Blueberry (graphic novel)

AUTHOR: Charlier, Jean-Michel; Corteggiani, François; Moebius (pseudonym of Jean Giraud); Wilson, Colin

ARTIST: Moebius (illustrator); Michel Blanc-Dumont (illustrator); François Corteggiani (illustrator); René Follet (illustrator); Michel Rouge (illustrator); William Vance (pseudonym of William van Cutsem, illustrator); Florence Breton (colorist); Jannick Dionnet (colorist); Fraysic (colorist); Janet Gale (colorist); Claudine Giraud (colorist); Petra Scotese (colorist); Scarlett Smulkowski (colorist); Evelyne Tran-Le (colorist); Phil Felix (letterer); Michael Heisler (letterer); Jijé (pseudonym of Joseph Gillain) (letterer); Kenny Lopez (letterer); Jim Novak (letterer); Bill Oakley (letterer); Gaspar Saladino (letterer)

PUBLISHER: Editions Dargaud

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1963- (English translation, 1977-1993)

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1965- (English translation, 1977-1993)

Publication History

Blueberry debuted as Fort Navajo in 1963, in the weekly Belgian comics anthology Pilote. The long-running series was the brainchild of French artist and writer Jean Giraud, who later worked under the pseudonym “Moebius.” As a teenager, Giraud created several Western strips, and in the early 1960’s, he contributed to the established Western series Jerry Spring in another Belgian anthology, Spirou. Giraud proposed a new Western series to Belgian writer and artist Jean-Michel Charlier, a Pilote editor, who agreed to the idea after seeing Death Valley firsthand.

In Fort Navajo, Blueberry was one of several lead characters. The series ran in brief installments over more than twenty consecutive issues of Pilote. Five chapters comprising a single story cycle were printed under the Fort Navajo title through 1965. Blueberry became the title character in 1966 and afterward became a regular feature in Pilote. Between 1968 and 1970, nine separate Blueberry Super Pocket format (14-to-16-page) comics were also published. Editions Dargaud, publisher of Pilote and the Super Pocket books, began releasing albums of collected strips in the mid-1960’s.

Since 1974, Blueberry has not appeared in Pilote, except for special teasers published in 2003 and 2004. Instead, Charlier and Giraud completed a series of Blueberry albums, beginning in 1975. Eleven books, containing parts of story arcs, were released before 1990, published by Dargaud. The publisher has since reprinted the complete Blueberry epic, with supplemental materials and new covers.

Charlier and Giraud also collected prequel Super Pockets into the Young Blueberry series. These comprised three full-length titles, released in album form between 1975 and 1979. Charlier and Colin Wilson added to Young Blueberry, contributing series extensions between 1985 and 1987. Following Charlier’s death, François Corteggiani and Wilson continued Young Blueberry (1992-1994), and Corteggiani and Michel Blanc-Dumont teamed to create ten additional albums between 1998 and 2010. Giraud, meanwhile, spun off Marshal Blueberry, writing stories for William Vance (1991-1993) and Michel Rouge (2000) to illustrate. Between 1995 and 2005, Giraud also wrote and drew a five-volume story under the Mister Blueberry title.

In all its incarnations, Blueberry has been popular throughout continental Europe. The series has been translated from the original French into more than a dozen languages. Only selected titles of the complete Blueberry oeuvre, mostly from the 1970’s and 1980’s, have thus far been translated into English. These began appearing in the late 1970’s, after Giraud, as “Moebius,” became internationally renowned for his association (as co-founder and frequent contributor) with the groundbreaking magazine Métal Hurlant (Heavy Metal). English-language versions from a number of publishers have been released, featuring different combinations of stories. Numerous reprints exist in a variety of formats, from inexpensive comic-book-sized black-and-white abridgements on pulp, to high quality, full-color bound volumes on slick paper in signed, limited first editions.

Plot

A sweeping chronicle of the American Old West, Blueberry depicts the adventures of fictional character Mike Blueberry against a historical backdrop. Spanning two decades of the late nineteenth century and traversing the United States, the series dramatically thrusts Blueberry into a succession of exciting, endlessly complicated, and life-threatening situations. Meticulously researched storylines are based on documented fact: hidden Confederate gold, the Lost Dutchman Mine, the Transcontinental Railroad, American Indian wars, and celebrated gunfights. Actual persons, such as Ulysses S. Grant, Cochise, Sitting Bull, General George A. Custer, Sam Bass, the Earp brothers, and Wild Bill Hickok, coexist alongside venerable character types. Soldiers, gunmen, barmaids, half-breeds, scoundrels, and drifters have been borrowed from Western movies then filtered through the fertile imagination of Charlier and Giraud. The result is a fresh retelling of familiar events, presented from a unique perspective.

