When Heavy Metal Soared - A look back an adult-animation pioneer

[Ubiquitous]

Calling Heavy Metal a cult classic barely scratches the surface. The movie is
the definition of cult following given that it grew a devoted fanbase out of
taboo material. There's even that secret society element of shadowy influence
shifting the world at large.

There used to be a time the only way to own Heavy Metal involved bootlegging
the film off late-night cable. In the age before the internet, sweaty video
hunters lurked by VHS machines waiting for the film to start then hit record.
As far as theatrical viewings, it circulated on the midnight movie circuit so
long filmmakers needed to pull in the prints because they were being worn
out. Since arriving in 1981, Heavy Metal inspired an entire generation of
animators to produce more adult content, and that's, in many ways, a grand
legacy.


The story begins when print magazines still mattered. Tony Hendra, a satirist
working for National Lampoon, expressed a desire to include European comics.
Along with the support of then editor Sean Kelly, the two started publishing
portions of a French magazine called Métal hurlant. Literally translated as
"howling metal" the images and stories within were unlike anything available
in the United States.

That's mainly due to the Comics Code Authority. Established in 1954, the CCA
restricted the kind of content allowed in comics. For decades, this meant
zero profanity, overt sexuality, graphic violence, or outright ridicule of
authority figures such as the police. But whatever moral victory puritan
proponents of the code thought they won only inspired a generation of artists
to go underground.

Throughout the subsequent years, artists like Robert Crumb drew in defiance
of the Comics Code Authority. Sometimes deviant and perverse, these
underground comics provided not just more adult content but mature themes.
The material readers craved as they grew into adulthood, pondering issues of
sexuality and social convention. While comic book heroes upheld notions of
truth, justice, and the American way, underground characters like Fritz the
Cat got high, rejected the status quo, and had sex.

The odd thing is the CCA didn't hold any really power to prevent such comics
from being made. Most major distributors went along with the Comics Code
simply to avoid losing advertising dollars. Without that official stamp
proclaiming a book was "approved by the comics code authority" shops and
businesses risked the ire of the self-proclaimed moral majority.

Still, a growing market for adult comics inspired Hendra and Kelly to get
National Lampoon into the game. European artists like Moebius hadn't been
restrained by the Code or capitalist concerns, so they're work naturally
gravitated to the more mature material Hendra wanted to expose readers to.
And sci-fi stories in Métal hurlant, similar to pulp fiction, bred what would
become the magazine Heavy Metal.

Issues featured radical depictions of futuristic settings, graphic violence,
and explicit nudity. Yet, these adolescent aspects belie what could at times
be challenging content. These mature elements allowed authors and artists to
explore concepts which seeded the landscape of several burgeoning sci-fi
scenes. For instance, William Gibson, who pioneered the cyberpunk subgenre,
wrote in the intro for the Neuromancer graphic novel, "It's entirely fair to
say... the way Neuromancer-the-novel 'looks' was influenced in large part by
some of the artwork I saw in Heavy Metal."

Heavy Metal the magazine provided an outlet for imaginations desperate to see
events unconstrained by moralist pearl-clutchers wailing about the mental
corruption of children, and it exposed many to a realm of possibilities
rarely seen. That's why, following the success of Animal House, National
Lampoon Inc. decided one of their next forays into film should be animated.
The goal would be to craft something for older audiences, and already owning
the rights to Heavy Metal's content made the decision even easier.

Ivan Reitman, who also produced Animal House, ended up producing Heavy Metal
the movie. "I thought there would be a good film in it," Reitman said, "I do
like science fiction, and I loved the illustrations... they were different
from anything I had ever seen."

Adult animation has endured a stilted evolution in the United States. The
last several years have seen quantum leaps in the amount and kinds of content
available to mature audiences. However, circa 1981, one's cup didn't exactly
runneth over. That's not to say adult-oriented animation never existed. Even
as far back as 1928, the comedic cartoon character Eveready Harton appeared
in the first animated porno. Still, it wouldn't be until Ralph Bakshi began
making films that anything remotely mature become available.

Adapting Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat into an animated feature, the box
office success of the film--$90 million off a budget of $700,000--proved a
public appetite for such movies. Although Fritz earned the notorious X-rating
when released in 1972, its frank depiction of sex, violence, and drug use
served a purpose. As John Grant wrote in Masters of Animation, "generally and
too easily dismissed as a self-indulgent scatological romp through hippy
clichés of the 1960s. It is, however, something more than that... a portrayal
of a particular stratum of Western society... it is often almost disturbingly
accurate."

