R.I.P. Pierre Christin, Co-Creator And Writer Of ‘Valérian And Laureline’

Sad news came out late last week of the death of a Euro comics great – Pierre Christin.

 

Pierre Christin passed away on October 3 2024, aged 86. He was undoubtedly best known for creating the sci-fi masterpiece Valérian and Laureline with artist Jean-Claude Mézières.

Born in Paris on 27 July 1938, he and Mézières first met in an air raid shelter in WWII, but their comics collaboration would come later, as Christin first studied journalism before moving to the US in the 60s to teach French literature at the University of Utah.

It was here that Christin and Mézières first worked together on comics when the artist was backpacking through the US, something that continued when Christin returned to France for a teaching post at Bordeaux University.

Their first comic, Le Rhum du Punch, was published in 1966 in Pilote magazine, followed in 1967 by the series that would make their names, their magnum opus, Valérian and Laureline. After initially appearing in Pilote, it would go on to run to 20 volumes and a short story collection between 1967 and 2018, not to mention the animated series in 2007 and the movie in 2017. This galaxy-spanning sci-fi spectacular tale of spatio-temporal agents that explored strange new alien worlds, equal parts beautiful and bizarre, full of really intelligent scripts that put a social conscience high up in the mix, making this so much more than another sci-fi saga.

To say that it was something special vastly underplays things, this was something that would create a template for so much sci-fi to come, hugely influential then as now, both in comics and in the worlds of film and TV. A generation of film makers took influence from the comic, including Luc Besson, maker of the 2017 movie, Valérian And The City Of A Thousand Planets but also 1997’s The Fifth Element, which Mézières did design work for.

And then there’s the Star Wars connection. Lucas was a fan, surely, as so much of V&L found their way into the films. Christian and Mézières didn’t take it too badly, although there was this rather telling illustration in Pilote…

Christin would go on to write many great works, collaborating with so many great artists, including a trio of incredible books with Enki Bilal, The Town That Didn’t Exist (La Ville qui n’existe pas), The Black Order Brigade (Les Phalanges de l’ordre noir) and The Hunting Party (Partie de chasse). Other collaborations included working with Alexis, Virginie Augustin, François Boucq, Daniel Ceppi, Annie Goetzinger, Jijé, Raymond Poïvet, Jacques Tardi, and Sébastien Verdier.

Fittingly, the final work of his long and illustrious career was a return to the world of Valérian and Laureline with Where Stories Are Born, published 2023, with art from Virginie Augustin, harking back to Christin’s best-known characters, rejuvenated as children thanks to a complicated time travel thing.

Christin’s passing comes almost three years since the death of Mézières in 2022. Together they made magic on the comics page and their presence will be much missed. Originals, masters of the art, they leave behind a body of work that will be loved and appreciated for generations to come.

Pierre Christin – 27 July 1938 – 3 October 2024

Now, just a little art from the comics of Christin, beginning, of course, with Valérian and Laureline…

 

 

Now, some of the gorgeous Enki Bilal art from Christin’s scripts to The Town That Didn’t Exist, The Black Order Brigade, and The Hunting Party…