A great visionary, craftsman, professional and gentle soul -- you might be surprised how universally venerated Giraud is among comics artists. I never knew him, really, but bumped into him a few times when he was living in Los Angeles, such as the Creation con where he did me the sketch to the left.
The first time was at Disney. I'd heard he was storyboarding Tron -- I was working on less exhalted projects, mostly never made, at the same time (1980). I'd sometimes go up to the top floor where the Tron office was, hoping for a glimpse. One time it paid off. It was after hours, and I found him in the hall, poised in front of a vending machine, frozen. His hand was at his chin.
Giraud was a serious health-food devotee -- at a later point, I know, he ate only raw food. God knows what he chose, among that processed garbage. I was too shy to hang around or even introduce myself.
Later, Mike Richardson and Randy Stradley convinced him to contribute to Concrete Celebrates Earth Day, a one-shot we put out in 1990. He was in Portland for some reason, and they took him to the only restaurant where they knew they could get raw food: a sushi bar. They told him about Concrete ("Ah, yes, Golem!" he said) and showed him some comics. He did a doodle of Concrete on the chopsticks wrapper.
But here's the funny thing. As they chatted, he started to draw wiggly horns on Concrete's forehead. This appeared psychic to Mike and Randy; they knew issue seven, which they hadn't shown him, sees Concrete grow branching, body-wasting antlers, a metaphor for cancer.
Randy gave me that wrapper; if I find it in my files I'll post it.
In a bit of interconnection, that story was inspired by a concept drawing I saw in Tim Burton's office in 1980 at Disney. In Tim's conception, the Horned King, villain in The Black Cauldron, would have his horns grow larger , more twisted, and branching as he went increasingly mad.
They didn't use that (a lot of Tim's ideas were too edgy -- rather than the cauldron-born being simply ghoulish warriors, he drew amalgams of dead animals, chains, spiked weapons, and dead babies, presumably thrown into the cauldron and magically melded; Walt would've spun in his grave!).
But I used it. Never waste a good idea!
Now do yourself a favor and listen to Geof Darrow, who was close to Giraud, tell great stories about him at Heroes Convention 2011.