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Career Timeline: 1985 - Internal Transfer
In 1980, Moebius met and became enamored with French philosopher and spiritualist Jean-Paul Appel-Guéry. They formed a somewhat tight student/teacher relationship, something that Appel-Guéry did often, gaining him a following of people that believed in his new age teachings(some have said his group operated under suspiciously cult-like behaviors, and at one point Appel-Guéry told all of his followers that they had to move to Tahiti in order to achieve spiritual harmony, which Moebius did for a year). He had also convinced Moebius to re-examine his primary artistic subject matter:
“Appel-Guéry encouraged Moebius to tap into the more positive zones of his subconscious. ‘Most of the people that were studying spirituality with Appel-Guéry did not know much about comics, but they immediately picked on the morbid, and overall negative feelings that permeated my work,’ said Moebius. ‘So I began to feel ashamed, and I decided to do something really different, just to show them that I could do it.’”
—Randy & Jean-Marc Lofficier, from Moebius Comics #1, Caliber Comics, 1996
So in the early 80s, along with Appel-Guéry, writer Paula Salomon, and animator Arnie Wong, Moebius began conceiving of an animated film called Internal Transfer. This was to be a full-length feature, meant to embody Appel-Guéry’s philosphical message. Most of the conceptual artwork was done in 1984 and 1985, including lengthy storyboards and an unfinished comic. Moebius and Wong even hand-animated a short ‘pilot’, which you can see here(at the 3:45 mark).
The film lost all of its financing, and was abandoned in 1986. Appel-Guery’s influence on Moebius lived on though, as his Aedena Cycle is partially rooted in these concepts.