Still, studios routinely hesitated to finance such projects. Animation
remained not only the realm of Disney, a giant no one wanted to fight, but
many perceived cartoons as sanitized reality meant only for children. It
didn't matter what kind of surreal social horrors (e.g., murder,
prostitution, racism, etc.) that Bakshi depicted in feature films like 1973's
Heavy Traffic, producers seemed to think of animation only in terms of
content for kids.

Again, this mainly stemmed from censorship. Kin to the Comics Code Authority,
the Hays Code provided similar constraints for motion pictures. In addition,
it restricted the release of adult animation from other countries. As such,
audiences in the United States remained oblivious to the more mature content
emerging in foreign markets. Still, a few shorts trickled out especially as
the Hays Code faded away. Flicks like "Mickey Mouse in Vietnam" and "Bambi
Meets Godzilla" existed as short spoofs, but could be dismissed as outliers.
Eventually, though, the Motion Picture Association film rating system
replaced the Hays Code, freeing filmmakers to explore avenues in animation
previously taboo.

The new system also allowed for the import of those foreign features which in
turn made animators aware they could go beyond the bounds of children's
films. Not solely in content but stylization. Animated films no longer needed
to be cutesy kid friendly films. They could be ugly, mean, and sexy if
necessary. All this emerging freedom arrived just in time for Heavy Metal to
hit the scene hard.

To that end, Ivan Reitman employed Gerald Potterton. A veteran animator who
worked on projects such as The Beatles: Yellow Submarine (1968) and sequences
for Sesame Street, Potterton received the tremendous responsibility of
herding the efforts of 1,000 animators in 17 different countries. Potterton
said, "I knew about the Heavy Metal magazine in France, and I liked the
drawings... but I couldn't see doing a ninety-minute film in just one style."

He wanted to tell several stories instead of just one. This would allow the
inclusion of a variety of techniques to bring Heavy Metal to life. Plus, it'd
make the film more like its print variant.

Besides traditional animation, Potterton employed extensive use of
rotoscoping. Max Fleischer patented the process in 1917 which could be
considered a predecessor to motion capture. Live performers acted out scenes
on a minimal set. Then animators used blown-up photos to trace the
performances as well as add in details like cityscapes or apartment settings,
depending on the scene. While they mostly stuck to the performers' features,
they often exaggerated for emphasis, a smile, or eyes wider than natural.
This technique has appeared in a variety of films, particularly those by
Ralph Bakshi but Disney used it too, not to mention the Superman animated
shorts of the 1940s. It gave animation, particularly in something like Heavy
Metal, a life-like quality it couldn't otherwise possess, but also a surreal
essence since the movements are real yet not.

Using alternating visual styles even shaped the movie's structure. Each
variation in animation style is meant to compliment a specific story, while
setting it apart from the others. This allows segments to remain unique, yet
part of an animated whole.

The film unfolds as a series of vignettes told by the nefarious entity the
Loc-Nar. The overall plot to Heavy Metal is that a malevolent, sentient
sphere is detailing its evil past to a terrified young girl. It arrives at
her home thanks to her father, an astronaut who returns to Earth when a low
orbit space shuttle drops him in a convertible sports car out of its bay
doors. (Stick with me here.) While descending, freefalling for miles, "Radar
Rider" by Riggs plays in the background. Upon landing he speeds home.
Unfortunately, opening the case containing the Loc-Nar, Daddy melts away, but
now, the movie can begin.

There's a degree of unabashed insanity to that which is not present in most
films. Fortunately, madness continues unflinching throughout the rest of the
movie. Composed of several stories harvested from the Heavy Metal magazine,
the anthology format utilizes the talents of multiple writers like Dan
O'Bannon, most famous for writing Alien. It also does some sleight
repackaging, such as in the case of the "Taarna" piece, which used Moebius's
wordless series Arzach as source material.

