Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius
"Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius" is a groundbreaking comic series created by the renowned French artist Moebius, whose real name is Jean Giraud. Initially published in episodic form in French publications during the late 1970s, the work is known for its surreal, fragmented storytelling and unique artistic style that blends various influences. The narrative follows Major Grubert, who navigates a fantastical, self-contained universe known as the "airtight garage," populated by diverse worlds and creatures while searching for his friend, Jerry Cornelius. The plot is characterized by its lack of a predetermined storyline, with events unfolding in distinct "acts" that explore themes of creation and artistic expression.
The series features a range of memorable characters, including the enigmatic Jerry Cornelius and the formidable Bakalites, who seek to control the garage. Moebius's distinctive line work and imaginative settings have left a lasting impression on the comic industry, particularly in Europe, inspiring numerous artists and movements. While its influence in the United States has been more subdued, Moebius's artistry has nonetheless resonated with many contemporary comic creators. Overall, "Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius" stands as a significant work in the realm of graphic storytelling, showcasing the potential of comics as a medium for artistic innovation.
Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius
AUTHOR: Moebius
ARTIST: Moebius (illustrator)
PUBLISHER: Les Humanoïdes Associés (French); Marvel Comics (English)
FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION:Le Garage hérmetique de Jerry Cornelius, 1976-1980 (English translation, 1993)
FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1979 (English translation, 1987)
Publication History
In France, Le Garage hérmetiquede Jerry Cornelius was published in short episodes in Métal Hurlant, France Soir, and Fluide Glacial during a five-year time span. Creator Moebius, whose real name is Jean Giraud, worked on the series late at night, drawing strange stories for several hours before finally falling asleep. The next day, he would wake to find he had created stories and sequences without any logical sense, and he therefore tried to reconstruct them and establish a narrative. Jean-Pierre Dionnet, the editor in chief of Métal Hurlant, saw the drawings and asked Moebius to create a coherent plot and to continue and conclude the story. The collected edition of the series, titled Le Major Fatal, was published by Les Humanoïdes Associés in 1979.
In English, the work was first published in book format as Moebius 3: The Airtight Garage (1987). For this Marvel edition, the name “Jerry Cornelius” was changed to “Lewis Carnelian” in order to avoid copyright issues. “Jerry Cornelius” was a moniker introduced previously by writer Michael Moorcock, who had initially permitted any artist to use the name freely but later revoked such freedom of use.
Plot
One of the fundamental features of Airtight Garage is that it was drawn and written without a planned plot. The entire work is articulated in “acts,” the events of which follow a chronological order. In the Leo constellation, there is a small, hollow asteroid in which a human, Major Grubert, has created the “airtight garage” using twenty-three generator engines. This airtight garage consists of a variety of pocket worlds and contains three levels, created in different moments. The first level contains wild and little-populated worlds, the second level contains densely populated and technologically advanced worlds, and the third level is purely mechanical and contains the engines that have generated the worlds. It is possible to travel between worlds through the use of machines that transfer matter.
The levels and worlds of the airtight garage are home to a variety of humanoid and nonhumanoid, evolved and unevolved races and peoples such as the Bakalites, the Tar’Hai, the Triclos, the Exos, and others. The worlds contain sentient beings, bizarre animals, religious leaders, giant robots, androids, and even a sort of superhero. All acts focus on Jerry Cornelius and on a collective quest to find him.
From a starship in orbit around the asteroid, Major Grubert travels between the fantastic and science-fictional worlds in which the story is set in search of his old friend and former comrade, Jerry Cornelius. The airtight garage isolates the alien worlds contained within it from the “continuum,” the open space. Many within the garage believe that Cornelius seeks to destroy the continuum, but he is truly protecting it from the Bakalites, a powerful mystical order that attempts to acquire and control it.
After several episodes featuring chases and explosions, the Bakalites’ leader, the Nagual, kills Cornelius in the final confrontation. Major Grubert escapes into the continuum through a multidimensional door and enters the world of the reader, emerging in a Paris subway station.
Characters
•Jerry Cornelius (Lewis Carnelian in the Marvel publication) is a human for whom everyone in the airtight garage is searching. He first appears while driving a desert car toward the city of Armjourth, helped from a distance by a clumsy mechanical engineer, Barnier.
•Major Grubert is a human and former comrade of Jerry Cornelius whose starship, the Ciguri, orbits the asteroid that contains the airtight garage. He was born in 1958 in West Germany and worked as a journalist for the Divelt (Die Welt). One day, he accidentally passed through the “Angkor trans-temporal circle,” emerging in the nineteenth century, where he was instructed by a Brahman about the secrets of “space magic.” While scouring deep space, he and Jerry Cornelius found the wreck of the Otra, the legendary starship of the Ancients, inside which he discovered the secret of immortality. His ultimate mission is to protect the garage, his creation, from the Bakalites.
•The Bakalites are members of a powerful religious order that seeks to conquer the garage.