The central figure throughout the series is Blueberry. A young, handsome Southerner (originally modeled after French movie star Jean-Paul Belmondo), he serves as a Union army soldier during the Civil War. His physical prowess and mental agility allow him to rise to the rank of cavalry lieutenant. Blueberry’s strategic skills in unraveling tangled knots of trouble attract the attention of superior officers, and he is invariably chosen for the most challenging assignments. The Blueberry tales are grouped in four periods. Blueberry (twenty-three volumes, some initially published under the title Lieutenant Blueberry) deals with the years 1868-1881. Young Blueberry (nineteen volumes) primarily concerns the Civil War years, with flashbacks to earlier times. Marshall Blueberry (three volumes) focuses on the late 1860’s, while Mister Blueberry (five volumes) goes forward and backward in time.

Blueberry often works in concert with grizzled former prospector and inveterate drunk Jimmy MacClure and laconic former letter carrier Red Wooley, two undependable but ultimately loyal friends who usually arrive in the nick of time to help extricate the hero from dire straits. Many characters recur from volume to volume, particularly in the Blueberry and Young Blueberry series. Villains who oppose Blueberry typically wind up dead or disgraced.

Volumes

•Fort Navajo (1965; Fort Navajo, 1977). Collects Pilote, issues 210-232.

•Tonnere à l’ouest (1966; Fort Navajo: Thunder in the West, 1977). Collects Pilote, issues 236-258.

•L’aigle solitaire (1967; Fort Navajo: The Lone Eagle, 1978). Collects Pilote, issues 261-285.

•Le cavalier perdu (1968; Fort Navajo: The Lost Rider, 1978). Collects Pilote, issues 288-311.

•La piste des Navajos (1968; the trail of the Navajos). Collects Pilote, issues 313-335. This five-part, 240-page story introduces Mike Blueberry. Sent to Arizona, he becomes enmeshed in intrigue between Indian-hating Major Bascom and white-hating renegade Quanah, each bent on fomenting war.

•L’homme à l’étoile d’argent (1969; The Man with the Silver Star, 1983). Collects Pilote, issues 337-360. A self-contained single volume, inspired by the movies High Noon (1952) and Rio Bravo (1959). Blueberry is sheriff of Silver Creek, Arizona, and comes into conflict with bandit Sam Bass and his gang.

•Le cheval de fer (1970; The Iron Horse (1991). Collects Pilote, issues 370-392.

•L’homme au poing d’acier (1970; Steel Fingers, 1991). Collects Pilote, issues 397-419.

•La piste des Sioux (1971; The Trail of the Sioux; 1991). Collects Pilote, issues 427-449. Published in English as a chapter in General Golden Mane.

•Général tête jaune (1971; General Golden Mane, 1991). Collects Pilote, issues 453-476. Blueberry negotiates with Indians for Union Pacific rights-of-way in advance of the Transcontinental Railroad. He runs afoul of Indian hunter General “Yellow Mane” Allister and opposes Jethro Steelfingers, working for rival Central Pacific.

•La mine de l’Allemand perdu (1972; The Lost Dutchman Mine, 1991). Collects Pilote, issues 497-519.

•Le spectre aux balles d’or (1972; The Ghost with the Golden Bullets, 1991). Collects Pilote, issues 532-557. Published in English as a chapter in The Lost Dutchman Mine. This was partially inspired by the 1969 movie Mackenna’s Gold. Now sheriff of Palomito, Blueberry battles bounty hunters, Indians, and the unforgiving desert, chasing a gold-hungry fugitive.

•Chihuahua Pearl (1973; The Chihuahua Pearl, 1989). Collects Pilote, issues 566-588.

•L’homme qui valait 500.000$ (1973; The Half-Million-Dollar Man, 1989). Collects Pilote, issues 605-627. Published in English as a chapter in The Chihuahua Pearl.

•Ballade pour un cercueil (1974; Ballad for a Coffin, 1989). Collects Pilote, issues 647-679. Drummed out of the cavalry, Blueberry goes undercover to trace the whereabouts of $500,000 in Confederate gold intended to finance another Civil War—only to learn the bullion has been used to buy arms for the Mexican Revolution.

•La hors la loi (1974; The Outlaw, 1989). Collects Pilote, issues 700-720. Published in English as a chapter in Ballad for a Coffin.

