GIRAUD, Jean (1938-2012) - Lot 214

GIRAUD, Jean (1938-2012) Blueberry, T.15, Ballade pour un cercueil, plate 3. India ink on paper, 46x36 cm (on view). Signed "GIR" on the last panel. After the famous diptych of La Mine de l'Allemand perdu and Spectre aux balles d'or, Jean-Michel Charlier offered Jean Giraud another treasure-hunting story, this time in the Confederate Treasure cycle: Chihuaha Pearl, L'homme qui valait 500 000 $ and Ballade pour un cercueil. These stories place Blueberry in an increasingly dark and adult universe, where Giraud's drawings excel in their cinematic quality (the cover of Ballade pour un cercueil is inspired by John Ford's film La prisonnière du désert). The framing and magnificent chiaroscuro of this plate are perfect examples of this evolution. Precise, lively drawing is complemented by "Moebusian" hatching, and a virtuoso alternation between wide and tight shots of the characters in Blueberry, Chihuahua Pearl, McClure... Ballade pour un cercueil (Ballad for a Coffin) appeared in album form in 1974, following its pre-publication in Pilote. The story was accompanied by a fictitious dossier on the history of a "real" Blueberry, using photos from American archives. This was yet another way for the authors to anchor the hero in Blueberry's own brand of realism, combined with the traditional codes of the Western genre. "(...) Ballade pour un cercueil is the apotheosis of this journey: the tension between research, the variety of graphic solutions and technical mastery, between danger, doubt and assurance" (Source: Dominique Bertail, Blueberry, ou L'art de la Frontière, Intégrale Blueberry Tome 5, Dargaud, 2016).