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Comic artist Pierre Christin has died at the age of 86. Christin is best known for the science-fiction series "Valerian" or "Valerian and Laureline", a series involving both space and time travel in a way similar to "Doctor Who".

He worked on the series with his childhood friend, writer Jean-Claude Mézières.

Like many of the best comics (including Tintin), Christin and Mézières used the series to highlight social and political issues: "Welcome to Alflolol" delves into the theme of colonisation and the exploitation of natural resources; while "The Land Without Stars" raises the conflict between genders.

Many French critics like to think that Christin and Mézières' work influenced others: that their saucer-like spaceship inspired the Millennium Falcon from "Star Wars" or that Central Point, a major gathering place for aliens from throughout the galaxy, influenced the TV series "Babylon 5".

The series has itself been adapted for other media: "Time Jam", a cartoon series which features many of the characters from the comics but hardly any of the plots and which I quite enjoyed; and the film "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" which I watched once and not bothered with since.

Christin was a great artist who came up with all kinds of strange and wonderful aliens mixing together in ways similar to "Star Trek" or "Star Wars". Mézières' plots could get a bit whimsical but Christin's drawing cannot be flawed.

Thanks for sharing this, mct16. His work on Valerian was wonderful. A correction: Christin was the writer; the artist was Mézières.

You did well to get that far. Cara Delevingne's eyebrows were the most convincing element of the entire production.

Pierre Christian also did a series of books with Enki Bilal that are good value (although not literally with Titan's absurd price point) which were some of the first 'adult' comics I read when Catalan published them some point in the 80s or 90s.

george