1.
Jean Giraud
–
Jean Henri Gaston Giraud was a French artist, cartoonist and writer who worked in the Franco-Belgian bandes dessinées tradition. Giraud garnered worldwide acclaim predominantly under the pseudonym Mœbius and to a lesser extent Gir, esteemed by Federico Fellini, Stan Lee and Hayao Miyazaki among others, he has been described as the most influential bandes dessinées artist after Hergé. His most famous include the series Blueberry, created with writer Jean-Michel Charlier. As Mœbius he created a range of science fiction and fantasy comics in a highly imaginative, surreal. These works include Arzach and the Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius and he also collaborated with avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky for an unproduced adaptation of Dune and the comic book series The Incal. Mœbius also contributed storyboards and concept designs to numerous science fiction and fantasy films, such as Alien, Tron, The Fifth Element, in 2004, Moebius and Jodorowsky sued Luc Besson for using The Incal as inspiration for Fifth Element, a lawsuit which they lost. Blueberry was adapted for the screen in 2004 by French director Jan Kounen, when he was three years old, his parents divorced and he was raised mainly by his grandparents, who were living in the neighboring municipality of Fontenay-sous-Bois. The rupture between mother and father created a lasting trauma that he explained lay at the heart of his choice of pen names. He became close friends with comic artist, Jean-Claude Mézières, in no small part due to their shared passion for Westerns. In 1956 he left art school without graduating to visit his mother, who had married a Mexican in Mexico, after his return to France, he started to work as a full-time artist. At 18, Giraud was drawing his own comic Western strip, Frank et Jeremie, for the magazine Far West and it was for Fleurus that Giraud also illustrated his first three books. Already in this period his style was influenced by his later mentor. In 1961, returning from service in Germany, Giraud became an apprentice of Jijé. For Jijé, Giraud created several shorts and illustrations for the short-lived magazine Bonux-Boy, his first work after military service. In this period, Jijé used Giraud as his assistant on an album of his Western series Jerry Spring, The Road to Coronado, in 1962, Giraud and writer Jean-Michel Charlier started the comic strip Fort Navajo for Pilote Magazine #210. At this time the affinity between the styles of Giraud and Jijé was so close that Jijé penciled several pages for the series when Giraud went AWOL. The Lieutenant Blueberry character, whose features were based on those of the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, was created in 1963 by Charlier. While the Fort Navajo series had had originally intended as an ensemble narrative
2.
Horror fiction
–
Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle their readers or viewers by inducing feelings of horror and terror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon has defined the horror story as a piece of fiction in prose of variable length, which shocks or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing. It creates an eerie and frightening atmosphere, Horror is frequently supernatural, though it can be non-supernatural. Often the central menace of a work of fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears of a society. The genre of horror has ancient origins with roots in folklore and religious traditions, focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic and these were manifested in stories of beings such as witches, vampires, werewolves and ghosts. 18th century Gothic horror drew on these sources with the seminal and controversial The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole and this marked the first incorporated elements of the supernatural instead of pure realism. In fact, the first edition was published disguised as a medieval romance from Italy discovered and republished by a fictitious translator. Once revealed as contemporary, many found it anachronistic, reactionary, or simply in poor taste — but it proved to be immediately popular. That first novel of Gothic horror inspired such works as Vathek by William Beckford, A Sicilian Romance, The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian by Ann Radcliffe and The Monk by Matthew Lewis. A significant amount of fiction of this era was written by women and marketed at a female audience. The Gothic tradition blossomed into the modern readers call horror literature in the 19th century. Each of these novels and novellas created an icon of horror seen in modern re-imaginings on the stage. The proliferation of periodicals, as early as the turn of the century. One writer who specialized in fiction for mainstream pulps such as All-Story Magazine was Tod Robbins, whose fiction dealt with themes of madness. Later, specialist publications emerged to give horror writers an outlet, including Weird Tales, influential horror writers of the early 20th century made inroads in these mediums. Early cinema was inspired by aspects of horror literature, and early horror cinema started a strong tradition of horror films. This imagery made these comics controversial, and as a consequence they were frequently censored, many modern novels claim an early description of the living dead in a precursor to the modern zombie tale, including Dennis Wheatleys Strange Conflict, H. P. Lovecraft stories such as Cool Air, In The Vault, richard Mathesons novel I Am Legend would also influence an entire genre of apocalyptic zombie fiction emblematic of the films of George A. Romero
3.
