Świat Edeny t. 1 - 2

Le Monde d'Edena #1-4

by Mœbius, Maria Mosiewicz-Szrejter (Translator)

Wydanie zbiorcze komiksów Świata Edeny, w formie 2 tomów pod wspólnym numerem ISBN.

Oryginalna wizja rajskiego świata przyszłości w wykonaniu giganta komiksu - Moebiusa! Główni bohaterowie, astronauci Stel i Atan, na skutek awarii stacji kosmicznej trafiają na obcą, pustynną planetę. Zwabieni dziwnym światłem, odnajdują gigantyczną piramidę, a wokół niej koczowisko tysięcy istot z różnych ras całej galaktyki. Okazuje się, że nie znaleźli się tu przypadkowo. Czeka ich podróż na legendarną, rajską planetę Edenę, położoną w centrum wszechświata. Nawet nie podejrzewają, w jaki sposób ta podróż ich zmieni. Dotąd uzależnieni od technologii i przez to "bezpłciowi" towarzysze zaczynają się przeistaczać: jeden staje się mężczyzną, a drugi kobietą...ozłąka wskutek kłótni będzie początkiem niezwykłych przygód, które bohaterowie, chcąc ponownie się spotkać, przeżywają w różnych krainach Edeny...wiat Edeny" to fascynująca opowieść o poszukiwaniu własnej tożsamości, o wyrywaniu się ze schematów życia, o przemianie duchowej i fizycznej, która może doprowadzić człowieka na wyższe stadium świadomości. Autor stworzył komiks, który, mieszając elementy klasycznego science fiction z oniryzmem, prowadzi czytelnika znacznie dalej w głąb samego siebie, niż byłaby to w stanie uczynić zwykła, przygodowa opowieść. Jednocześnie w albumie nie brakuje akcji, walki, intryg, potworów, dziwnych światów. To historia znakomicie łącząca elementy przygodowe z walorami intelektualnymi i duchowymi.W edycji polskiej sześć tomów wydania oryginalnego zostało zebranych w dwa woluminy.Seria wyrosła z bożonarodzeniowego komiksu reklamowego, który Moebius przygotował dla francuskiego producenta samochodów Citroen. Okazało się, że kilkustronicowa reklama rozrosła się do rozmiarów albumu, a potem kilkutomowego cyklu! A wszystko przez logo Citroena, które Moebiusowi skojarzyło się ze statkami kosmicznymi...upełnie inny niż przypuszczali właściciele samochodowego koncernu okazał się także wydźwięk dzieła Moebiusa - stało się ono opowieścią negującą pozytywny wpływ rozwoju technologicznego na życie ludzkie... Moebius (prawdziwe nazwisko: Jean Giraud) jest także twórcą innych znakomitych cykli, które zostały wydane w Polsce przez Klub Świata Komiksu: legendarnego "Incala" oraz "Feralnego Majora", który przez wiele mediów został uznany za najważniejszy komiks wydany w naszym kraju.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Art, Graphic Novels Comics

404 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud (pen-name: Mœbius) was a French artist, cartoonist, and writer, who worked in the Franco-Belgian bandes dessinées tradition.
Also published as Jean Giraud.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stel and Atan find a space station abandoned and go looking for the crew. One flying blue pyramid later, they find themselves on the paradisaical planet of Edena...

Sometime back in the pre-Internet age, I read about Moebius in Marvel Age when Marvel was adapting the Airtight Garage for their Epic imprint. Then I forgot about it since the closest comic shop was fifty miles away and I was a kid with no money anyway. Decades later, this popped up on sale during the shit show that was Amazon Prime Day. I snapped it up.

The story starts fairly simply. Two investigators are looking for a space station. Some crazy shit happens and they wind up on a paradise named Edena. Other crazy shit happens and soon they're crossing planets and exploring dreams within dreams to find one another again.

There was so much to like about this. Parts of the story serve as a warning on over-reliance on technology and processed food. Stel and Atan start out looking androgynous. It's not apparent Atan is actually female until they're forced to eat the native fruit of Edena. From there, there is a misunderstanding and things go pear-shaped.

While I found the story very engaging, the art is fucking spectacular. There's nothing else like it. It's simultaneously simple and intricate. It's not often you see a forest scene in a comic with hundreds of differentiated trees in it. The coloring and Moebius' unique style make for a grand reading experience.