•Angel Face (1975; Angel Face, 1989). Falsely accused of stealing the Confederate gold, Blueberry is a fugitive with a price on his head. He learns of a plot to kill President Grant and foils the attempt, but he is mistakenly believed to be the assassin. Escaping pursuers, he appears to die in a fiery locomotive crash.

•La jeunesse de Blueberry (1975; Blueberry’s Secret, 1989). Collects Dargaud Super Pockets “The Secret of Blueberry” (1968), “The Chattanooga Bridge” (1969), and “3000 Mustangs” (1969). Young Mike Donovan squires girlfriend Harriet before being falsely accused of murdering her father. Donovan flees northward, joins the Union army as a bugler, and assumes the pseudonym Blueberry. He participates heroically in two dangerous missions.

•Un yankee nommé Blueberry (1979; A Yankee Named Blueberry, 1990). Collects Dargaud Super Pockets “Ride Towards Death” (1969), “Hunt the Man” (1969), and “Private M.S. Blueberry” (1970). Captured by Confederates, Blueberry escapes with information detailing Southern battle strategy. Returning to Northern lines, he is thought to be a spy and condemned. Freed, he blows up a Southern ammunition train and is severely wounded.

•Cavalier bleu (1979; The Blue Coats, 1990). Collects Dargaud Super Pockets “Thunder Over the Sierra” (1968), “Hunt the Man,” part 2 (1970), and “Double Game” (1970). Former girlfriend Harriet helps Blueberry escape military prison but is killed in the process. The Rebels rescue Blueberry, and he plays double agent. He receives a broken nose freeing captured Union general Grenville M. Dodge.

•Nez cassé (1980; Broken Nose, 1989). Published in English as a chapter in Angel Face.

•La longue marche (1980; The Long March, 1990). Published in English as a chapter in The Ghost Tribe.

•La tribu fantôme (1982; The Ghost Tribe, 1990). Blueberry resurfaces as a refugee with Apaches led by Cochise and Victorio. Known as Tsi-Na-Pah (“Broken Nose”), he assists in foiling the U.S. Army’s attempts to relocate the tribe to a barren reservation and helps them escape to Mexico.

•La dernière carte (1983; The Last Card, 1990). Published in English as a chapter in The End of the Trail.

•Les démons du Missouri (1985; The Missouri Demons).

•Le bout de la piste (1986; The End of the Trail, 1990). Blueberry journeys with companions McClure and Wooley into Mexico to find the one man who can prove Blueberry is innocent of charges against him. He learns of another assassination plot and works to thwart it.

•Terreur sur le Kansas (1987; Terror Over Kansas). Blueberry leads a troop of soldiers to the border states of Missouri and Kansas, ordered to put an end to the depredations of raider William C. Quantrill.

•Le raid infernal (1987; The Train From Hell).

•Arizona Love (1990; Arizona Love, 1993). Smitten by beautiful Lily Calloway, the feisty entertainer known as the “Chihuahua Pearl,” Blueberry locates, woos, and wins her affection.

•Sur ordre de Washington (1991; Under Orders From Washington). Part of the Marshal Blueberry series.

•La Poursuite impitoyable (1992; Pitiless Pursuit). Blueberry volunteers to go undercover with a group of condemned soldiers into Southern territory. His mission: to find and destroy a cache of Confederate arms and ammunition.

•Mission Sherman (1993; Mission Sherman).Part of the Marshal Blueberry series.

•Trois hommes pour Atlanta (1993; Three Men for Atlanta).

•Le prix du sang (1994; The Price of Blood). Blueberry and another Northern soldier volunteer to go undercover in Atlanta. With the help of a slave, they observe the city’s defenses in preparation for a Union assault.

•Mister Blueberry (1995; Mister Blueberry).

•Ombres sur Tombstone (1997; Shadows Over Tombstone).

•La solution Pinkerton (1998; The Pinkerton Solution).

•Geronimo l’Apache (1999; Geronimo the Apache).

•Frontière sanglante (2000; Bloody Frontier). Returning to the southwest, Blueberry is installed as marshal and ordered to halt the raids of Chato and his band of Apaches and to stop illegal traffic in firearms.Part of the Marshal Blueberry series.

•La Piste des maudits (2000; The Track of The Cursed).

•Dernier train pour Washington (2001; Last Train for Washington).

•Dust (2003). As writer and artist, Girard projects the series forward into the future and backward into the past. Blueberry, now an aging alcoholic, reminisces to a reporter about meeting Geronimo and being present at the fight at the O.K. Corral.

•Il faut tuer Lincoln (2003; Lincoln Must be Killed). This cycle follows several threads involving Blueberry in undercover work to soften the South for invasion and to prevent an early attempt to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.

