning of fun and gripping serial, and also seems to be one of the easiest stories to find.
There are other English-language Blueberry editions floating around, including some from Egmont/Methuen that were initially published in the United Kingdom in the late-1970s, and one from Dark Horse 1990. (Thanks to Eurocomics.info, which I used, among other sources, to put this together.)
The cover images above are from Comics.org. All artwork, including cover images, is copyright Charlier and Giraud.
One more thing:
When searching Comics.org for Blueberry titles, I found one that clearly didn’t belong with the rest. See if you can find it.
I for one would read a Blueberry/Cathy crossover.
Dan Gearino 