Every week on “Sunday Page” an author has to choose a single page from a comic book. It could be for sentimental reasons o for a particular technical achievement. The conversation could lose itself in the open water of the comic book world but it will always start with the questione: «If you had to choose a page from a comic book you love, what would you choose and why?»
This Sunday I’m out with Martín Morazzo. He made his major American comics debut with the 2012 environmental sci-fi saga, Great Pacific, the first Image Comics series he co-created with Joe Harris. He worked for Marvel on several titles (Nighthawk, Elektra, Occupy Avengers) and he co-created Snowfall, The Electric Sublime, Ice Cream Man and She Could Fly.
I love Moebius, to me he is a constant reference. I think the Edena saga is his most delicate and strong work, aesthetically speaking. This page is some sort of trap for the fast readers. If you take a quick glimpse, it may seem like a number of unconnected panels, all of them in different settings. But if you look at it thoroughly, you’ll see how well the storytelling works here! We start with a close up of Stel, where we feel his sadness and despair! On the second he starts his trip, his search for his lost partner! Then comes this amazing sequence of loneliness through many landscapes, some sort of Moebius’ Nature stylesheet! Though Stel is really small in the shots, we can feel his sadness and determination. In the last two panels we get closer to him again and the story pace starts to decelerate, our main character is about to meet someone who will get him closer to Atanna in the next page!
So, when one says ‘moebius’ you think about ‘Airtight Garage’ or ‘Blueberry’. What strikes you about Edena?
I think Edena has a sensibility no other Moebius story has! The relationship between the main characters that develops through so many different worlds really got me into it! But probably what got me more in love with it, it’s that it’s visually exquisit! The last story, The reparateurs, is a silent master piece!
Could you talk about your relationship with his works?
I can’t say for sure when I first met with Moebius work, but I think it was when I was studying comic book art, with teacher Alberto Salinas, around 1993! I used to read a lot of US superheroes comics by that time, but slowly, probably tired of the changing creative teams of the books I liked and its fluctuating art quality, I began looking for more Comic d’auteur! That led me to masters like Pratt or Otomo and obviously Moebius! I got a book named Metallic Chronicles, and I looked it as reference and inspiration so many times! Though I knew his work very well, it wasn’t until many years later that I actually started reading it! The first was The Incal, by him and Jodorowsky, and I suddenly knew I had to read his entire work! The last one was Inside Moebius, and that was a really deep and fun trip!
Is Moebius on your mind when you work or you just love him as a reader? Do take away any lesson from him?
Many people told me they see a Moebius-esque feeling in my art (Humbly, I love when that happens)! I usually look carefully, and study and get inspired by his work, so it’s logical to see his influence in my pages! Though I don’t have him in my mind while working, when something’s being hard to do, I’d go and see how he did something similar and try to apply my own solution from there!
I enjoy him as a reader much, but, as a comic book artist, it’s hard to read a book not taking into account how it’s been made, how the artist laid out the page, how he created that or this character, how the script could have been for that page or panel! While reading comic books, I feel I’m constantly studying! Specially if it’s the work of a master, like Moebius (THE master, for me), I think I enjoy him both as reader and as an artist!
I love how he could do a location with apparently minimal detail, but perfectly defined, full of unnoticed important soft value lines! He was such an incredible artist! I try to achieve that in many cases, specially with settings, though they’re probably full of lines, I try to keep them simple! I don’t know if I achieve it, but I keep looking, and get amazed all the time, for that in particular in his books!