National Lampoon (magazine)
–
National Lampoon was an American humor magazine which ran from 1970 to 1998. The magazine started out as a spinoff from the Harvard Lampoon, National Lampoon magazine reached its height of popularity and critical acclaim during the late 1970s, when it had a far-reaching effect on American humor and comedy. The magazine spawned films, radio, live theatre, various sound recordings, many members of the creative staff from the magazine subsequently went on to contribute creatively to successful media of all types. During the magazines most successful years, parody of every kind was a mainstay, almost all the issues included long text pieces, shorter written pieces, a section of actual news items, cartoons and comic strips. Most issues also included Foto Funnies or fumetti, which featured nudity. The result was a mix of intelligent, cutting-edge wit, combined with some crass. In both cases, National Lampoon humor often pushed far beyond the boundaries of what was considered appropriate. As co-founder Henry Beard described the years later, There was this big door that said. We touched it, and it fell off its hinges, the magazine declined during the late 1980s and never recovered. It was kept alive minimally, but ceased publication altogether in 1998, the magazines first issue was dated April 1970. The company that owned the magazine was called Twenty First Century Communications, after a shaky start for a few issues, the magazine rapidly grew in popularity. Like the Harvard Lampoon, individual issues had themes, including topics as The Future, Back to School, Death, Self-Indulgence. The magazine regularly reprinted material in best-of omnibus collections and its writers joyfully targeted every kind of phoniness, and had no specific political stance, even though individual staff members had strong political views. National Lampoon was a magazine for most of its publication history. Numerous special editions were published and sold simultaneously on newsstands. Some of the editions were anthologies of reprinted material, others were entirely original. Additional projects included a calendar, a songbook, a collection of designs for T-shirts. The magazine sold yellow binders with the Lampoon logo, designed to store a years worth of issues, the original art directors were cartoonist Peter Bramley and Bill Skurski, founders of New Yorks Cloud Studio, an alternative-culture outfit known at the time for its eclectic style
4.
Alejandro Jodorowsky
–
Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky is a Chilean-French film and theatre director, screenwriter, playwright, actor, author, poet, producer, composer, musician, comics writer, and spiritual guru. Born to Jewish-Ukrainian and Polish parents in Chile, Jodorowsky experienced an unhappy and alienated childhood, dropping out of college, he became involved in theater and in particular mime, working as a clown before founding his own theater troupe, the Teatro Mimico, in 1947. Moving to Paris in the early 1950s, Jodorowsky studied mime under Étienne Decroux before turning to cinema, from 1960 he divided his time between Paris and Mexico City, in the former becoming a founding member of the anarchistic avant-garde Panic Movement of performance artists. In 1966 he created his first comic strip, Anibal 5, while in 1967 he directed his first feature film, the surrealist Fando y Lis, the result was The Holy Mountain, a surrealist exploration of western esotericism. His son Cristóbal has followed his teachings on psychoshamanism, this work is captured in the feature documentary Quantum Men, directed by Carlos Serrano Azcona. Jodorowsky was born in 1929 in the town of Tocopilla, Chile, to parents who were Jewish immigrants from Yekaterinoslav, Elisavetgrad. His father, Jaime Jodorowsky Groismann, was a merchant, who was abusive to his wife Sara Felicidad Prullansky Arcavi. Angered, he beat and raped her, getting her pregnant. Because of this conception, Sara both hated her husband and disliked her son, telling him that I cannot love you. It was this treatment at the hands of Americans that led to his condemnation of American imperialism and neo-colonialism in Latin America in several of his films. Nonetheless he liked his local area, and was unhappy when he was forced to leave it aged nine years old. His family subsequently moved to the city of Santiago, Chile, becoming interested in the political ideology of anarchism, he began attending college, studying psychology and philosophy, but stayed for only two years. After dropping out, and having an interest in theatre and particularly mime, he took up employment as a clown in a circus and began a career as a theatre director. Meanwhile, in 1947 he founded his own troupe, the Teatro Mimico, which by 1952 had fifty members. Nonetheless, Jodorowsky felt that there was little for him left in Chile and it was while in Paris that Jodorowsky began studying mime with Étienne Decroux and joined the troupe of one of Decrouxs students, Marcel Marceau. It was with Marceaus troupe that he went on a world tour, after this, he returned to theatre directing, working on the music hall comeback of Maurice Chevalier in Paris. In 1957, Jodorowsky turned his hand to filmmaking, creating Les têtes interverties and it consisted almost entirely of mime, and told the surreal story of a head-swapping merchant who helps a young man find courtship success. The director Jean Cocteau admired the film, and wrote an introduction for it and it was considered lost until a print of the film was discovered in 2006
5.
