[15] In stark contrast, one of the other intended major characters of the Fort Navajo series had been Blueberry's friend and colleague lieutenant Graig, who was very much a classic Charlier comics hero, law abiding, a stickler for rules and regulations, unquestioning in his blind obedience to, and acceptance of, authority, and so on.

[37] The latter reason for him to leave, took on an urgency after Alejandro Jodorowsky, impressed by his Blueberry art, had already invited Giraud to come over to Los Angeles to work as concept designer and storyboard artist on his Dune movie project earlier that year, constituting the first Jodorowsky/Mœbius collaboration.

Aside from Giraud's old mentor Jijé (who, having abandoned his own Jerry Spring Western comic, was now penciling Charlier's revitalized Redbeard and Tanguy et Laverdure), these predominantly concerned artists from publishing house Le Lombard.

Furthermore, per French law, Charlier's widow Christine remained entitled to 10 percent of the revenues from the existing and subsequent post-Charlier Blueberry titles, which provided her with a "decent" living standard, according to son Philippe, effectively contradicting his own claim on the very same occasion.

[97] That then unnoticed title, "The Man with the Silver Star", has, despite the fact that Giraud's art style had by now fully blossomed into his distinctive own, not been included in later North American collections, resulting in the album becoming an expensive rarity.

"[1] In effect, the ploy was more than opportune, as Epic had already started out with the publication of Giraud's better known science fiction work under his pseudonym – introduced to American readership through Heavy Metal in the mid-1970s – in the graphic novel format, and it was only when these were well underway that it was decided to add Blueberry as well to the array.

Giraud conceded that the Blueberry series, due to the sharply diminished interest in the Western genre in the country at the time and contrary to his similarly released Sci-Fi and fantasy work as Mœbius by Epic, were very slow sellers in the US, though the entire printing did manage to eventually sell out over the years.

After "Angel Face" was completed in 1974, Giraud took an extended leave of absence from Blueberry, because he wanted further explore and develop his "Moebius" alter ego, the work he produced as such being published in Métal Hurlant magazine, in the process revolutionizing the Franco-Belgian world of bandes dessinées.

After Giraud had finished "La dernière carte" he, having been very much invested throughout most of his adult life in New Age beliefs and practices (which included the use of mind-expanding substances[161]), had already left for Tahiti to join the commune of mystic Jean-Paul Appel-Guéry, the latter had set up there.

[183] Both critical and commercial success have always eluded Corteggiani, and by the time he was approached by Novedi and Philippe Charlier, he had suspended his own career as a bande dessinée artist, instead becoming a tenured script writer for the French Disney studios.

François Corteggiani and Colin Wilson "What started to irk me a lot was the cartoonish writing style - the brawls, the sleazebag comedians, the clichés, the never-ending out-of-the-blue coincidences, these unbelievable, unrealistic situations that were weaved more and more into the scenarios".

[200] A few months later, in January 1997, Blanc-Dumont was again approached by both Philippe Charlier and Jean Giraud during breakfast in a hotel during the Angoulême International Comics Festival, and this time he was asked straight up front if he wanted to take over the Young Blueberry series.

"[203] Philippe Charlier however, immediately exercised his veto right to torpedo both Giraud suggestions, rather unsurprisingly actually, as they were in effect indirect, veiled endorsements of the ideas Wilson had put forward in his rejected Emmet Walsh scenario.

"[204] Giraud actually acted upon this impulse to an extent, by incorporating flashback scenes in the "OK Corral" cycle (later collected in the 2007 stand-alone album "Apaches"), where a bed-ridden Blueberry tells a reporter the story of how he arrived at his first Far West posting directly after the war, completely ravaged by PTSD.

His reasons for this was that he did not wanted to be the one, responsible for "artists and scenario writers" becoming unable "to feed themselves" – meaning Blanc-Dumont in particular unsurprisingly, but surprisingly the in Giraud's view deeply flawed Corteggiani as well – , adding sardonically that Philippe Charlier had no such qualms whatsoever and that the latter "disgusted" him by his ruthless haste to "coolly" rake in the royalties as quickly as he was able to without exhibiting any other consideration beyond that.

