The Jodorowsky Library: Book Two

The Jodorowsky Library: a collection of deluxe matching volumes showcasing the iconic works of the legendary Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Included in this volume are the modern-day spiritual western SON OF THE GUN (illustrated by Georges Bess) and the heartwrenching tale of a mime in Nazi-occupied France, PIETROLINO (illustrated by Olivier Boiscommun).

Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky (Spanish: [xoðo'?ofski]; born 17 February 1929) is a Chilean and French avant-garde filmmaker. Best known for his films El Topo (1970), The Holy Mountain (1973) and Santa Sangre (1989), Jodorowsky has been "venerated by cult cinema enthusiasts" for his work which "is filled with violently surreal images and a hybrid blend of mysticism and religious provocation".[1]

Born to Jewish-Ukrainian parents in Chile, Jodorowsky experienced an unhappy and alienated childhood, and so immersed himself in reading and writing poetry. Dropping out of college, he became involved in theater and in particular mime, working as a clown before founding his own theater troupe, the Teatro Mimico, in 1947. Moving to Paris in the early 1950s, Jodorowsky studied traditional mime under Étienne Decroux, and put his miming skills to use in the silent film Les têtes interverties (1957), directed with Saul Gilbert and Ruth Michelly. From 1960 onwards he divided his time between Mexico City and Paris, where he co-founded Panic Movement, a surrealist performance art collective that staged violent and shocking theatrical events. In 1966 he created his first comic strip, Anibal 5, and in 1967 he directed his first feature film, the surrealist Fando y Lis, which caused a huge scandal in Mexico, eventually being banned.

His next film, the acid western El Topo (1970), became a hit on the midnight movie circuit in the United States, considered the first-ever midnight cult film, and garnered high praise from John Lennon, who convinced former Beatles manager Allen Klein to provide Jodorowsky with $1 million to finance his next film. The result was The Holy Mountain (1973), a surrealist exploration of western esotericism. Disagreements with Klein, however, led to both The Holy Mountain and El Topo failing to gain widespread distribution, although both became classics on the underground film circuit.[1] After a cancelled attempt at filming Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novel Dune, Jodorowsky produced five more films: the family film Tusk (1980); the surrealist horror Santa Sangre (1989); the failed blockbuster The Rainbow Thief (1990); and the first two films in a planned five-film autobiographical series The Dance of Reality (2013) and Endless Poetry (2016).

Jodorowsky is also a comic book writer, most notably penning the science fiction series The Incal throughout the 1980s, which has been described as having a claim to be "the best comic book" ever written.[2] Other comic books he has written include The Technopriests and Metabarons. Jodorowsky has also extensively written and lectured about his own spiritual system, which he calls "psychomagic" and "psychoshamanism", which borrows from alchemy, the tarot, Zen Buddhism and shamanism.[3] His son Cristóbal has followed his teachings on psychoshamanism; this work is captured in the feature documentary Quantum Men, directed by Carlos Serrano Azcona.[4]

Georges Bess is a French artist, best known for his collaboration with Alexandro Jodorowsky. He moved to Sweden in the early 1970s and it is there that he did his first artistic jobs under his own name or under the pseudonyms Tideli and Nisseman. He cooperated with the Swedish “Mad” magazine, and from 1977 to 1987, drew stories with “The Phantom.” In the early 1980s, Bess accidentally traveled to Tibet and became very impressed with the country. It was shortly thereafter that he met and began collaborating with Jodorowsky, in what would become a long and successful collaborative partnership.

Born in 1971, Olivier Boiscommun studied Graphic Arts in Paris. Initially a fashion designer, he switched to studying Fine Arts in Angoulême in 1993. He created a story for the Enfants du Nil anthology in 1994, followed by a small black and white album at Le Cycliste. He worked on the animated film Bamboo Bears before joining Delcourt publishers, where he began the Troll series with Joann Sfar and Jean-David Morvan. In 2001, he produced Anges with writer Dieter, as well as creating The Book of Jack and The Book of Sam with writer Denis-Pierre Filippi.