Video game
–
A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device such as a TV screen or computer monitor. The word video in video game referred to a raster display device. Some theorists categorize video games as an art form, but this designation is controversial, the electronic systems used to play video games are known as platforms, examples of these are personal computers and video game consoles. These platforms range from large mainframe computers to small handheld computing devices, the input device used for games, the game controller, varies across platforms. Common controllers include gamepads, joysticks, mouse devices, keyboards, the touchscreens of mobile devices, and buttons, or even, with the Kinect sensor, a persons hands and body. Players typically view the game on a screen or television or computer monitor, or sometimes on virtual reality head-mounted display goggles. There are often game sound effects, music and, in the 2010s, some games in the 2000s include haptic, vibration-creating effects, force feedback peripherals and virtual reality headsets. In the 2010s, the game industry is of increasing commercial importance, with growth driven particularly by the emerging Asian markets and mobile games. As of 2015, video games generated sales of USD74 billion annually worldwide, early games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example is from 1947—a Cathode ray tube Amusement Device was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and issued on 14 December 1948, as U. S. Written by MIT students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanens on a DEC PDP-1 computer in 1961, and the hit ping pong-style Pong, used the DEC PDP-1s vector display to have two spaceships battle each other. In 1971, Computer Space, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was the first commercially sold and it used a black-and-white television for its display, and the computer system was made of 74 series TTL chips. The game was featured in the 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green, Computer Space was followed in 1972 by the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home console. Modeled after a late 1960s prototype console developed by Ralph H. Baer called the Brown Box and these were followed by two versions of Ataris Pong, an arcade version in 1972 and a home version in 1975 that dramatically increased video game popularity. The commercial success of Pong led numerous other companies to develop Pong clones and their own systems, the game inspired arcade machines to become prevalent in mainstream locations such as shopping malls, traditional storefronts, restaurants, and convenience stores. The game also became the subject of articles and stories on television and in newspapers and magazines. Space Invaders was soon licensed for the Atari VCS, becoming the first killer app, the term platform refers to the specific combination of electronic components or computer hardware which, in conjunction with software, allows a video game to operate. The term system is commonly used
6.
DC Comics
–
DC Comics, Inc. is an American comic book publisher. It is the unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. a division of Time Warner, the company has also published non-DC Universe-related material, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta and many titles under their alternative imprint Vertigo. The initials DC came from the popular series Detective Comics. Random House distributes DC Comics books to the market, while Diamond Comic Distributors supplies the comics shop specialty market. DC Comics and its major, longtime competitor Marvel Comics together shared 70% of the American comic book market in 2016, entrepreneur Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson founded National Allied Publications in autumn 1934. The company debuted with the tabloid-sized New Fun, The Big Comic Magazine #1 with a date of February 1935. That title evolved into Adventure Comics, which continued through issue #503 in 1983, in 2009 DC revived Adventure Comics with its original numbering. In 1935, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, created Doctor Occult. Wheeler-Nicholsons third and final title, Detective Comics, advertised with a cover illustration dated December 1936, the themed anthology series would become a sensation with the introduction of Batman in issue #27. By then, however, Wheeler-Nicholson had gone, Detective Comics, Inc. was formed, with Wheeler-Nicholson and Jack S. Liebowitz, Donenfelds accountant, listed as owners. Major Wheeler-Nicholson remained for a year, but cash-flow problems continued, shortly afterward, Detective Comics, Inc. purchased the remains of National Allied, also known as Nicholson Publishing, at a bankruptcy auction. Detective Comics, Inc. soon launched a fourth title, Action Comics, Action Comics #1, the first comic book to feature the new character archetype—soon known as superheroes—proved a sales hit. The company quickly introduced such popular characters as the Sandman and Batman. That year, Gaines let Liebowitz buy him out, and kept only Picture Stories from the Bible as the foundation of his own new company, at that point, Liebowitz promptly orchestrated the merger of All-American and Detective Comics into National Comics. Next he took charge of organizing National Comics, Independent News, National Periodical Publications became publicly traded on the stock market in 1961. The company began to move aggressively against what it saw as copyright-violating imitations from other companies, such as Fox Comics Wonder Man and this extended to DC suing Fawcett Comics over Captain Marvel, at the time comics top-selling character. Despite the fact that parallels between Captain Marvel and Superman seemed more tenuous, the courts ruled that substantial and deliberate copying of copyrighted material had occurred, faced with declining sales and the prospect of bankruptcy if it lost, Fawcett capitulated in 1955 and ceased comics publication
7.
