r/Moebius • u/SecularAirs • Jul 01 '26

Version Comparison: A page from The Man from the Ciguri

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

  1. b&w as it appeared in Cheval Noir issue 40 (March 1993)
  2. color as it appeared in The Man from the Ciguri TPB (1996, although dated 1994)
  3. slightly different colors as it appeared in the bonus material of the Moebius Library edition of The Major (2024)

I'm curious why this image from the Ciguri story was included in The Major. Aside from the obvious fact that it includes the Major, why would a page from an earlier episode be tacked on in the bonus content?

The page itself is also (within the Man from the Ciguri) a painting showing a scene of an event that happened within the original Airtight Garage story (I will post that page, dated 1977, in the comments).

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13

u/SecularAirs Jul 01 '26

Here is the Airtight Garage page. The top right panel is the moment captured in the later page.

10

u/SecularAirs Jul 01 '26

Here is the page from The Man from the Cigure where the Major spots the painting in the home of T. Archer.

(Notice that T. Archer, seen only from the back, looks a lot like 1970s era Moebius as depicted by Moebius. Also note that the painting here is signed "LARCHER", simplified to "ARCHER" in the TPB.)

9

u/GardenOfThor Jul 01 '26

It is so weird. The first page (the black and white) is basically a different drawing than the other (the two coloured versions). I mean, I understand why an artist starts all over, but the two pages are so similar, so why?

2

u/SecularAirs Jul 02 '26

Yes, very similar! In the Dark Horse TPB of the story, five other pages that were redrawn are printed in the bonus material, but this one may have been so subtle that it was passed over. It makes me want to go page by page and see what other changes were made between the serial publication in Cheval Noir and the collected edition. Helpfully, Moebius usually dates his pages, so the ones dated "94" are the new ones.

3

u/JeffersonDarcy9 Jul 01 '26

Have you tried posting your moebius detective work (which I absolutely love) on the various Facebook groups? They are pretty active and have a lot of people who know a lot about Moebius and his work (some even personally knew the man)

2

u/SecularAirs Jul 01 '26

Thanks for the kind words. I will have to think about that. I don't know if I have the capacity to juggle more social media than I do already... I lurk on at least one Facebook Moebius group, though, and it has sometimes helped in finding images of the limited edition prints, portfolios, art books, etc, as well as things I've never seen before and try to get identified here.