I'm not one to use images in reviews but here is just one panel that I really liked.


There are hundreds more I liked as much.

I can't say enough good things about this. The art is gorgeous. The Dark Horse Library edition is built to stand the test of time, which is a good thing since I plan on rereading it quite a few times. Five out of five stars.

[mark monday · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mœbius had a dream. at first it was a flight of fancy, easy to follow, easy to explore this strange lovely world with our strange lovely protagonists...



like children they were, traveling through these beautiful natural settings, learning, growing. and so as children grow, they grew, into woman and man. and so an apple ate, a sundering, a fall. into the excitements and pitfalls of gender, into the complicated and treacherous systems of adulthood, of government, of behavior. the strange loveliness turned inevitably darker, an excursion into confusion, a dream become nightmare...



a cacophonous and absurd nightmare, full of odd colorful creatures lording it over each other, afraid of the world, the human touch become toxic, the touch of the world become death. from nightmare then into hallucination: gender roles become mythopoeic roles, identity become elastic, the human condition become illusion, life itself become oneiric. change is the only constant. the story itself is of course oneiric, its core ethereal, its surface astral. the planes of matter and thought meet, convulse, transform, and then are reborn... into prosaic reality. such is life? and so perhaps a happy ending, after all of the nightmares.



I preferred the tranquility of the earlier parts of the dream, but who am I to judge? this is a Mœbius dream, not mine.

[Tatiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story became more and more incoherent as it went on.

[Sebastien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal work. But I guess there is a soft warning I have to give, I want everyone to love Moebius, or at least hope they can discover appreciation of his work, but I don't think Moebius is for everyone (style and taste wise). I think if you are into comics it is easier to dig his work, especially if you appreciate the craft of drawing and illustration. This guy is one of the tops of all time in terms of art. The precision, clarity and surety of line, beautiful perspectives, gorgeous compositions... he does it all. Also enjoy the coloring work. He keeps things simple, yet detailed, and that is because he knows exactly where to place the right mark. Which is incredible, you can analyze each and every panel and marvel at this guy's skill. It is breathtaking. I would def recommend checking out his work, especially if you like comics. Even if you don't end up liking it, his work has been pretty important and influential so it's nice to check out given its place as cultural and comics touchstones.

In terms of story and narrative this is a bit out there, like most of Giraud's sci-fi work. I thought it was neat, super imaginative, funky, kept me on my toes and I was very curious to see where the story was going. I wouldn't be surprised though if some readers find the narrative frustrating, obtuse, and a bit too new-agey. I read Moebius comics for the art tbh, but the story here is quite excellent and superbly imaginative. Lots of weird mysteries, great world-building, interesting characters and villains, solid social commentary, interchanges between reality and dreamworlds, good pacing...

I can't help but think of Winsor McCay's work (Little Nemo) when I read this. I suspect he had a lot of influence on Moebius. Moebius is kind of in the class of comics like Otomo's Akira, Miyazaki's Nausicaa. Great artists, amazing skill, beautiful lines, compositions. These 3 are probably tops to me, along with Lastman (by Vives, Sanlaville, and Balak) which I just love, has a bit of a looser style but it is actually the one I connect with the most as it has a more contemporary vibe (which makes sense since I'm part of the same generation so it speaks to me a bit more in terms of cultural zeitgeist). The thing I love with all these guys is their art has strong 2-d feel, you can see the hand of the artist, the linework is perfect (to me!) and the artists can't hide behind fancy digital coloring and modeling (even though Lastman is all done digitally from what I understand, it still operates under that older analog style). The linework is the linework and it stands or dies on its own. Some modern comics are super digital in look, and while there is a lot of this work I really really really like, I will never get over the style of work as practiced by Moebius. I like seeing the artist's hand.

And I'm so glad Dark Horse is publishing a bunch of Giraud's works. It's frustratingly hard to find. Waiting with impatience for their next Moebius collections! in the meantime am going to read some of his Blueberry comics (western he did), have never read am curious to see what it is like. If nothing else the art will be great and also a wonderful opportunity to see him depicting beautiful landscapes of the southwest :)

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moebius's art is simplistic but stunning. The World of Edena tells the story of Stel and Atan a couple of space travelers who crash land on a mysterious world and are transported to an Eden like world. There they encounter a repressed society they struggle to overthrow. The last chapter was very confusing and had no resolution. It felt like the closing chapter was missing from the book.

