OMAC YOUR ENTHUSIASM (24)
By:
June 26, 2026
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… Seventies (1974–83) sci-fi novels and comics! Series edited by Josh Glenn.
THE INCAL | ALEJANDRO JODOROWKSY and MOEBIUS | 1980 on
I shook Jean Giraud’s hand once, in Seoul. I was presenting a talk about comics on phones, and he was being feted in a retrospective, inundated for autographs by starry-eyed Koreans in love with this icon of the bande dessinée. He was unbelievably polite. He saw that I drew a comic about robots and said, “Eh, they are everywhere.”
They are indeed everywhere, especially in Giraud’s work as Moebius — most famously in his collaboration with the visionary filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky on The Incal, a sci-fi adventure epic published by Les Humanoides Associes from 1980–1989, with a few more volumes arriving in the 2000s. The work follows a band of unlikely travelers through a dystopian dream world of the future. It’s as much a spiritual journey as it is a space opera.
While I’ve loved Moebius’ Arzach since I discovered it in high school, I’d never read The Incal before… so I had the dizzying experience of reading derivative work that was actually source material. Which is to say, in my youth I consumed countless other pieces of media that were influenced by The Incal: Judge Dredd, Warhammer 40K, The Fifth Element, Aliens, Robocop, etc. I had a puzzle piece snap into place every few pages.
The legend is that Jodorowsky, having had his dream of making his version of Herbert’s Dune taken from him (for reasons that seem… kind of fair?), created his own world, much like George Lucas making Star Wars when he couldn’t get the rights to Flash Gordon. The so-called “Metabaron’s Universe” (or, more casually, the “Jodoverse”) is packed with sci-fi ideas (overpopulation, spiritual totems, underclass riots, a runaway police state); it feels like a smoke-filled writer’s room in 1979 running on pure mania. Megacities hundreds of stories deep, planets with garbage at the center, a techno-pope who controls a black egg of death… these are the inventions of an author who needed to swallow the entire century whole just to tell a story that feels adequate to the sheer weirdness of being alive.
Step back far enough and the format becomes familiar: It is Wizard of Oz or Little Nemo in Slumberland, a traveling band in a strange land, seeking redemption in a mostly fallen world. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say this, but I found Jodorowsky’s story to be… just OK. What makes the work extraordinary is the art. Moebius is at full power here, every panel packed with action, color choices shocking in their boldness, each small background detail pregnant with its own story waiting to be told.
The conventional wisdom says that Moebius was lucky to be partnered with Jodorowsky. It’s the exact opposite.
OMAC YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Mark Kingwell on RIDDLEY WALKER | Carlo Rotella on THE FACE | Sara Ryan on DREAMSNAKE | Matthew Battles on THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST | Ramona Lyons on HIGH-RISE | Adam McGovern on SHADRACH IN THE FURNACE | Deb Chachra on THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY | Tom Nealon on DHALGREN | Michael Grasso on FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID | Stephanie Burt on BRIGHTNESS FALLS FROM THE AIR | Nikhil Singh on SABRE | Gordon Dahlquist on VALIS | Miranda Mellis on THE DISPOSSESSED | Marc Weidenbaum on SOFTWARE | Peggy Nelson on THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER | Josh Glenn on ENGINE SUMMER | Mimi Lipson on A SCANNER DARKLY | Douglas Wolk on THRILLER | David Hirmes on ARZACH | Anthony Miller on THE SHOCKWAVE RIDER | Annie Nocenti on JIMBO | Seth on MR. MACHINE | Alex Brook Lynn on JUDGE DREDD | Joe Alterio on THE INCAL | Jason Grote on JOSIE AND THE ELEVATOR.
JACK KIRBY PANELS | CAPTAIN KIRK SCENES | OLD-SCHOOL HIP HOP | TYPEFACES | NEW WAVE | SQUADS | PUNK | NEO-NOIR MOVIES | COMICS | SCI-FI MOVIES | SIDEKICKS | CARTOONS | TV DEATHS | COUNTRY | PROTO-PUNK | METAL | & more enthusiasms!