Moon Man (Jean de la Lune in French / Der Mondmann in German) is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Tomi Ungerer (who considered it a satire). It was initially published in German language in 1966.
It tells the story of Jean, a giant and very pale man living on The Moon who gets bored of nothing fun (or nothing at all, really) ever happening there and decides to visit the Earth to have fun... only to end up hunted down and thrown in prison. He finds a way to escape, enjoys the beauty of nature on Earth and parties, then seeks a way to return where he comes from.
As with Ungerer's The Three Robbers, the book received both an animated Short Film adaptation by Gene Deitch (in 1981) and a feature film one (in 2012, produced by a German studio and a studio from the country where Ungerer lived in the most towards the end of his life, Ireland). Ungerer also narrated an audiobook of it.
This book provides examples of:
- Coming in Hot: Jean crash-lands on Earth, scaring the forest animals around the site.
- Humans Are Bastards: Jean meets hostile humans very quickly — an army general who thinks he's an enemy and the police that throws him in prison.
- Innocent Aliens: The only thing Jean wants is to enjoy some time on Earth, be it the nature or parties, and he's hunted down and thrown in prison like a criminal.
- Interplanetary Voyage: Jean hops on a comet to go to Earth. Then the benevolent scientist gives him his space capsule so he can go back to the Moon.
- Lunacy: Since Jean is part of the Moon itself, his body's shape changes with the Lunar phases, which allows him to escape from prison.
- The Man in the Moon: Jean is initially crammed in a round shape on the Moon, with his face covering a large surface on it.
- Nature Lover: After escaping from prison, Jean spends some happy time in the forest, admiring the flowers and the birds.
- Nice Guy:
- Jean only means well and to have fun on Earth, but sadly he's misunderstood.
- The benevolent scientist who offers his space capsule to Jean so he can return to the Moon.
- Opportunistic Vendors: Jean's crash on Earth prompts a huge rush of fire engines, army tanks, and other emergency vehicles. Among these is a mobile ice cream stand, with a footnote that the ice cream man hurried to set up his stand for the spectators.
- Sizeshifter: Jean's whole body is initially so big that he's cramped on the Moon. He assumes a human size when on Earth.