Received an advance copy from Dark Horse and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

[XenofoneX · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's inconceivable to me that the 'Edena' or 'Stell & Atan' books were never collected in Moebius' life-time; but it's just one of the more obvious examples of the strange disconnect between his critical and popular esteem, and the large portion of his oeuvre that has remained obscure, hard-to-find, and untranslated for English readers. As a kid, I discovered his art in ads from back-issue Marvel titles, featuring art from the now highly-prized 'Epic' collections of Moebius' stories. 'Epic' was a line of 'Mature Reader' titles, a prototype for DC's 'Vertigo' line. Launched in the mid-eighties, it emulated 'Heavy Metal', the English version of 'Metal Hurlant', exporting the revolutionary Bande Dessinee art that I found both alien and immensely appealing. My love for Tintin comics, both as a kid and later in my comic reading development, no doubt contributed to my obsession with these mysterious artists. Ads showing off the covers from Epic's 'Blueberry' collections made the deepest impression, with their beautiful depictions of the American Southwest, combining clean, bold lines with his signature 'topographical' style of hatching, giving the arroyos and mesas a geographic realism I'd never seen in American comics, and beautifully painted colors that made Marvel's regular line seem crude in comparison. Then I made a fateful back-issue find: the entire 4-issue 'Epic' run of The Airtight Garage; suffice it to say, my young mind was blown. The other artists whose artistic brilliance solidified my love for European comics: Francois Schuiten, Vittorio Giardino, and Liberatore. Schuiten's covers and dream-like illustrations for 'Les Cites Obscures', his decades-long collaboration with writer Benoit Peeters, and one of the greatest achievements in the comics medium, produced an impact equal to that of Moebius' artwork. It would be a decade later before I started tracking down these books.

[Sylvia Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s a reason they call him “the Master”. The way Moebius blends concrete imagery with the abstract is breathtaking, and I don’t say that lightly. His skill as an illustrator is phenomenal, similar to Druillet in his meticulous level of detail. I could blab on and on about his work and say things that hundreds of others have said before me but I won’t because that’s boring. This book is a visual treat and you should read it.

The story itself was solid too!

[Algernon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Isn’t it wonderful how far, to the wildest corners of the universe, our imagination can take us? Moebius [pen name of graphic artist Jean Giraud] sets out to illustrate this powerful force we have stolen from the ancient gods in order to create new worlds that can lead us to paradise, or to the scariest pits of hell.
The planet of Edena is a mystery to be solved, a setting constantly shifting between danger and pleasure, a deep yearning for a lost paradise and a cautionary tale about the alienation from our roots as children of nature.



I am not familiar with other works by Moebius, so I can hardly comment on his evolution ad a storyteller or as a graphic artist, but this first visit left me awestruck at the way these two sides of a graphic novel complement each other and drive home the core message that inspired him.

Stel and Atan land as scouts of a sort from the mysterious pyramid vessel that flies them to Edena, the ‘legendary paradise planet’ and ‘the perfect world hidden at the center of the universe’. Then they discover the secrets of paradise: nature, raw foods, sexuality and love. They are scared by their own natural instincts, and then they lose themselves.
Will they be able to find their earthly and idyllic identities again, those natural selves which they just caught glimpses of in “The Gardens of Edena”...?

I don’t honestly put much stock in fashionable New Age revivals or in ancient grain diets, but there is something compelling about the way the artist channelled his own interest in the subjects [Giraud spent some time in a primitive lifestyle commune in Tahiti while writing this]. His introductions to each album included in this complete edition also describe his efforts to clean up and simplify his baroque tendencies in drawing, a return of sorts to the ‘ligne claire’’ style of many European masters of the genre.