Rutger Hauer
–
Rutger Oelsen Hauer is a Dutch actor, writer, and environmentalist. He has acted in both Dutch and English-language TV series and films and his career began in 1969 with the title role in the Dutch television series Floris. Hauer founded the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association, an AIDS awareness organization, Hauer was born on 23 January 1944 in Breukelen in the Netherlands. He is the son of drama teachers Teunke and Arend Hauer and he has three sisters, one older and two younger. Since his parents were occupied with their careers, he. He went to a Waldorf school, at the age of 15, Hauer ran off to sea and spent a year scrubbing decks aboard a freighter. Returning home, he worked as an electrician and a joiner for three years while attending acting classes at night school, Hauer served in the Royal Netherlands Navy. Hauer joined a troupe, with which he remained for five years before Paul Verhoeven cast him in the lead role of the 1969 television series Floris. The role made him famous in his country, and Hauer reprised his role for the 1975 German remake Floris von Rosemund. Hauers career changed course when Verhoeven cast him in Turkish Delight, the film found box office favour abroad and at home, and Hauer looked to appear in more international films. Within two years, Hauer made his English-language debut in the British film The Wilby Conspiracy, set in South Africa, the film was an action-drama with a focus on apartheid. Hauers supporting role, however, was noticed in Hollywood. During this period, he made Katie Tippel and worked again with Verhoeven on Soldier of Orange and these two films paired Hauer with fellow Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbé. Hauer made his American debut in the Sylvester Stallone film Nighthawks as a psychopathic and he continued to make an impression on audiences in The Hitcher, in which he played a mysterious hitchhiker tormenting a lone motorist and murdering anyone in his way. At the height of Hauers fame, he was set to be cast as RoboCop though the role went to Peter Weller. That same year, Hauer starred as Nick Randall in Wanted, in The Legend of the Holy Drinker, Hauer showed a more soulful side. Phillip Noyce also attempted to capitalize, with far less success, Hauer returned to science fiction with The Blood of Heroes, in which he played a former champion in a post-apocalyptic world. He also appeared in the Kylie Minogue music video On a Night Like This, in 1999, Hauer was awarded the Dutch Best Actor of the Century Rembrandt Award
8.
Bernie Wrightson
–
Wrightson was born October 27,1948 in Dundalk, Maryland. He received training in art from watching Jon Gnagy on television, reading comics, particularly those of EC and his early artistic influences were Frank Frazetta and Graham Ingels. He published a piece of fan art, containing a headstone bearing the inscription Berni Wrightson, Dec.15,1965, in 1966, Wrightson began working for The Baltimore Sun newspaper as an illustrator. The following year, after meeting artist Frank Frazetta at a convention in New York City. In 1968, he showed copies of his art to DC Comics editor Dick Giordano and was given a freelance assignment. Wrightson began spelling his name Berni in his work to distinguish himself from an Olympic diver named Bernie Wrightson. In 1968, he drew his first professional comic story, The Man Who Murdered Himself. He continued to work on a variety of mystery and anthology titles for both DC and, a few later, its principal rival, Marvel Comics. Like many artists in the 1970s and 1980s, Wrightson moved to New York in hopes of finding work with publishers such as DC Comics or Marvel Comics. At one point Wrightson lived in the same Queens apartment building as artists Allen Milgrom, Howard Chaykin, Simonson recalls, Wed get together at 3 a. m. Theyd come up and wed have popcorn and sit around and talk about whatever a 26,27 and our art, TV, you name it. I pretty much knew at the time, These are the good ole days, with writer Len Wein, Wrightson co-created the muck creature Swamp Thing in House of Secrets No.92 in a standalone horror story set in the Victorian era. And I said, You know, I just wrote a story that kind of feels like the way you feel now. I told him about Swamp Thing, and he said, I gotta draw that, in summer 1972 he published Badtime Stories, a horror/science fiction comics anthology featuring his own scripts and artwork, each story being drawn in a different medium. He and writer Marv Wolfman co-created Destiny in Weird Mystery Tales No,1, a character which would later be used in the work of Neil Gaiman. In the fall of 1972 the Swamp Thing returned in his own series, set in the contemporary world, Wrightson drew the first ten issues of the series. Abigail Arcane, a supporting character in the Swamp Thing mythos was introduced in issue No.3. Michael Kaluta illustrated the series, but Wrightson did contribute much to the issue in both pencils and inks, as well as inking the splash page of issue four
9.
