Valérian and Laureline, originally titled Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent and also commonly known as Valérian, is a French science fiction comics series, created by writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières. It was first published in Pilote magazine in 1967; the final installment was published in 2010. All of the Valérian stories have been collected in comic album format, comprising some twenty-one volumes plus a short story collection and an encyclopædia.
Cover to the English version of album 21 (2018)
Creators of Valérian and Laureline: Eveline Tranlé (colorist), Pierre Christin (writer), Jean-Claude Mézières (illustrator)
Valérian and Laureline as drawn by Jean-Claude Mézières
Three shingouz, from "The Ghosts of Inverloch"
Jean-Claude Mézières was a French bandes dessinées artist and illustrator. Born in Paris and raised in nearby Saint-Mandé, he was introduced to drawing by his elder brother and influenced by comics artists such as Hergé, Andre Franquin and Morris and later by Jijé and Jack Davis. Educated at the École nationale supérieure des arts appliqués et des métiers d'art, he worked upon graduation as an illustrator for books and magazines as well as in advertising. A lifelong interest in the Wild West led him to travel to the United States in 1965 in search of adventure as a cowboy, an experience that would prove influential on his later work.
Mézières in 1973
Mézières in 2017
Valérian and Laureline, Jean-Claude Mézières' most famous creations
Concept art created by Mézières for Peter Fleischmann's Hard to be a God