>>><<<>>><<<

Included here are the original albums:

“The Star” [a commission from Citroen marketing department in which two spacemen travel in a classic car to a spaceship shaped like a pyramid]



“The Gardens of Edena” [Stel and Atan as future-born Adam and Eve explore the garden of Eden, eat the fruits there and become aware of themselves]



“The Goddess” [genderless spaceman Atan becomes alluring female Atana, trying to reunite with her lost partner, she is captured by a tribe of masked humanoids ruled by a godlike figure known as the Paternum]



Stel [the other genderless spaceman becomes a man named Stel, who is chased by giant monsters across the planet, remembers he is a skilled mechanic and ends up with another branch of the masked humanoids]



SRA is the grand finale of the space opera. I will leave the explanation of the title a secret, to be discovered, as Giraud intended, at the right moment in the journey. Suffice to say this is the wildest ride yet, a true extravaganza of dreams and nightmares and plot reversals.



So, what was it all about? A fun adventure or an essay about human nature? Why are Stel and Atana important to Giraud? [ ... to me it means that they’re not perfect beings, but they’re susceptible to improvements ]
Most importantly, is Edena a real world, or a product of a wild imagination?

... there is no king-of-the-world demiurge assisted by technology. We can see here the ability of everyone to go through parallel universes in order to create a world, one’s own world. Not with the help of mechanical prostheses, but with a nearly magical power. A dream power.



One answer, the one that seems the closest to me right now, is that the future is not something predestined, it is something being created by the actions and by the dreams of each of us. We can navigate towards Edena or towards the demon filled world of the Paternum.

[Hosein · Rating 5 out of 5]

موبیوس دقیقا از صفحه‌ی اول تکلیفش رو با مخاطب روشن میکنه و می‌گه قرار نیست مثل بقیه‌ی کمیک‌ها باشه، اینجا تو هم باید از فکرت استفاده کنی و یکسری بخش‌ها رو خودت بفهمی. همین هم کل قضیه رو جذاب‌تر می‌کنه.
برداشت من اینه که داستان و طراحیش از ساده‌ترین چیزِ انسانی شروع میشه و شروع می‌کنه به پیچیدگی، تقریبا توی صد آخر غیرممکنه که دو نفر درکشون از داستان شبیه هم باشه.
از نظر من این کمیک در مورد عشق، حسرت و رویا بود. حتی تا آخرش هم اجازه نمی‌ده مخاطب از یک حدی نزدیک‌تر بشه، اونو مجبور می‌کنه خیلی از دور و سوم شخص داستان استعاریی از زندگی رو ببینه... چیز عجیبی بود و مطمئنم که خیلی زود برمیگردم و دوباره می‌خونمش.

[Nate D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read bits of Moebius before, and naturally marveled at his artwork an broad influence for years, but this is my first foray into his extended-form work. And unlike his well-known collaborations with Jodorowsky and other contemporaries, this is all his own story, a slow dive from a simple set up through increasingly complex layers of reality. The story concerns two interstellar repairpersons (initially genderless, in a technological biologically-altered future) for whom a routine mission opens into the unexpected, a recapturing of lost simplicities on a mysterious mythic lost planet at the center of the universe. These simpler earlier chapters rapidly unfold into a dense play of dystopian and utopian worlds as our two protagonists individuate and lose each other across time and space, advancing by a rhythm of uncertainty and exposition, where assurances are constantly undercut an reformed. This is not by any means a space opera, but something much more conceptual, that Moebius developed over almost 20 years.

In that rhythm of plot reformation, though, something gets a little lost: my preferred character, though always of prime relevance to the story, shifts from actor, to somnambulant force of unwitting change, to some archetypal dream-ideal (which makes sense given the focus on subjective interiority here, but which is also something no one deserves to be shunted into). The ambiguity of the construction allows me to resist this reduction and find something more haunting in it, much to the creator's credit, but I realize I may also be looking for something that is not really in the story by the end. So, I love this, with frustration. I'd be more clear, but my love for this despite frustration deters me from desiring to warp your own experience by saying too much.

The art, of course, is frequently gorgeous: a perfect simplicity of line and form rendered in brilliant color schemes. This also builds in richness, variation, and complexity throughout. At last, pointing off the page into something crystalline and eternal.

[Nuno · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great art, incomprehensible story. Don't expect to understand much.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The World of Edena" is one of comic book legend Moebius' less famous works compared to "The Airtight Garage" or "The Incal". At the same time, it is one of the most interesting. Even though the series started with a glorified advertisement for the automobile manufacturer Citroën, "The World of Edena" ended up as among Moebius' most personal works: It's not filtered through either a collaboration with Alejandro "The Holy Mountain" Jodorowsky as "The Incal" or the loose adaptation of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius cycle as in "The Airtight Garage" (with doses of Carlos Castañeda thrown in for good measure) yet the final result is just as ambitious as any of those.

