May 20, 2025 | book review, Book Reviews, Jodorowsky, Moebius, sci-fi, science fiction, SFF, small press, Spoiler-Free, The Incal
Moebius’ & Jodorowsky’s The Incal is Must-read Sci-Fi Epic masterpiece of fiction.
This is one of the greatest metaphysical noir SFF epics of all time! And the art is like nothing you’ll ever see.
Even if you are not usually a graphic novel reader, I must urge you to try on The Incal, even from a strictly writing standpoint it is pure genius.
If Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo dominated the East in the 1980s with its grandiose, philosophical, cyberpunk – with extraordinary art in terms of both story and illustration – then The Incal dominated the West during a decade with its innovative metaphysical space opera noir that is equally as mind-blowing, just in wholly different ways.
Each work, Akira and The Incal, are often dubbed “the best comic book” ever written.
And it is hard to argue.
The Incal inspired The Expanse series – both books and film – as well as countless other works of SFF literature and graphic novels.
From the minds of two artists who spent countless hours attempting to adapt Frank Herbert’s Dune – which never completed – Alejandro Jodorowsky and Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud took their work someplace entirely new as one labyrinth after another are peeled back, like a giant space onion, to reveal deeper dangers, steeper odds, and more intricate plotlines for The Incal’s John Difool and company.
The story’s trajectory evolves as much as the characters do, which is to say a lot because swallowing the Incal can cause a stone pterodactyl to speak its well-formed, growing mind!
I love the dark sense of humor that adds brevity to the most dire of circumstances threatening whole planets, galaxies, and universes and all who dwell within them.
But the visual art by Moebius is enthralling.
I spent hours just staring and studying The Incal’s artwork, panel by panel, illustration by illustration, with my jaw seated heavily on the floor.
There are no words to describe such brilliance, such genius.
Myriad styles converge or stand alone, emergent in exactly the right spot in the story to add the enormity or the intimacy needed to hit home.
And then The Incal ends in an amazing, unforeseen, and a classic fashion that elevates the entire book.
Go and seek out The Incal!
“Moebius’ & Jodorowsky’s The Incal is Must-read Sci-Fi Epic masterpiece of fiction” Was Written By R.J. Huneke.
Mar 13, 2022 | book review, Book Reviews, Centipede Press, dune, Frank Herbert, limited edition, sci-fi, science fiction, Signed Limited
Dune & Frank Herbert immortalized by Centipede Press in a limited edition that creates a uniquely bold, intricate, imaginative, and sharp book, a true work of art – illustrated by Mark Molnar – befitting a masterpiece that is one of the greatest science-fiction novels of all time.
There are few works as grandiose, moving, tragic and exhilarating as Frank Herbert’s Dune.
The following book review of Dune by Frank Herbert is SPOILER-FREE* and will touch on the story and then focus on the signed-limited fine press edition published by Centipede Press in 2021-2022.
Dune can be summed up as masterful sci-fi, and every facet of the Centipede Press tome does it justice.
Dune is one of my favorite books, and so as to not give a 30-page thesis of a review on the story for the ages, I am tabling that (at least for today) in favor of focusing on what I consider the epitome of a physical book encompassing the revolutionary work of Frank Herbert.
For the uninitiated, Dune is another name for the desert planet Arrakis – which aside from tiny polar ice caps – is entirely covered in desert.
Arrakis is itself one of the most dominant characters in the book.
The extremely harsh environment makes water the most valued commodity for any living or traveling on the planet, and it molds one of the toughest peoples that live in the deep desert, the Fremen.
Arrakis is also the only place in the galaxy where spice mélange is found. This is found in sand patches and has to be mined quickly before gargantuan sand worms arrive; they dwarf even Guild spaceships and come to devour spice, or anything on the surface making unnatural noise.
The spice is a drug-like property found in many things like flavoring for cooking, or as part of recreational drug use, and it also has hallucinogenic prescient properties making it the sole way the Guild navigators can successfully fold space and time, achieving interstellar travel.
Dune and the spice are necessities to that space flight monopoly.
The characters, Paul Atriedies, and his mother the Lady Jessica, Stilgar, truly make the story what it is, as they grow amidst the innovative world building, where the setting, revenge, intricate politics, and innovative technology intermingle within the galactic regime.
But beware this work is a tragedy, similar in some ways to Homer’s Oedipus (but not the Oedipean complex), and so there are joys and pains and losses and victories, but the book is fully fleshed and nothing is one-sided, not even joy.
WARNING! I have tweaked the Goodreads summary of the book here to be near to Spoiler-Free*:
“Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for…
“When House Atreides is betrayed . . . [Paul] evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, [but] will [he] bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream? [And at what cost will the attempt bring to Paul and to all?]”
End of Spoiler Warning*
Centipede Press accomplished something truly extraordinary with their S/L of Dune: their offering is a vast work of art that truly bears the essence of the journey of Paul Atreides from Caladan to Arrakis.
And speaking of art . . .
Mark Molnar’s incredible illustrations and paintings for Dune have become definitive views of the characters and world.
The overall book design is sleek, sexy, and works to capture Mark’s art in every aspect, from the capped slipcase’s spine window onto a worm illustration to the similar circular cutout in the cover boards.
There is a stunning and vast two-sided dustjacket featuring an enormous painting of Paul Muad’Dib with spear amongst the vast stony and sandy Arrakean backdrop as a worm’s surfaced beneath the planet’s two moons that look golden on the horizon.
There is a large foldout map – from the original publication – showing the areas of the planet that are discussed in the book.
Centipede Press’ Dune exudes quality craftsmanship.
The book is printed on Mohawk Superfine paper, and there are over a dozen interior full color illustrations by Mark Molnar and the back of each one has a gritty sand-like feel to it that is a lot of fun in the hand.
But the feel of the numbered edition is like nothing I have ever experienced, as the black Nabuka Prestige cloth is a suede-like other-worldly smoothness.
There are 500 signed editions and 250 unsigned, and the latter have a fine Japanese cloth binding.
Though Frank Herbert is not with us writing in the physical realm any longer, his family and his son, Brian (who helped his father in the writing of the last couple of books in the series), approved a facsimile signature.
And what is more, the book has an introduction by Michael Swanwick and he and Brian Herbert and Mark Molnar have signed the 500 copies.
The epic tale is encapsulated in a mammoth book sized at 7¼ × 11 inches.
And the other five books in the Dune series are forthcoming with 500 signed copies and matching numbers to the owners of Dune.
If you get an opportunity to acquire a signed or unsigned C.P. edition of this great tale, do not pass it up!
“Dune & Frank Herbert immortalized by Centipede Press” was written by R.J. Huneke.
