John Coulthart at his blog {feuilleton} has discovered an absolutely marvelous find that is currently on eBay. There is an auction that ends in a few days with the intriguing title “Alejandro Jodorowsky’s DUNE Script EARLY DRAFT? Giger ILLUSTRATED Original Art.”

Yes, that’s right. It appears to be a full script for Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s Dune, however, “It is NOT the ‘phone book size’ script as seen in the documentary ‘Jodorowsky’s Dune,’ but appears to be an earlier/shorter version. There are about 300 pages in total, including illustrations.” At present there have been 15 bids on the script, and the price is at $710.

For those who don’t know, in the 1970s there was a concerted effort to bring to the screen an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi mega-bestseller Dune. In 1984, of course, an adaptation by David Lynch was released; while it’s a remarkable piece of work, that version is widely seen as a failure. In 2013 Frank Pavich’s movie Jodorowsky’s Dune documented the abortive first attempt to make the movie.

Here’s the cover of the script, as well as the title page:
 

 

 
Despite the title of the auction, the description indicates that the images “do NOT appear to be by Jean Giraud/Moebius, or Giger, but by an unknown artist.” Certainly at a glance they seem completely dissimilar from all of Giger‘s known output; I am a little less certain in the case of Moebius, but probably more dissimilar than similar. Coulthart convincingly suggests that the drawings are by Jodorowsky himself (interestingly, the eBay seller does not venture a guess), pointing to his 1967 comic Fabulas Panicas. Here’s Coulthart:
 

No artist is credited but the naive style rules out both Moebius and HR Giger (who arrived late to the project in any case). Best bet is either Jodorowsky himself—in 1967 he was writing and illustrating a comic strip, Fabulas Panicas—or Jodorowsky’s colleague from the Panic Movement days, Roland Topor. In the early 70s Topor was working with René Laloux on the animated SF film Fantastic Planet.

Many of the conceptions differ radically from the more graceful designs that Moebius produced later on. Also of note are details such as the anal entrance to the Emperor’s throne room, a Harkonnen orgy and an insemination scene viewed from inside Jessica’s vagina. By the time Giger joined the production team the instruction was not to create anything too erotic or adult since the film needed to reach a large audience.

 
Keep reading after the jump…

Poster art: Kilian Eng.
 
Of the dozen or so films I’ve seen so far at this year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin there are two that actually enter the realm of unrestrained awesomeness that I associate with the word “fantastic.” Frank Pavich’s Jodorowsky’s Dune and Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity are head trips that leave one in a state of elation and hope. Both are pure cinema, head trips that take you to places you knew might exist but never thought you’d actually encounter.

Even though Jodorowsky’s Dune is a documentary it weaves a story as compelling and dramatic as any narrative film. And it is imbued with the magic of its subject: the fiery and brilliant Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Jodorowky’s El Topo was a life-changing film for many of us who saw it when it was released in 1970 and it continues to inspire awe in generations of audiences since. I have spent over four decades turning people onto the movie, either through rare underground screenings, bad bootlegs or the lovely remastered digital versions released in the past ten years. Giving someone a Blu-ray of El Topo is the electronic equivalent of placing a hit of Owsley on their tongue. Jodorowsky is all about changing your mind…in big and profound ways.

It was Jodorowsky’s dream to make a movie version Frank Herbert’s Dune that would give you the acid experience without the drug. Until now, I could only imagine what a trip that might have been. But thanks to Pavich’s wonderfully insightful and skillfully executed film, the Jodorowskian mindfuck has been unleashed like a tsunami of particularly psychotropically potent melange.

Jodorowsky’s Dune chronicles the herculean efforts of Jodorowsky and a crew of extraordinary collaborators as they attempt to create a film version or riff on Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel. It’s a story that is both heartbreaking and exhilarating. You feel Jodorowsky’s pain in not being able to bring to fruition “the greatest film never made” while at the same feeling the buzz of the passion fueling Jodorowsky’s vision. In addition, by deftly animating Jodorowsky’s storyboards, director Pavich gives a glimpse into what might have been. These scenes may be the closest we’ll ever get to acutally seeing Jodorowsky’s sci-fi epic.

For me, Dune will be the coming of a god. I wanted to make something sacred, free, with new perspective. Open the mind!”

The journey of Dune involves a collection of “spiritual warriors” who, despite not arriving at the end of their destination, ultimately managed to alter cinema forever. H.R. Giger, Moebius, Dan O’Bannon, Michel Seydoux, Chris Foss and countless others infiltrated pop culture through a trajectory mapped out in the alchemical forces generated by one of the great magicians, Alejandro Jodorowsky.

While it may never have been embedded in silver nitrate, in many ways Jodorowsky’s Dune has had a life that transcends celluloid. It moves through the ethers waving an invisible wand over the theater of our minds. Its influence is incalculable. Pavich’s film makes a case that virtually every science fiction made since the mid-seventies has borrowed or stolen ideas, design and visual concepts from Jodorowsky’s plans for Dune.

Jodorowsky’s Dune won the Audience Award at Fantastic Fest and Best Documentary. It will be released in early 2014.

I had an opportunity to meet director Frank Pavich and we talked about his film. What was intended to be a conventional interview became a lively rap session in which we both sang the praises of our hero. I normally don’t inject myself into an interview to the degree I do here, but I couldn’t help myself. Frank and I are kindred spirits and we were both on a Jodo roll.