As a matter of fact, once the plot gets going "Edena" becomes a science-fiction/fantasy allegory for Moebius' own views on environmentalism, gender roles, psychology and a ton of other things that Moebius actually ends up developing in an easier-to-follow plot than in "The Incal" even though the story is more abstract with less exposition. Come to think of it, I can recognise the vaguely Gnostic religious themes from "The Airtight Garage" and the rest of the "Major Grubert" series but here done in a more mature way where Moebius has done more to synthesise his inspiration sources. The story also unfolds at a slower and more disciplined pace where it's clear that Moebius did more to plan ahead than before.

The artwork is some of the most impressive I have ever seen from Moebius, and that is really saying something. The contrasts between drab matte colours and bright sharp ones as well as the shading are better thought out and more detailed than ever before in Moebius' oeuvre. The landscapes are done in a more naturalistic style with more attention to depth than in say "The Incal". Later on, when we see rural low-tech societies in contrast with the high-tech underground dystopian city, Moebius even gets the opportunity to draw some science-fiction/fantasy equivalents of the classic Western scenes he mastered in "Blueberry" under his birth name Jean Giraud. That said, I sometimes got a weird sense of deja vu when reading "Edena" because Moebius was now drawing on 1980's science-fiction artwork already inspired by his own work in the 1970's. For example, when the Space Western stuff later on reminds me of Tattooine in "Star Wars" on (more) hallucinogens.

On a side note: There is some amusing promotion of the raw food diet through the story, several decades before the raw food movement became popular outside of hippie circles in so-called real life. That type of holdover from hippiedom is something you have to accept and deal with if you want to enjoy Moebius' more ambitious works, even without Jodorowsky on board, as is the case with quite a few science-fiction authors of his generation. (Samuel Delany being another example)

[Rif A. Saurous · Rating 4 out of 5]

6 stars for the art, 3 stars for the story.

Moebius's art is just stunningly good, over and over again, and he's at the height of his powers here. This is a gorgeous 2016 printing: big book, beautiful paper, I believe all the lettering was redone for this edition. The story is enjoyable but incredibly whack, in that French 70's and 80's sci-fi fantasy kind of way. Think 5th Element if they'd taken way more drugs and hadn't made much of an attempt to make it coherent enough for mainstream cinematic audiences.

The story revolved around two unsexed space travelers, Stel and Atan, who get stranded on a strange world named Pool Ball, and then eventually get transported to the world of Edena. Bizarrely, the first issue was actually written as a promotional gig for the car maker Citroen; Stel and Atan travel across Pool Ball in a classic Citroen which they happened to have stashed in their hold. Once they get to Edena, they are slowly transformed into archetypal male and female characters and get involved in a epic and sometimes comprehensible battle between good and evil. By the end, there are large portions that I couldn't tell whether they happened, whether they were dreams, or whether they were dreams within dreams. In dream narrative, it felt semi-coherent, but the art is the star. Did I mention the art?

If you haven't read any Moebius, read The Incal first, where he does the art and Jodorowsky writes. It's still crazy but a little more brilliant. But if you liked that you're gonna like this. Did I mention the art?

[Donovan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a gorgeous science fantasy dreamscape.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of like a serial of prog. rock album covers. Really fascinating setting and story. Unbelievable art.

[Billie Tyrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful artwork and story that were perfectly understandable considering the surreal and spacey high concept ideas it's trying to get across. It's hard to actually sum up the journey this took me on. I've read bits of pieces of Moebius' old Heavy Metal strips and Airtight Garage but this completely eclipses those IMHO. Also it's cool to read a comic where almost every page is sufficently interesting enough for me to want to read it slowly... saying that there was a section that dragged slightly and that was in the Dystopic city where everyone wears rubber kink suits because they are scared of catching the plague (just realised how strangely relevant that idea is).

[Jesse A · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one started a bit slow but man when it got going did it ever! An absolute masterpiece!!! Weird scifi at its absolute best!