•OK Corral (2003).

•Le boucher de Cincinnati (2005; The Butcher of Cincinnati).

•La sirène de Vera-Cruz (2006; The Mermaid of Vera Cruz). A Civil War mission takes Blueberry and several companions from Washington, D.C., to Mexico, while working to prevent the South from securing the use of the Gatling gun.

•100 dollars pour mourir (2007; 100 Dollars to Die).

•Le sentier des larmes (2008; The Trail of Tears). Blueberry becomes involved in the disappearance of a Rothschild’s bank representative kidnapped to extort a trainload of gold to assist the Southern cause.

•1276 Âmes (2009; 1,276 Souls).

•Rédemption (2010; Redemption). Blueberry is sent on a mission to rescue the daughter of General Philip H. Sheridan, held captive by a sect led by a madman.

Characters

•Blueberry, a.k.a. Michael Steven Donovan and Tsi-Nah-Pah (Broken Nose), is the central figure throughout the series. A dashing hero/antihero combining brains and brawn, he is a formidable fighter, a skilled poker player, and a ladies’ man. Though raised in the South, he turns his back on slavery, later extending his egalitarian attitudes toward other oppressed minorities, particularly the American Indians. Outwardly confident, he internally questions his motives and actions even as he develops creative ways to solve problems. A man with a finely tuned sense of honor, a well-developed instinct for survival, and fierce determination, he has little respect for authority or discipline.

•Jimmy McClure is a bearded, balding prospector introduced in Fort Navajo. Often a sidekick in Blueberry’s adventures, he is a faithful companion, but not always reliable because of his fondness for alcohol. A chubby character that often provides comic relief, he uses colorful expressions.

•Red Wooley, a.k.a. Red Neck, introduced in The Iron Horse, is a former courier. Another frequent companion and friend of Blueberry, he has a penchant for strong drink. Red, tall, and slender, he is often seen wearing a fringed buckskin jacket.

•Sergeant Grayson is a brave American Indian fighting for the North in Young Blueberry. He often accompanies Blueberry on risky missions either as a soldier or as Pinkerton agent.

•Homer, from Young Blueberry, is a former slave in Atlanta who assists Blueberry on several missions and is later hired by Pinkerton.

•Allan Pinkerton, the real head of the investigative and presidential protective agency, figures in several Young Blueberry stories.

•Baumhoffer is a Pinkerton agent who is a key contributor to the success of several missions in Young Blueberry.

•Angel Face, a.k.a. Marmaduke O’Shaughnessy, is a handsome, young contract killer who becomes horribly disfigured during a fight with Blueberry. He is involved in two separate attempts to assassinate President Grant.

•Lily Calloway, a.k.a. Chihuahua Pearl, is one of several strong female characters in the series. Blueberry’s ultimate love interest, she is a beautiful, blond Southern showgirl first encountered in Mexico.

•Duke Stanton is Blueberry’s rival for the Chihuahua Pearl’s affections.

•Kelly is the sadistic commander of a federal prison where Blueberry is confined for a time, and a co-conspirator in the Grant assassination attempts.

•Blake, a genial but treacherous holdup artist, is another component of the complicated assassination plot.

•Guffie Palmer, a female dancehall entertainer, is encountered several times over the course of the series. A love interest of Grant in her youth, she gains considerable weight but plays a heroic role in preventing a presidential assassination.

•Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. president, appears several times in the series.

•Cochise, the Apache chief, is a key figure both early and late in the series.

•Victorio, an Apache warrior, is Cochise’s heir apparent and Blueberry’s rival for the affections of Chini.

•Chini is a beautiful young Apache woman and an object of affection to both Victorio and Blueberry.

•Wild Bill Hickok, a famous frontiersman, is seen as an Indian fighter in the series.

•Jedediah, a.k.a. Eggskull, is a bloodthirsty tracker and frontiersman who survived scalping. With his ferocious mastiffs Gog and Magog, he relentlessly hunts, kills, and scalps Indians.

•General “Golden Mane” Allister is a figure that appears several times throughout the narrative and is revealed to be the lead conspirator in the presidential assassination plot.

Artistic Style

As a plot-heavy, character-laden, history-based series, Blueberry crowds an abundance of text into each story, by means of speech and thought balloons, explanatory introductions, boxes and labels, and sound effects. There are few spreads without any verbiage. Charlier’s terse dialogue and sharp wit make the amount of information palatable. Giraud’s detailed, realistic renderings and creative layouts, plus a judicious use of luscious colors, add dimension and clarity, bringing the narrative to life. Other contributing scenarists, illustrators, and colorists have remained faithful to the look, feel, and intent of the strip’s creators, though later story cycles, particularly in Young Blueberry, have grown shorter, with fewer complications.

