The Adventures Of John Difool. A brief rundown.

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One of my favourite comic book series is Une aventure de John Difool. This is the source that director Luc Besson borrowed heavily from to make one of my also favourite (coincidently) movies The Fifth Element.

One of the creators of John Difool and the L’Incal series was Jodorowsky, a great visual director took the production to court however it was thrown out. The action was complicated in part I believe because Mœbius had worked on the film with Besson.

Jodorowsky almost made DUNE . He assembled an impressive crew to realise Dune before the budget blew out Jean Giraud, Chris Foss, HR Giger, Dan O’Bannon, Pink Floyd and Salvador Dali. When Dune was canned he incorporated many of the ideas that he had for the movie into the comic book series he wrote with comic book artist Mœbius.

In this post I plan to introduce the series to those who have not encountered it and hopefully increase readership of European comics.

I have the six volumes below to share with you.

The INCAL (Jodorowsky & Moebius)
• Tome 1 - L’Incal noir Volume 1 - The Black Incal
• Tome 2 - L’Incal lumière Volume 2 - The light Incal
• Tome 3 - Ce qui est en bas Volume 3 - What is the bottom
• Tome 4 - Ce qui est en haut Volume 4 - What is up
• Tome 5 - La cinquième essence 1 - Galaxie qui songe Volume 5 - The fifth essence 1 - Galaxie who dream
• Tome 6 - La cinquième essence 2 - La planète Difool Volume 6 - The fifth essence 2 - The planet Difool

Volume One

THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN DIFOOL

BRIEF SYNOPSIS
The future of the universe lies on the shoulders of one John Difool, a R class detective, a character of dubious integrity. He is joined by seven others and after locating Animah they travel to a temple in another dimension where in the heart of a forest of crystal, he recreates the Incal around Solune.
He is then entrusted with a mission, he must join with the Queen of the photo-bergs to save the world!

JOHN DIFOOL ANTI-HERO AND BUM
John Difool is a bum, a self absorbed character who spends most of his time trying to avoid responsibility. He appears childish and whimsical but his behavior is often reprehensible and he appears cowardly in spite of the urgings of a higher voice, I’Incal. You don’t feel that you should buy a used car off him let alone trust the fate of the universe to him. He is always tempted to go to the dark side, but when motivated by fear or by love he can commits acts of bravery.
Serendipity though is always on his side and amazingly he always manages to overcome even the worst of situations. At the end of the cycle, he also escapes the collective sacrifice that leads to the victory over the Incal Ténèbre. He is a bum but he is lucky, he is the perfect anti-hero.
The Tarot deck is the inspiration for L’Incal and John Difool, who strikes a resemblance to Crispin Glover, is modeled on the major arcane card The Fool, zero, the card represents folly mania, extravagance, frenzy, betrayal and carelessness.

DEEPO
Deepo, the instrument of comic situations is the companion of John Difool, a large seagull like bird who gained the gift of speech after he “swallowed” the Incal light . Deepo is a capricious creature with attitude he saves Difool at least twice. He bears some resentment to Difool, yeah some!.

TO BE CONTINUED.