Tropes aplenty populate Heavy Metal. The buxom femme fatale tries to double-
cross a cynical cabbie in a futuristic noir. The nerdy teen is transported
and transformed into a Herculean figure fighting to save the day in a sword
and sorcery epic. Intrepid pilots of a bomber endeavor to survive when their
slain crewmates become zombies midflight. The last member of a race of
mythical warriors must battle mutant hordes to avenge slaughtered innocents.
These familiar elements allow for abbreviated storytelling, keeping the pace
going. If a section falls flat, well, no worries, a fresh scene will start
soon enough.

What comes together is a mish-mosh of styles, themes, and stories any pulp
fiction fan will recognize. However, not all hit the bull's eye. The
meandering plot doesn't always feel cohesive. Heavy Metal often teeters on
the brink of collapse, but what holds up this house of cards is its audacity.

Elements of it may not sit well with modern audiences. The sexuality is
decidedly skewed heterosexual, and the women are all designed for the male
gaze. That's to say, revealing clothes, when they even have any on, and
physical dimensions that are shapely to put it mildly. The titular -- no pun
intended -- Taarna even does what could be considered a reverse striptease as
she dons the typical lingerie inspired armor seen in sword and sorcery. But
there's also blood, profanity, drugs, and horror that never made it into
animated features before. Plus, a juvenile sense of humor that prevents
several segments from getting too serious.

Though one doesn't have to excuse what may be less, if not unacceptable now,
it should be considered in the context of its time. This amounted to a
subversive form of entertainment defying any ideas of what cartoons could
include. The fact it even got made is an accomplishment which paved the way
for features and series many take for granted nowadays. Progress doesn't
necessarily start on the best foot, but a blazed trail is just the start of a
long journey. Other paths have branched off from Heavy Metal. If we can get
full frontal animated vagina, there's no reason for a floppy dork dangling on
screen too. Animation is art, meaning it shouldn't be constrained. An
unbridled imagination is very revealing, displaying the good and the bad, a
fact on full display in Heavy Metal.

Things don't always age well. Yet, there's no guarantee what some things will
inspire. Consider Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles. "It blew me away," Eastman said, talking about Heavy Metal the
movie. "I saw it nine times at a local theater... after the same old
superhero comic schlock, this whole other universe opened to me."

Finally, there's the soundtrack. Surprising no one, the lineup is solid heavy
metal. Not the caustic murder cacophony of more modern acts, but the slick
grooving thunder of early pioneers. There's Black Sabbath when Dio reigned,
Blue Öyster Cult, Sammy Haggar, Nazareth, and Journey. Other stellar
contributors include Grand Funk Railroad, Devo, and Cheap Trick. An
assortment that easily shifts from psychedelic to sledgehammer but is always
in tune with the mood of the movie.

As Sammy Haggar sings, "it's your one-way ticket to midnight." Whatever that
means, Heavy Metal embodies it all. It's a midnight movie filled with
unapologetic content. By going over the top, it showed the limits don't
exist. At least not for the fearless. Perhaps it has become smirk inducingly
out of touch with the times, a bit too cheesy and sexist, but it can still be
a source of inspiration. For proof of that notion, look no further than the
Netflix series Love, Death, & Robots.

For years, director David Fincher wanted to do another Heavy Metal movie.
However, the project went through typical development hell problems.
Different directors kept being attached then lost, funding troubles, the
rights slipped through Fincher's fingers, until finally, he settled on a
different option. Unable to make a Heavy Metal film, he created a spiritual
successor of sorts in the shape of Love, Death, & Robots.

About to start its third season on Netflix, the series utilizes what is in
essence the Heavy Metal template to tell stories. Granted, critics are mixed
on their reactions. Perhaps Wired magazine said it best when their critic
wrote the show was "aiming at a particular retrograde subset of genre fans.
But sequence the show yourself, and you'll find an endlessly inventive
wellspring of ideas and visuals." The point is there's potential within this
spiritual successor to Heavy Metal to explore those avenues the initial film
didn't.

The internet is sadly lacking in obscurity. Everything is available in some
capacity or another. I often raise an eyebrow in shock not at what's
available online but what isn't. However, there used to be a time certain
content existed on the edge of urban legend.

Whispers in the comic book shop suggested an animated film existed that
spilled buckets of blood and wasn't shy about sex either. It sounded
implausible until one day, some friend of a friend of a friend passes along a
bootleg video. Then there it is, the mythical Heavy Metal. And even if it
didn't live up to expectations, it certainly changed them forever.

--
Let's go Brandon!