Jean Giraud, European comics icon, dies

Jean Giraud, an enduring figure in European comics whose fantasy and sci-fi work -- which he signed with his alias, Moebius -- deeply influenced alien-world imagery throughout pop culture, has died. He was 73.

Giraud died Friday night or Saturday morning after a battle with cancer, according to a statement from his publishing house, Dargaud, which went on to say the comics world had lost "one of its greatest masters."

In his native France, where for decades comics have attracted an older readership, Giraud is considered his country's most important figure in cartooning.

His signature creation is "Les Aventures de Blueberry," the Old West saga that debuted in 1963 and followed a peripatetic U.S. Cavalry lieutenant nicknamed Blueberry. The final edition was published in 2005.

In the United States, however, he is best known for his interstellar visions, which arrived in the monthly R-rated pages of "Heavy Metal," the English-language version of "Metal Hurlant," a magazine Giraud helped launch in 1975.

Director Ridley Scott brought in the artist to contribute to the look of the 1979 space-horror classic "Alien." Giraud would go on to contribute art or design work on such 1980s films as "Willow," "Masters of the Universe" and "The Abyss" and on 1997's "The Fifth Element."