HEAVY METAL the MOTION PICTURE: TAARNA pre-production test cel

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). Taarna was the character featured on the film poster, and this multiple cel set-up is the perfect representative of the entire film, as the Moebius influenced femme fatale takes flight on her winged reptile into an epic battle. Key-set ups like this very rarely enter the resale market. This was purchased at the original gallery exhibition of animation cels from the film release back in 1981, and comes with the C.o.A. that came with it. While not credited in this sequence, Jean Giraud was involved until disagreements about the script caused him to walk away and deny usage of his Arzach characters –leading Len Blum and Daniel Goldberg to create Taarna, which Chris Achilléos designed in the Moebius style. This is a pre-production set-up. The cels have matching references keys, and the hand-painted background is a set of two painted background, one of which is affixed to its own cel.

In all my years of dealing in animation cels and comic art, I’ve never come across another one of these. Style guides and test cels are composed by art directors and lead animators only.

This test-cel was created for the Taarna segment which was adapted from Moebius’ Arzach, and would have been requested 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 the Taarna segment, so the various elements may include 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 dougas and even possibly painted test cels). All are award-winning artists in their own right.

Since this is a pre-production artwork, producers likely would have sought a sign-off from Jean Giraud (or a Studio Moebius surrogate) to keep everything copacetic for the Harry Canyon segment, which still credits him. The individual cels that followed would have been produced by junior animators based on the continuity illustrations of Hank Tucker, Sherman Labby, Jeffrey Gastrall, and John Dorman.

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