Note: No AI in any form has been used when writing this text.
Jodorowsky's works were one of my first big, big loves, and not just in the field of scifi, but when talking about media, stories, art, when I was a teenager, even before William Gibson really hit me, before Neo and The Matrix, or before I became lost within the stories of Stanislaw Lem.
How was that possible, or rather, how did that happen?
Well, I guess, and it's an educated guess (I hope!) that the majority of people these days know Jodorowsky because he did not make Dune. And that is quite the feat indeed, becoming famous for a movie that... you did not even end up making!
The story is covered elsewhere already, just go and dig on the internet. In the 70s, Jodorowsky got the rights to Dune (or he thought he could get them, can't remember exactly), then went on a completely whacked out cruise around the world, in order to recruit Pink Floyd, H.R. Giger, Orson Welles, future set and special FX artists of Star Wars and Alien... and then it went "kaboom!" as expected, even blew a few people's brains out (i.e. they became "mental unstable" for a while).
In the end, David Lynch got to make Dune instead, and, much much later, Denis Villeneuve got to make a more well-received version. (BTW, as Pink Floyd was in the trailer for that version of Dune, my educated guess is that Denis Villeneuve sought out to rip-off Jodo's ideas for good).
So, I assume people know all of this. But, I think there is a thing that is lesser known, which is what happened to Jodorowsky afterwards.
And this is that he became a comic book artist (or "graphic novel", like the art folk like to say these days). And I kid you not, he went into the comics industry, and became very, very well known and famous by making comic books for teenagers and young adults (like me when I first read them).
At least on the outside label.
Because the truth is that he took the most outrageous ideas he had for his dune movie. and even expanded them. he added some other strange ideas. and also used some of the earlier ones he had. and used that to build his comics (aka "graphic novels"). and for later comics, he came up with just as outrageous ideas.
i should add that he rarely painted (drawed?) them. he recruited other people for that, like moebius (author of the well known "blueberry" comics) or a host (army?) of others.
the books were a creative collab between him and the artists.
so... yeah, how to describe his comics? it's usually scifi, but his own style, i'd say... often very cyberpunk, there is also stuff that is like space operas, but never with a clean "black vs white" morality... more like a dirty version of epic scifi franchises...
the stories are full of references to psychoactive substances, religious cults, conspiracy, tarot, tantra, there is real violence (often getting very nasty), there is intimacy... let's just say that when some big US corporation brought his "before the incal" series to the american audience, they literally enlisted artists to "paint the clothes back on" for some panels! (quite a few panels, actually).
but it's never 100% nihilism, there are also shiny heroes and a possible, positive ending...
that's the universe, the future of mankind, like these books envision. books? well, comics, and i hope you are able to consider comics as real, serious "books".
okay some people will scream now: "wait, i know jodorowsky, but he did not do comics, he made movies, like el topo or the holy mountain".
yes, that is true. but his major body of work is his comics books (aka "graphic novels", hah!)
i suppose he is one of the most prolific comic authors in the 20th and 21th century. it is hard to find a complete list or index. but it must be close to 100 of volumes (or more).
"the incal" alone has a dozen of spin off series that are completed by now, and new spin offs seem to spawn every year.
plus it's not just scifi anymore, there are western comics, comics set in the middle ages, fantasy books. oddly enough, they stay similar to his other works, and even the western ones are about drugs, divine intervention / punishment, mystical conspiracies.
ah well.
all i can say is i highly recommend jodorowsky's comic books.
my top 5 of comics one should (could) check out by him:
1. The Incal (with Jean Giraud / Moebius)
2. The Metabarons / La Caste de Méta-Barons (with Juan Giménez)
3. Before The Incal / Avant l’Incal (with Zoran Janjetov)
4. The Technofathers / Les Technopères (with Zoran Janjetov, too)
5. Megalex (With Fred Beltran)