[Michał Jerzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Incal"? "Garaż hermetyczny"? Interesujące i świetnie narysowane komiksy, ale prawdziwym arcydziełem Mœbiusa jest "Świat Edeny". Fabuła tej składającej się z pięciu części onirycznej opowieści wydaje się być co prawda momentami dość pogmatwana (choć ostatecznie okazuje się być spójna), jednak w porównaniu z "Garażem" i tak jest kojąco wręcz prosta. Brak tu też na szczęście tej przyciężkiej lub, jak kto woli, zabawnej symboliki oraz ezoteryki bez umiaru serwowanej w "Incalu" przez Jodorovsky'ego. Poza tym graficznie "Incal" istotnie bywa bardziej błyskotliwy, ale często jest też narysowany niestarannie, czego nie sposób powiedzieć o "Świecie Edeny", gdzie każda kreska jest perfekcyjna, a kolory dobrane są w sposób przemyślany i nieodmiennie zachwycają. Na marginesie - wydanie Scream Comics jest ogólnie świetnie, tym bardziej razi jednak poważna wpadka techniczna w jednym z rozdziałów (a może to wina materiału źródłowego) - ale to już odrębny temat.

"Świat Edeny" to doskonałe podsumowanie twórczości Mœbiusa. Jeśli miałbym polecić komuś jeden jego komiks, to wskazałbym właśnie ten.

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

120119 much later addition: i tried to ‘look’ more than ‘read’ this time, to counter embedded literary prejudice. i have been told that the reading should be fast, just flipping through images, like watching movies, so decided to pretend this was only in french (or some language i cannot guess at...) and narrative coherence not important. in this way i can now say it is not no story, but truly should be thought as images telling the story, of dreams within dreams within dreams... i have always been impressed. i must have first read this as kid, dismissed it as comics, must now reaffirm my five...

290418 first review: friend comics illustrator riley rossmo has told me that french graphic art is often beautiful but the stories are not compelling. this is certainly the case here. but then we have disagreement about primary value of graphic work, or comics, in that he likes stories which i prefer in written form, in that i prefer images and stories that cannot be told any other way...

[B.E.N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Others have outline the strengths and weaknesses of this work better than I could, so I won't go too into that. What I will comment on, however, is the narrative side of things. I see several comments saying something to the effect that the storyline is not on par with the artwork (which may or may not be correct, that sort of stuff is subjective), and that it grows incomprehensible towards the end. It is this latter point I disagree with.

The story and themes of Edena revolve around reality and dream, and layers of reality and dreams, the relationship between these concepts, and challenging such notions.

It stands to reason, then, that stuff happens in this story that don't follow a rigid internal logic, because that's how dreams work. It can be challenging to follow, but honestly, if you've ever watched 'Inception' or other stories like that, you probably get the deal. Within the story of Edena, and following the stories of the main characters, we visit several settings that are frequently layers of reality and dream (although not as many as you might worry about), and some of these are temporary, while others follow the narrative all throughout.

The main issue of the ending, however, in my opinion, is that it is, quite simply, cut short. Chapter 5 ends on what is apparently the ending, but which frankly feels like a cliffhanger for a non-existent chapter 6. This made it quite frustrating in my honest opinion. It feels like the crisis of the narrative reaches its climax, and then suddenly, within a few pages, we're told, rather than shown - by deeply unreliable sources at that - that everything is fine. If you've read the story, I suspect you too did not feel that this was the payoff you wanted, and that the last few passages sow more doubt than resolution. This is unfortunate, as we've come to know and care for the characters, their struggles and hopes. None of these really get a time to shine in the end.

I'm left wondering whether this was entirely intentional on Moebius' part, to subvert our expectations of narrative structure and to fully embrace the issue of reality and dream by making it an unresolved ending, or whether he simply never got around to write the last part. A part where the journey of the different characters finally rejoin, the conflict resolved, and Moebius' self-expressed message of embracing the organic and natural comes to the fore. I am probably projecting my own ideas here, and in fairness I will never know.

Still, I wish we'd seen them back where they wanted to be. Together.

