Many comic artists have emulated the work. In some circles, The Incal might as well rival Dune for its impact on film and art and its great story. Moebius and Jodorowsky pulled all the concept art together that they had created for the Dune film and decided to write their own space opera based on the material, and that would become The Incal. Jodorowsky kept working with Jean Giraud, who was better known as the cartoonist Moebius and famous for his Blueberry series. Giger’s artwork for instance was reused for Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). Most of the material created for the film was repurposed for other projects. The rights were resold for the later film by David Lynch. The complete story can be seen in the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013).Įventually the whole project crashed and burned because Jodorowsky delivered a screenplay the size of a phone book that detailed a 14-hour film, and no American producer would ever agree to that (and rightly so).

Giger and the French artist Jean Giraud to add their work. For concept art, Jodorowsky wooed Chris Foss, H.R. His Dune project turned into a megalomaniacal endeavour and would star Orson Welles, Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger, his own son as Paul Atreides and a soundtrack by Pink Floyd. After directing a couple of surrealist, avant-garde films, such as The Holy Mountain (1973), he got it into his mind to adapt Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) for the big screen. The driving force behind this was the charismatic but loony Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky. There is a story surrounding this novel, a history of creators and influences, that I find fascinating.

It is not well known in the US, but a work of legendary status in the French-Belgian comic tradition. The Incal is a graphic novel that you can find on many top lists of greatest graphic novels ever written, and not rarely occupying a top spot.

The incal 1 alejandro jodorowsky