In 2016, we had the pleasure of talking with the late Jean-Claude Mézières, co-creator of Valérian, alongside Pierre Christin. The opportunity to come back to his collaboration with Luc Besson, his influences… In particular on Star Wars.
The worlds of comics and science fiction in mourning. The author and designer Jean-Claude Mézières, co-creator of the space adventures of Valérian and Laureline with Pierre Christin and Évelyne Tranlé, died on the night of January 22 to 23 at the age of 83 according to his publisher Dargaud , who greets “his high standards, his energy, his strong personality, his benevolence, his simplicity, his joie de vivre, his curiosity” in a press release.
In 2016, we had the great pleasure of meeting the artist, alongside Pierre Christin, on the sidelines of the promotion of the film Valérian by Luc Besson. The opportunity to discuss with the duo their meeting and their collaboration with the filmmaker, the comparison between their universe and that of American Comics, the profound influence of the latter on Pop Culture and on the genre of SF, in particular the space-opera codes that a certain George Lucas will more than largely feed on for Star Wars…
DashFUN: How did you meet Luc Besson? Does it date from your collaboration on “The Fifth Element”?
Jean-Claude Mezieres : We’ve known each other for about 25 years. Luc contacted me in 1990/1991 to tell me that he was preparing a science fiction film, that of course he knew my comics and that he wanted me to work for him. I discovered that he was also a real connoisseur of Valerian and that he was someone who was interested in both comics and sci-fi atmospheres, which had been my workhorse since 15/20 years old. Our collaboration therefore went very well on The Fifth Element. I even passed him the flying taxi, the “Limouzingue” which S’Traks was the driver in the album Circles of power.
What was your level of involvement with the film “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets”?
Pierre-Christin : Going from comics, which is a fairly microscopic art in some ways and especially by the means that are put into it, to cinema, which is a gigantic art in particular for this film, is in any case changing professions , nature and scale, and so it is necessarily something very different.
Luc Besson arrived with his screenplay – since he’s always the one who writes his own screenplays – and he was kind enough to show it to us so that we could comment. It happened at full speed since we saw each other on a Friday and he asked me to read it for Monday morning.
So I had one of the busiest weekends of my life. His script was perfectly worked out and worked very well based on what we had done. Anyway, it wasn’t a question of going back to the script to impose things that would possibly have been closer to comics.
How do you feel when you see on the big screen these paper characters that have been with you for so long?
Jean-Claude Mezieres : The mixture for me worked very well. I found my characters and it doesn’t really matter whether Valerian’s lock is placed here or there in the film. I found the spirit of Valérian and Laureline perfectly in line with what we are trying to tell as our adventures progress.
There is also this side of a happy young couple who get out of all the trouble – and God knows that it falls a lot on their faces – with a lot of confidence and in a fantastically rich world, such as I try to draw by looking for my ideas in the bottom of my inkwell.
Dargaud / EuropaCorp
Pierre-Christin : As a screenwriter, I love the act of writing and, once it’s done, it’s something that becomes quite foreign to me. When I happen to read it again – which is very rare and, in general, it’s because I have to – it really is as if someone else had written it.
When I see a film, I want to be surprised, so at the limit it should be quite different from what I did. For people who have done comics, when you come face to face with Luc’s film, it’s first of all a huge visual shock: there are lots of noises, sounds, things and things, full of agitation , characters and pyrotechnics… We go into a totally new universe compared to that of the comic strip. Basically, what I liked was everything that wasn’t in the comics and everything that I hadn’t thought of.
How do you explain the longevity of the comic strip Valérian et Laureline…