[Sara the Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a vast, wonderful and weird trip of a read. This is sort of an anthology just put out by Dark Horse comics of the major books in the "Edena" series created by Moebius (the nom de plume of French writer, cartoonist, and artist Jean Henri Gaston Giraud), whose work (if you're into this kind of thing) you might recognize from his comic "Blueberry," or the totally awesome, super softcore porny cartoon anthology film "Heavy Metal" among many other things.

It tells the story of two interstellar investigators and close friends Stel and Atan and their insane adventures through space. Their journey begins when they are assigned to try to determine the fate of the crew of a missing space station. There's definitely an air of political satire to the story as Stel and Atan encounter strange civilizations and mysterious new worlds and come to realizations about their own highly restricted world but honestly its just an acid trip of a space opera.

Moebius has a really bright, lively sort of artdeco style. Its very minimalist and a lot of his panels and full page illustrations look like something you'd want to hang on your wall. The whole thing is just crazy and fun. There's a freedom to the narrative and you never know where its going next.

I really took my time with this, not something that usually happens for me with graphic novels, but its the kind of epic adventure that you really want to experience not just plow through.

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moebius's art is fantastic in this work; he begins with simple lines and designs and gets more complicated as the story progresses and complicates. However, his storytelling has much of the same allegorical nature of his frequent collaborator Alejandro Jodorowsky but is not as thematically coherent. The French, Metal Hurlant, aesthetic is clear, but the shifting of the setting and changes of the nature of the characters involved is not terribly convincing. Moebius's world-building and art power through a lot of these narrative problems, but there is definitely a "making it up as we go along" feel to the work that actually doesn't seem to be as much of a keystone of his collaboration with Jodorowsky. Also this version is missing one of the Edena story arcs, Les Réparateurs, which may make some of the plot jumps make more sense, but since I have not read it and it does not seem to be translated, I cannot speak to it.

[Moira Macfarlane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compleet gefascineerd door de beelden en het verhaal van de wereld van Edena die Moebius creëerde. Hij heeft een werkelijk prachtige surrealistische wereld bedacht. Zoals je in je dromen heel helder kunt ervaren hoe alles in elkaar steekt, tot je wakker wordt..., zo is ook dit verhaal. Ongrijpbaar als je te veel redeneert, maar prachtig als je meebeweegt en de diepgang van het verhaal op een ander bewustzijnsniveau oppakt. Zoete dromen en zwarte nachtmerries.

'I purposefully left several points obscure in my story. First, I think that gives the reader a freedom of interpretation, which increases his involvement because he is forced to ask himself questions and provide his own answers.'

Voor een inkijkje: https://www.instagram.com/p/B6kkhxZAjlb/

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dreams within dreams within dreams... in the added material of this collected edition Moebius admits to setting out on this story without knowing how he will finish it (or if he will even be able to). This does not turn out to be an issue. Though the plot wobbles early on, The World of Edena develops a distinct sense of purpose that consistently propels the story forward. Just as Stel awakens to the drive that his life has been missing; so also does Moebius seem to discover why this story must exist. It is earnest in its clash between good and evil. It is determined, in the face of logic, to follows its emotions. Though at times near incomprehensible, each twist and turn somehow manages to reinforce this purpose. Follow your dreams. Embrace your humanity. Do not fear your sexuality. Cherish this paradise we are born in to. It all sounds hokey when written like that, but it’s far from it in the words and pictures of this World...

[Eternauta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Εξαιρετική δουλειά που "ωριμάζει" μέσα σου αφότου έχεις κλείσει το βιβλίο καλώντας σε να το ανοίξεις ξανά.
Η ιστορία είχε προσωπική σημασία για τον Moebius καθώς συνεπεσε με μια περίοδο εσωτερικής αναθεώρησης ως προς τη σχέση με το σώμα και την διατροφή του.
Η παραδείσια Edena (Εδέμ?) είναι ένας κυριολεκτικά ονειρικος τόπος όπου οι άφυλοι και πλήρως συνθετικά τρεφόμενοι άνθρωποι του μέλλοντος ανακαλύπτουν ξανά την μαγεία της όσφρησης , της αφής ,των γεύσεων, του σεξ και των αισθημάτων. Η επίσκεψη στην Edena γίνεται λάθρα, μόνο μέσω των ονείρων τα οποία διασταυρώνονται μεταξύ τους και κουκουλώνονται το ένα μέσα στο άλλο!
Το στιλ του Moebius έχει εδώ φτάσει την απόλυτη κορύφωση, υιοθέτοντας μια λιτότητα και έναν μινιμαλισμό που - όπως και το ίδιο το σενάριο άλλωστε- αφήνει άπειρο χώρο στον αναγνώστη να... ονειρεύεται!

