HEAVY METAL the MOTION PICTURE production drawing (Moebius)

Heavy Metal, The Motion Picture was adapted from the pages of Heavy Metal magazine and Metal Hurlant and featured adapted animations of strips by Richard Corben, Bernie Wrightson, and everybody’s favorite, Moebius (aka Jean Giraud). Studio Moebius is said to have overseen  the animation for his segments. This is a master animator production drawing, possibly touched by Moebius himself at some point (and definitely approved by Studio Moebius).

This drawing was created for the Harry Canyon segment which was adapted from Moebius’ The Long Tomorrow, and would have needed to be approved by film directors Gerald Potterton and John Bruno from the lead animators because this segment isn’t rotoscoped.

There are several art directors credited for each segment, so the various elements required contributions from Chris Acheleos, Mike Ploog, and Howard Chaykin (reference painters), Brent Boates, Charles White, George Ungar, Alex Tavoularis, and J.S. Goert (lead character designers), and Christian Bénard (from Studio Moebius, who would have drafted the gengas and even possibly hand-drawn this piece). All are award-winning artists in their own right.

Jean Giraud would have needed to give his approval to this and production drawings, and from that approval the individual cels between sequences would have been produced by junior animators from Atkinson Production Studios based on the continuity illustrations of Hank Tucker, Sherman Labby, Jeffrey Gastrall, and John Dorman. This segment was written by Len Blum and Daniel Golderg and directed by Pino van Lamsweerde.

Since there are very few animations based on Moebius’ comics, production art connected to those that were produced within his lifetime and with his approval (like this) are in great demand and luckily much more affordable than his published illustrations. Moebius was easily the most popular artist in Heavy Metal Magazine and the Motion Picture that adapted it and cels from his segments are both more valuable and higher in demand than any of the other segments but still present an affordable option for Moebius fans and anime collectors.