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Heavy Metal Magazine, Hal Hefner and Kevin Bryce…a pretty great combo when mixed in with Fes and his webcomic focused podcast, the Webcomic Beacon!
Hal Hefner (me) creator of the webcomic Gates, joins musical artist Kevin Bryce, Fes Works and Melissa Kaercher of the GeekLife podcast, talk about HEAVY METAL Magazine
This podcast was an in depth look at the movie, the history of Heavy Metal Magazine and the future of the new movie. It also includes a discussion of the magazine and the original Heavy Metal movie, the Gates soundtrack and more.
We also talk about Hal’s science fiction webcomic, presented by Heavy Metal, Gates. The Gates webcomic has an eclectic musical soundtrack for it, and Kevin Bryce is on the soundtrack. Kevin also performed two live digital, musical interludes for this episode of The Webcomic Beacon!
Hal goes in depth discussing the future of Gates and how the evolving multi-platform story narrative will continue to grow in 2012 as new projects begin to arise in the Gates universe. Very exciting stuff, exclusively dicussed on the BEACON!
Check it out!
http://www.webcastbeacon.com/webcomic-220/
The Geeks of Doom website is a very fun pop culture menagerie of nerd stuff in the world of music, comics, art and anything and everything fanboy geeky.
In mid January, the Geeks of Doom Website did a review of the Gates soundtrack that was released to accompany the epic science fiction comic book back in August of 2011.
They had some nice things to say about teh soundtrack and really seemed to get the
“vibe” we were going for. One of the things I really appreciated is how they mentioned that Gates is dedicated to the art of Frank Frazetta and the music of Ronnie James Dio as well as an homage to the original soundtrack of the 1981 Heavy Metal film.
So Special thanks to Dan Bond (Obi Dan) for taking the time to review the soundtrack and give us some props. Much appreciated!
You can also
BUY THE SOUNDTRACK TO GATES: The webcomic presented by Heavy Metal and created by Hal Hefner – NOW!!!
…AND MAKE A SMALL DONATION TO THE RONNIE JAMES DIO STAND UP AND SHOUT CANCER FUND.
100% of the proceeds go to the cancer fund in Dio’s name.
It is available for download on iTunes and AmazonMP3
I recently was introduced to a very well done webcomic called The Concrete World.
Written by Gavin Hignight, The Concrete World is a science fiction comic book, telling the story of three kindred spirits, Felix, Sera and Paulie. They are brought together in a cyberpunk world drawn by up and coming artist, Jettila Lewis. In Hignight’s epic world, these three characters are linked by their addiction to the VR technology called DREAMtech, which is altogether wonderful, powerful…and very dangerous. DREAMtech can give them everything they’ve always desired, but it could also take everything they have, including their very lives!
Felix, Sera and Paulie traipse the forever-night of this neon, smoke filled virtual world in search for the mythical program called the Black Ivory. In this world, freedom is the new drug.
The comic itself is installed in (6 page) updates monthly. It’s a pretty fun read and the art is really cool. It’s definitely one of the best webcomics out there in my opinion. It explores the realities we could be facing in the very near future, in the same vein as Gates, the comic I write and illustrate and is currently being presented online by Heavy Metal Magazine. This is very much a Heavy Metal like comic and I could envision this story in the magazine some day as well.
I highly recommend the Concrete World. Check it out!
Back in the 1980′s a wonderful animated film came out by the name of Light Years. It didn’t get that much attention but is revered by many today animation experts and sci-fi geeks to this day. It combined the great minds of French animator, Rene Laloux and Isaac Asimov into a visually stunning peace of art that is more relevant today than it was 2o+ years ago.
The movie is wrapped around a riddle that the main character, Sylvain, must answer, “In a thousand years, Gandahar was destroyed, and and all its people massacred. A thousand years ago, Gandahar will be saved, and what can’t be avoided will be.”
The plot is very intense and deals with relevant topics such as war vs. pacifism, the dangers of unchecked scientific experiments and the theory of time travel in relevance to the human mind and soul. It’s stunningly beautiful in artistic expression and just as well written.
The original version was directed by René Laloux, and was based on Jean-Pierre Andrevon‘s novel Les Hommes-machines contre Gandahar (The Machine-Men versus Gandahar). An English version of the epic science fiction film was produced by Harvey Weinstein, and renowned science-fiction legend Isaac Asimov made the revision of the translation from French to English.
It boasts a very impressive cast of voice actors in the American version. Among the actors were, Glenn Close, Jennifer Grey, Terrence Mann, Penn and Teller, John Shea, Bridget Fonda, David Johansen, Earle Hyman, Earl Hammond and Christopher Plummer. Plummer plays the villain in the film with cunning excellence.
It has has beautifully drawn women with a slight tint of blue/purple skin color that are naked for most of the film. It’s a masterpeice that will live on for years. It is well known for it’s strange landscapes yet vaguely familiar creatures as well as menacing “men of metal”. The art is well done and if you like science fiction, you’re going to love this film.
Now if we could only get them to release it on DVD!
But until then, we have Youtube, please see below, the 8 part movie of LIGHT YEARS…
Luis Royo is a man of fantasy, sci-fi and horror and he interprets these things in a painterly style of elegance, mystery and sensuality. For all of you Heavy Metal fans out there, you must know Royo. He is a highly accomplished painter who was born in 1954 in Olalla, Spain, a small town near Teruel. Royo is a very respected artist well known for his darkly sensual, moody paintings of women and the fantastic. Recently Royo has started doing sculptures of some of his earlier artwork.
With and without Heavy Metal Magazine, he has produced many paintings for his own books, exhibitions, as well as various other media: videogames, CD album covers, comic book covers, and Tarot cards. His rise to popularity in the United States was mostly through Heavy Metal Magazine, where he is most famous for doing illustrations of Julie Strain for the animated movie Heavy Metal.
As stated previously, American magazines such as Heavy Metal often turn to Luis Royo for their cover illustrations, as well European magazines like Cimoc, Comic Art, Ere Comprime, Total Metal and others.
Here is a pretty cool video someone made on Youtube, showing Royo’s work.
And here is a quick video of Luis Royo drawing a beautiful woman.
Here are some images of Royo’s Work. As you can see his style is very recognizable and his command of the human figure is pretty amazing. He is a master of traditional paints in a time of digital art that really stands out. Some of his affects people with mad Photoshop skills cannot even achieve to this day.
Starting here are two of my favorite Royo images, These are amazing pieces of concept work for Planet of the Apes.
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