Blueberry began as a standard European-flavored Western that only got better with age. The initial offerings in Fort Navajo were verbose, and storylines were cliché. Visuals were stiff and formal. The look and pacing of the series significantly improved as writer and artist became comfortable with the material and played to each other’s strengths. Charlier grew skilled in telling extremely complex stories and in juggling dozens of different real and imaginary characters, while remaining within the boundaries of historicity. Giraud, meanwhile, kept experimenting with his sequential techniques. Whether in his epic Western strip or in other more far-ranging works, he has the uncanny knack of choosing the correct panel shape, the perfect angle of perspective, and the right amount of detailing needed both to keep the story flowing and to provide visual interest. While Giraud is not quite as verbally skilled as his late collaborator, he has more than made up for any deficiency as a storyteller with his superb abilities to show character, emotion, and action.

Themes

The Blueberry series celebrates the grandeur of the United States and the glory of nineteenth-century American history. The stories, which simultaneously uphold and explode clichés of Western mythology, are underscored by the uniquely Gallic ideals of liberty, equality, and brotherhood.

Blueberry symbolizes the ultimate free spirit. A man of flexible morality, he rejects his Southern heritage to fight for the North, and this action sets the tone for his attitude throughout the saga. He is not bound to any region, but roams the wide-open spaces of North America at will, going where his adventures take him, and doing what is necessary to accomplish goals. Blueberry does not follow orders unless objectives match his own and he does not have to sacrifice his free agency.

During the nineteenth century, women, African Americans, American Indians, Hispanic Americans, and other ethnic groups were considered inferior in the mostly Caucasian and male-dominated United States. Though the roles of such people are treated realistically in Blueberry, there is a conscious effort to illustrate the deleterious effects of discrimination. The main character is color-blind and treats everyone as equal. Blueberry is more concerned with basic good versus evil than with the relative worth of characters along racial or gender lines, so characters of all types are presented as both heroic and villainous.

Finally, though Blueberry is the essence of freedom, he is still just one human in the vastness of the American landscape. As such, he must always work with others to achieve his ends. Even as Blueberry steadfastly maintains his individuality, his adventures consistently illustrate the principle of strength through unity.

Impact

Blueberry is an institution in Europe, just as Batman and Superman are in the United States. Europeans have a long-time fascination for the United States of yesteryear. In the nineteenth century, they eagerly read the translated novels of such authors as James Fenimore Cooper. Later, they flocked to Buffalo Bill Cody’s traveling shows.

In the twentieth century, Europeans began devouring numerous homegrown Western-flavored strips, many inspired by American comics, movies, and television. French-language comics such as Lucky Luke, Tex, Jerry Spring, The Adventures of Chick Bill, Durango, Sergeant Kirk, Comanche, The Adventures of Jim Cutlass, Priest, and Buddy Longway sustained interest in the American Old West. None, however, have had the lasting influence of Blueberry. Part of this longevity is the result of Charlier’s ability to blend fact and fiction to present exciting, ambitiously convoluted stories founded upon real incidents. The stories, however, would be merely mildly interesting melodramatic pulp without the superb illustrations that juxtapose a larger-than-life main character against the panorama of the United States. Through his vision and imagination Giraud has, over the course of four decades, taken an ordinary comic strip and elevated it to fine art.

Films

Renegade. Directed by Jan Kounen. A.J.O.Z. Films/La Petite Reine/Union Générale Cinématographique (2004). Originally released in France as Blueberry: L’Expérience secrete (The Secret Experience), this film loosely based on the comic book series stars Vincent Cassel as Blueberry and Colm Meany as McClure and features a cameo by Giraud. The confused, existential plot includes a number of disparate story lines from the graphic novels involving lost gold and American Indians. Much of the good-looking but slow-moving and unfocused movie surrounds the Native American ritual use of psychedelics.

Further Reading

Hergé. The Adventures of Tintin (1929-1976).

Moebius. Airtight Garage (1976-1980).

Moebius, and Alejandro Jodorowsky. The Incal: Classic Collection (2011).

Bibliography

Grove, Lawrence. Comics in French: The European Bande Dessinée in Context. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010.

McKinney, Mark, ed. History and Politics in French-Language Comics and Graphic Novels. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2008.

Vessels, Joel E. Drawing France: French Comics and the Republic. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010.