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I just had the pleasure of reading an English translation of three volumes (collected in one book) of the popular Frech science-fiction comics “Valerian”. This is a very influencial series in the history of comics, running since the late 1960s to this very day. Many claim that the team that worked on “Star Wars” (both trilogies) was heavily inspired by it (in fact, the book’s introduction makes a very big deal out of this). The artist, Jean-Claude Mezieres, also did conceptual designs for Luc Besson’s film “The Fifth Element”. You can find some very good general info on the series, in English, at these two links:
http://www.noosfere.org/mezieres/pages/extras/articles/dr01.htm
http://dugueta.club.fr/albums-e.htm
Anyway, while reading the book, I found myself thinking quite often “this is very Space-Quest”. From a visual perspective, mostly. The Valerian universe is filled with many weird-looking aliens, that bring to mind the Space-Quest universe. The human characters (espicially in SQ4) also have a somewhat similar look. What really caught my eye, however, was a writing on a building seen in the third story in the book (“Circles of Power”). It looks IDENTICAL to the “fonts” used in Space Quest 3 (in the decoded message in the Astro-Chicken game) and Space Quest 4 (the time-machine codes). I’ll try to upload a scan of it.
I know mark Crowe was responsible for the look of the SQ games… is he a Valerian fan? As far as I know, by the way, there wasn’t any English translation of Valerian done at the publishing time of the “Space Quest” games!At any rate, if you miss “Space Quest”, than I strongly encourage reading “Valerian”. The first story in the collection, “On the Borders”, is pretty serious and kind of weak, but the following two – “Living Weapons” and “Circles of Power” – are brilliantly satirical. And those “Shingouz” aliens would feel right at home with Roger Wilco 🙂
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