Le Monde d'Edena

"Le Monde d'Edena" (The World of Edena, published in English as "The Aedena Cycle") is a series of graphic novels by French artist Moebius. It grew organically out of a promotional album Moebius made for the French car manufacturer Citroën, called "The Star", in 1983. In the initial story, Moebius introduces two genderless protagonists, Stel and Atan, who crash on a bald planet and must traverse it in an old Citroën. They eventually stumble on a camp of interstellar refugees surrounding a mysterious pyramid, and are transported to an unknown world, described as a 'Garden of Eden somewhere in another galaxy.' The open ending of the Citroën story inspired Moebius to think what would happen after, and he conceived the idea for a sequel. Finding that the material, however, was too much to fit into one album, Moebius plotted out three to four books' worth of stories, and the series was born. It was additionally intended to provide the basis of a coherent Moebius universe, one which crossed over with other major works like The Airtight Garage.

The stories were strongly influenced by the teachings of Jean-Paul Appel-Guery and Swiss nutritionist Guy-Claude Burger, as well as Moebius' transient lifestyle ("The Gardens of Edena" was drawn in Tokyo and Los Angeles for example, and "The Goddess" was begun in France and completed in California). The strength of these science-fiction stories lies in the fact that Moebius uses them to pose questions about dreams, nutrition and health, biology and sexuality, the human desire to live in a structured society, and archetypal good and evil. All of these more philosophical elements are organically embedded in deceivingly light stories, allowing the reader to page through the different layers.

The graphic style is also different from other work by Moebius in that the artist restricted himself to a 'Clear Line' style (Ligne Claire), with minimal details.

Episodes

The series consists of five parts, each published as a separate volume, plus a sixth volume containing shorter stories that are outside of the main narrative:

All novels have been published by Casterman, in many languages, including French, Danish and Dutch. The first four books (Sur l'Etoile through Stel) were also published in English by Marvel/Epic comics between 1988 and 1994 in translations by Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier.

References

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