A book a day: Moebius: the hermetic garage

Original Language: French

Títutulu Original: The airtight garage

Year of publication: Between 1976 and 1979 for deliveries in the magazine Hard metal And that last year, as a compilation, under the title Major Fatal

Translation: Lucía Bermúdez Carballo

Valoración: essential

Reviewing the reviews of “Books with drawings”, as some philistines say, I have realized that there were none of Moebius, also known as Jean Giraud, one of the main luminaires of the Comic strip of the 20th century and the beginning of this XXI. Neither short nor lazy, I have remedied this absence with one of his most prominent, playful works and, to some extent, inextricable: the celebrated The hermetic garage.

Summary summary (if I am capable): In the garage -Yes, friends, the garage is not a metaphor- of Jerry Cornelius the engineer Barnier destroys Jerry’s ship when the projector of double chromatic polarization particles enters resonance with the caliber 2000. In turn, his antagonist, the legendary Major Gruber, creator of the worlds in which his adventures develop, leaves his ship Ciguri in the care of his girlfriend, the Damalvina to go to the second level of the capital of Armjouth to the back of a semi -automatic mabro, in order to know what has happened with his spy Samuel Mohad, who was piloting a robot giant star Metharo The encounter between the two adversaries, once friends, does not foresee anything good. That, without forgetting the disturbing figure, still present, of the Bakelita, despite having been killed by Gruber …

Is everything clarinet, right? Well, I have to say that I have done a previous work of clearing to be able to explain it to you, since in the book it is all even more confusing and improvised. And I say improvised because this is how Moebius was creating this comic, with hardly any planning, simply trying to give continuity to the pages, but somewhat tangential and enigmatic. At least, until we reach the end and understand it – more or less – everything. Although it is not that it matters much to understand or not understand what happens; Here what it is about is to enjoy, to get carried away by the deployment of imagination, humor and adventures that we find in these pages. In addition, of course, of the precious line of the illustrations of this author. A story-and science fiction perhaps different from what is usually expected of the genre, but not less plausible (perhaps even more); A show, in any case, of creative freedom that, like the entire work of this fundamental creator, has had an undoubted influence on subsequent comic and cinema, despite its character, precisely, somewhat airtight (Sorry).

Undoubtedly, this is an essential book in its own right, but also as a melting – just that the others of Jean Giraud/Moebius, of course – of so many artistic and social trends, so many concerns and findings that took place in the twentieth century that we should not forget in this XXI that already begins to be somewhat paid of itself, it seems to me. And I don’t know if we are to throw rockets.