[207] His complete absence from the 2003 German Zack-Dossier 1: Blueberry und der europäische Western-Comic reference book (where the long dead Jean-Michel Charlier was extensively covered by archival interviews), was equally telling and conspicuous in this respect.

Being also confronted with the fast dwindling popularity, continued criticism of his Young Blueberry version, and the potential growing realization that contracts signed with Philippe Charlier were not that advantageous for him, Blanc-Dumont appeared to have lost all motivation and interest in further creating bande dessinées.

Wilson continued to do so ever since right up until the present day,[215] and has during signing sessions confided to sympathetic BD album store owners that the Blueberry art he creates on commission basis alone is currently already enough to earn him a decent living.

Considering his deep loathing of the deceased Giraud by then (see above and below), Philippe Charlier's ostensible "concern for the readers" appeared duplicitous at least, as he on the very same occasion advocated the inception of a plethora of spin-off series based on the secondary Blueberry characters.

Still, having written the biography within the historical context as postulated in the comic, fully expecting his readership to understand it as such, Charlier originally had not the intention to perform a prank at the expense of his readers, despite him later presenting it as such in the above statement, mischievously poking fun at the "respectable" and "eminent", but gullible, scholars (while carefully not including the non-scholar Blueberry fanbase) – and which was in concordance with biographer Ratier's observation of the author's penchant for "taking liberties" with actual events for dramatic effect.

Two years after the conflict had started and in which Georges Dargaud had stubbornly refused to budge,[35] he, acting like it was business as usual, brazenly asked Charlier for a Blueberry short story for a Western special he had planned as a June 1976 side publication of Pilote magazine.

"[253] The primary reason for both creators to give in to Dargaud's request after all with a western short story, can only be construed as a token of goodwill of not wanting to shut the door on their parent publisher permanently, thereby leaving some wriggling room for future negotiations.

At that time still lacking a series title,[255] as it was originally intended as a one-off publication, the story involved a northerner who very shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War travels to New Orleans, Louisiana in order to claim his inheritance, a plantation.

[266] The for Charlier inconvenient Aedena bankruptcy also served as a rationale why he subsequently approached Fabrice Giger in 1988 – behind Giraud's back this time – who ironically, had just bought Les Humanoïdes Associés, the very same Humanos Jim Cutlass was intended to be taken away from.

"[267] Rossi incidentally, was no stranger to offbeat western BDs, as he had already created his own 1982-1987 Le Chariot de Thespis [fr] series which ran for four volumes before he, due to the mediocre measure of commercial success, decided to drop it in order to take on Jim Cutlass.

It debuted in September 2021 and concerned a sequel to "The Man with the Silver Star" and revolves around the later adventures of the two major protagonistic secondary characters introduced in that outing, the teacher Katie March – the German series' titular "Frau", or "Woman" – and the former deputy (but now full-fledged) marshal Dusty.

[278] In November 2019 Dargaud published a homage book made by the duo Joann Sfar and Christophe Blain,[279] after Isabelle Giraud had unexpectedly given permission to embark on a new Blueberry project for the very first, and as of 2025 only, time since her husband's death.

[211] A 2004 film adaptation, Blueberry: L'expérience secrète[282](U.S. release title is Renegade), was directed by Jan Kounen and starred Vincent Cassel in the lead role, with Giraud himself making a walk-on cameo appearance at the beginning of the movie.

Giraud though, has expressed pride of Kounen's film in the special features of the 2004 French 2-disc "Edition Collector" DVD,[283] which was not that surprising as it closely chimed with what he had envisioned for his own Fort Mescalero movie, and Blueberry 1900 comic projects.

After Giraud had returned to France pursuant his extended stay in the United States, generic interest in his work steadily grew and resulted in an increasing number of latter-day exhibitions at museums and conventions, featuring his original art.