Have you seen this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK8B10_oY5g
Looking at these images from 70s French SciFi comic books it’s hard to not think of Star Wars. The creators of the original trilogy (and probably the prequels too) must have been influenced by Mézières, Moebius und Druillet to some extent.
What do you think? Are those resemblances just coincidences?
Looking at that, I think it’s clear quite a bit of DNA is shared. A non-trivial question, though, is who may have, in turn, influenced Mézières, Moebius und Druillet. Star Wars designs may have been influenced by the French artists directly, but could also easily have been influenced by the same older designs that inspired the French artists. Sci-fi art goes way back, as with all art & literature, there’s rarely a simple straight line in the tangled web of relationships. The only certainty is that it would be quite improbable for Star Wars (or the French artists) to feature entirely new designs with no influences from anywhere else.
I really need to read these comics one of these days.
I think you are generally right, but there are also some examples (like the probe droid) that seem to be copied directly. Joe Johnston also admitted to directly copying a pose from the Moebius story “The Long Tomorrow”: http://kitbashed.com/blog/moebius
Give “The Incal” by Moebius and Jodorowsky a try too. It’s pretty weird but in a good way …
The Long Tommorrow looks very interesting. I definitely need to look into that. The other article and the comics it references are pretty telling. I have to say, I’m somewhat disappointed at how a lot of Empire Srikes Back seems to have been lifted from it directly. Some of the storyboards are little more than duplicates of the French work.