The highly anticipated, visually stunning SCI-FI movie “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” opens this weekend.
Valerian was created by Jean-Claude Mézières and Pierre Christin and was originally published as French comic series from November 1967 – January 2010. While Valerian is Mézières’ only comic series, he has worked as an illustrator in many other areas, including designs and sets for The Fifth Element, and he was awarded the Grand Prix du festival d’Angoulême in 1984. Christin also works in collaboration with other artists such as Tardi and Bilal and writes novels and film scripts.
From the Publisher: “VALERIAN is a saga that every fan of Star Wars and Star Trek will identify with and love. Valerian and his beautiful, sharp-witten and sharp-tongued partner, Laureline, live adventures set against visually stunning backgrounds: complex architectural inventions, futuristic machines, otherworldly landscapes, and odd-looking aliens that are staples of artist Mezieres’s seemingly boundless visual inventiveness. The stories are gripping and of epic proportion, sweeping along in trilling, hyper-space speed.”
We ordered the first three volumes of the new Complete Collection for our members in anticipation of the film’s release. Check them out in our catalog.
Valerian: The Complete Collection
This first volume of the collection contains books 1 and 2 of the series: The City of Shifting Waters – in its original two parts, 9 pages longer format – and The Empire of a Thousand Planets. It also includes book 0, Bad Dreams, translated into English for the first time: the very first adventures of our two heroes, published after City and retroactively numbered. Finally, linking the volumes of this collection together, a long, exclusive interview with the authors and director Luc Besson is illustrated with new art as well as numerous sketches, studies and photographs from the latter’s upcoming big-screen adaptation.
Valerian: The Complete Collection
In this book you will find volumes 3 to 5: The Land Without Stars, Welcome to Alflolol and Birds of the Master three stories that introduce the societal criticism aspect of the series. Battle of the sexes, totalitarianism and extreme productivism are lambasted, but never at the expense of fantasy or of the action. And as they travel from world to distant world, Laureline becomes a truly equal partner, far from the stereotypical female sidekick roles of the time. Finally, the second part of the exclusive interview with the authors and director Luc Besson is followed by an in-depth portrait of Pierre Christin, the writer.
Valerian: The Complete Collection
This third book of the collected edition contains volumes 6 to 8: Ambassador of the Shadows the story that directly inspired Luc Besson’s film On the False Earths and Heroes of the Equinox. Over the course of these titles, among the finest in the series, Laureline takes her rightful place as the brains of the outfit, while Valerian fully embraces his role as anti-hero: always brave, but often a bit out of his depth. You will also find the end of the interview with Luc Besson and the authors, and an in-depth portrait of Jean-Claude Mezieres, the artist.
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