•Houm Jakin is the master of a region of the airtight garage, the Carn Finehac. He travels to Bolzedura to find help in order to repair the “junction,” which had been interrupted by the magic of the Bakalites.
•Boaz is a killer who lives on Syldain-Dolcignus, one of the worlds within the garage.
•Samuel Mohad is a spy sent by the officers of the Ciguri. Although Mohad is a human, the spy that is sent is a radio-driven android. The android, in turn, drives a giant robot named Star Billiard that is similar in appearance to the classic comics character the Phantom.
•Malvina is the fiancé of Major Grubert. She commands the Ciguri while Grubert is on missions in the airtight garage.
•Yetchem the Archer is an emissary of the Tar’Hai who believes that Jerry Cornelius and Major Grubert are threats to the peace and safety of his world. He and his people seek the airtight garage’s independence.
•Larc Dalxtré is a soldier on the Ciguri who is sent into the garage by Malvina.
•Graad is a Triclo, a humanoid being with three horns on his head. He meets Major Grubert in Armjouth and helps him travel from the second level of the garage to the first and highest.
Artistic Style
Moebius’s artistic style in Airtight Garage is one of the most representative ever used by the artist. This style is a somewhat eclectic mix, combining the clear-line style of Franco-Belgian comics, the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tradition of xylographies, and the brushwork of American and European serial comics. Most evident when the art is examined in black and white, the lines drawn by Moebius are thin but perfectly refined in their modulation, and his use of hatching is significant.
Panels are usually rectangular in shape, and the pagination is quite regular, giving way to the drawings when necessary. Many individual panels depict large changes or actions, while, in contrast, seemingly simple actions may take many chapters to unfold. Moebius seems equally comfortable depicting massive scenes and miniscule detail, and later printings of the comic accent this artwork with strong colors. While his inventive style makes his influences difficult to trace, Moebius seems to draw inspiration from the work of such artists as filmmaker Sergio Leone, in terms of his “far West” settings and the “cut” of certain panels and scenes; illustrator and comic artist Winsor McCay, for several elements of design, some perspectives, and the multidimensional games with panels; and painter René Magritte, for numerous surrealist atmospheres.
Themes
Airtight Garage has a relatively simple plot, the quest for a crucial character by several other characters within a strange and artificial world, and its fragmented narrative is not particularly conducive to thematic exploration within the context of the story. The true theme of Airtight Garage is an extranarrative metatheme of creation having to do with the ability of a great comics creator to fascinate readers with a story even when it was begun without any real purpose. In this sense, therefore, the comic calls attention to the idea that an exercise of style by an artist, featuring artistically elegant drawings, science-fiction and science-fantasy settings, and a mix of pseudohistorical sensibilities and aesthetic styles, can also create a compelling reading experience.
Impact
The artistic style, narrative atmosphere, and settings of Airtight Garage have made a significant impact on European comics, influencing not only auteur comics but also popular comics in France, Italy, and Spain. Moebius’s work has also influenced that of several eastern European artists, especially Enki Bilal. In the United States, where the impact of Airtight Garage and European comics in general has been relatively limited, Moebius is better known for his Marvel limited series Silver Surfer: Parable (1988) and design work for such films as Alien (1979), Tron (1982), and The Fifth Element (1997). Nevertheless, Moebius has been cited as an influence by Geof Darrow, Frank Quitely, James Stokoe, and many other artists working in the U.S. comics industry. An arc of New X-Men (2001-2004), illustrated by Quitely, features characters, scenes, and even panels in direct homage to Airtight Garage.
Further Reading
Druillet, Philippe. Chaos:Lone Sloane (2000).
Moebius, and Alejandro Jodorowsky. The Incal: Classic Collection (2011).
Moebius, Jean-Marc Lofficier, and Randy Lofficier. The Man from the Ciguri (1996).
Bibliography
Boucher, Geoff. “Moebius on His Art, Fading Eyesight, and Legend: ‘I Am Like a Unicorn.’” Los Angeles Times Hero Complex, April 2, 2011. http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/04/02/moebius-on-his-art-fading-eyesight-and-legend-i-am-like-a-unicorn.
Brothers, David. “Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud: Your Favorite Artist’s Favorite Artist.” Comics Alliance, April 22, 2011. http://comicsalliance.com/2011/04/22/jean-moebius-giraud-art.
Frauenfelder, Mark. “Moebius.” Wired, 2009. http://wired.com/wired/archive/2.01/moebius.html.
Seneca, Matt. “Your Monday Panel 15: Le garage hérmetique de Jerry Cornelius episode 26 (1988), page 1, panel 1. Drawn by Moebius.” Death to the Universe, June 7, 2010. http://deathtotheuniverse.blogspot.com/2010/06/your-monday-panel-15.html.
Witzke, Sean. “Emma Peel Sessions 50: Because It’s Everything, Though Everything Was Never the Deal.” Supervillain, February 20, 2011, http://supervillain.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/emma-peel-sessions-50-because-its-everything-though-everything-was-never-the-deal.