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

A series that sadly grew less good with each new volume, but I'm glad to have at least seen the later chapters, finally, even if I'm not entirely sure on what happened in that last volume. In fact, I hope I misunderstood it because otherwise it's a lousy ending. (Although apparently there was a sixth volume that will be in the companion volume. Is it a continuation? A side story? Now I'm even more confused.)

[Deep · Rating 4 out of 5]

First things first: The World of Edena is gorgeous. I frequently found myself flipping back and forth between pages just to have another look at the Citroën crossing Pool Ball or the desert shrublands and rainforests of Edena. Jean Giraud's ligne claire is a perfect fit for these vast landscapes, keeping detailed from falling into cluttered.

But to talk about the The World of Edena one must talk about its politics - because Edena is explicitly a political work in its claims about what it means to live well (eu zen), regardless of what Giraud himself might have felt about that word. It's easy to get stuck in Giraud's pseudoscientific beliefs about rawfood, dismissing the entire topic as "woo-woo". But this fails to seriously engage with Edena's opposition between the artificial and natural.

This dichotomy is interesting precisely in its flaws. Giraud's positions the organic sexed figures of Atana and Stel against the initially cyborg and neuter Atan and Stel of Upon a Star. As they consume the "organic" fruits and wildlife of Edena and their bio-implants and hormone treatments fail they "[rediscover] our natural functions". But this supposed rediscovery or return takes them to a thoroughly modern, "synthetic" conception of nature and gender. Indeed (and as the characters themselves note), Edena itself is not truly wild but first encountered as a domesticated garden of apples and bananas - the result of ages of human cultivation; it's no more natural than Trollopen's rave parties.

My frustration with Girard's Edena is not simply that he reifies these concepts under the mantle of "the natural" - but all the potential that Giraud does provide but fails to follow through. In Upon a Star Atan undermines the synthetic/natural distinction by positing machines as a environment fuelling adaption/evolution like any other. As neuter cyborgs Atan and Stel are a radical other compared to contemporary conventions, yet they're also beings stuck in their particular coded and stratified territory. Edena has the possibility to explore a world beyond either of these two but fails to realize it. Giraud's characters precisely does not confront sex or gender but instead quickly conforms to them, past feminity and masculinity reconstituted into self-evident characteristics of their present sex. Their past cyborg life reconstituted as fundamentally wrong; only somewhat softened by the introduction of the reactionary Nest and Trollopen.

What we're left with is a generic damsel in distress narrative, with Atana disappearing as even an conscious agent halfway through her own story. One morbid synthetic life replaced with another.

[Ben Chandler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting piece - Moebius clearly had ideas of humanity’s connection to nature, society’s trend towards reliance on technology, and free spiritedness that he wanted to explore here. And he does so quite openly and majestically, with the wonderful art you expect, and plenty of beautiful set pieces. Within these pages he clearly admits that he created many of these plot points without fully understanding what he was trying to get at, and in the end it means that it’s an experience with a great sense of tone, but a fairly difficult plot to follow. Any dramatic tension is undercut by the knowledge that anything can happen at any time, and therefore there never feels like there is a great sense of consequence. The pathos that one might look for is hard to find; the characters barely know themselves, and so we can’t really know them.

I think it’s great that he focused on these things, rather than trying to shape his ideas into the all too familiar shape of stories that we’ve all seen many times over. I think that would have made for a fairly dull book with beautiful art. But it does warrant a warning that this is not a book that you read for a cohesive message or relatable characters. It’s an exploration of a series of ideas, and a very beautiful one at that.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

weird as always....

[二六 侯 · Rating 4 out of 5]

不知電影《盜夢空間》的靈感是不是源自這部，但我個人是覺得一直用夢來套疊詮釋會讓讀者很疲憊。

總而言之就故事本體本身我不是很喜歡（女主角是假的？！啊你是在騙肖喔？），倒是最後那兩則無對話短篇很好，呈現了高超的後設技巧。