Jodorowsky Now Officially Among the Stars

Alejandro Jodorowsky is floating in space.

To fans of the writer and filmmaker, that sentence likely comes as no surprise, at least in the metaphorical sense — as comic book projects like The Incal and Metabarons and movies such as The Holy Mountain and Tusk have shown, Jodorowsky works on a far more cosmic scale than most. However, Alejandro Jodorowsky really is floating in space right now, albeit in particularly stony form.

The Minor Planets Center, part of the International Astronomical Union has officially named a three-mile-wide asteroid after Jodorowsky at the request of French astronomer Jean-Claude Merlin, who first discovered the asteroid back on Christmas Eve in 2005. The suggestion was approved by the Committee on Small Body Nomenclature at the end of July and made official in an announcement from Jodorowsky’s French publisher, Les Humanoides Associes.

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In receiving the honor, Jodorowsky joins such luminaries as The Beatles, J.R.R. Tolkein and Frank Sinatra. The announcement is well timed; with the release this year of the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, the artist is arguably as successful now in the United States as he has been in some time.

The asteroid — which has the official name of 261690 Jodorowsky — can be found in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, according to Les Humanoides. Somehow, you have to figure that he’d approve of the placement. Unless something farther out becomes available, of course.