Heavy Metal (magazine)
–
Heavy Metal is an American science fiction and fantasy comics magazine, known primarily for its blend of dark fantasy/science fiction and erotica. The French title translates literally as Howling Metal, when Mogel licensed the American version, he chose to rename it, and Heavy Metal began in the U. S. in April 1977 as a glossy, full-color monthly. The magazine later ran Stefano Tamburini and Tanino Liberatores ultra-violent RanXerox, since the color pages had already been shot in France, the budget to reproduce them in the U. S. version was greatly reduced. Mogel published Heavy Metal under the name HM Communications, Inc, HM Communications published 136 issues in 16 volumes from April 1977 – March 1992. Meanwhile, the original Métal Hurlant had ceased publication in France in 1987 and it resumed in July 2002, published by Les Humanoïdes Associés. Definitely intended for an older readership, Eastman took over publication of Heavy Metal with volume 16 in May 1992, under the name Metal Mammoth, Inc. Eastman sold the magazine to digital and music veteran David Boxenbaum, Eastman continued to serve as publisher of the magazine and is a minority investor in the new Heavy Metal. Heavy Metals high-quality artwork is notable, work by international fine artists such as H. R. Giger and Esteban Maroto have been featured on the covers of various issues. Terrance Lindalls illustrated version of Miltons epic poem Paradise Lost appeared in the magazine in 1980, many stories were presented as long-running serials, such as those by Richard Corben, Pepe Moreno and Matt Howarth. Illustrator Alex Ebel contributed artwork over the course of his career, an adaptation of the film Alien, written by Archie Goodwin and drawn by Walter Simonson, was published in the magazine in 1979. The founding editors of the American edition of Heavy Metal were Sean Kelly, the founding Design Director was Peter Kleinman. Kleinman was the Design Director of National Lampoon at the time and he created the original Heavy Metal logo design at the request of Len Mogel and Matty Simmons and was responsible for the launch and art direction from the first issue. The Heavy Metal Logo was Kleinmans homage to Kabel Black, one of his favorite fonts and it was an instant hit and has been used as the basic logo ever since. Later, a section labeled Dossier, was created by associate editor Brad Balfour. Dossier featured short pieces by a variety of writers, and was edited first by Balfour and then by Stathis, Stathis continued the tradition of focusing on pop culture figures to connect the magazine to the larger hip culture context. There were also interviews with media figures as Roger Corman, Federico Fellini, John Sayles. In the Winter of 1986 original Design Director Peter Kleinman was brought back on staff, kevin Eastman had acquired the magazine the year before and became both publisher and editor after that date. Comics writer Grant Morrison became editor in chief beginning with the April 2016 issue of the magazine, in 1981, an animated feature film was adapted from several of the magazines serials
10.
Richard Corben
–
Richard Corben is an American illustrator and comic book artist best known for his comics featured in Heavy Metal magazine. He is the winner of the 2009 Spectrum Grand Master Award, in 2012 he was elected to The Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame. Richard Corben was born on a farm in Anderson, Missouri, after working as a professional animator, Corben started doing underground comics, including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Rowlf, Fever Dreams and his own anthology Fantagor. In 1970 he began illustrating horror and science-fiction stories for Warren Publishing and his stories appeared in Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella,1984 and Comix International. He also colored several episodes of Will Eisners Spirit, all the stories and covers he did for Creepy and Eerie have been reprinted by Dark Horse Books in a single volume, Creepy Presents Richard Corben. The three stories he drew for Vampirella have been reprinted by Dynamite Entertainment in Vampirella Archives Vol.5, in 1975, when Moebius, Druillet, and Jean-Pierre Dionnet started publishing the magazine Métal Hurlant in France, Corben submitted some of his stories to them. He continued his work for the franchise in America, where the magazine was called Heavy Metal, also in 1975, a selection of his black-and-white underground comix stories was collected in hardcover as The Richard Corben Funnybook from Kansas Citys Nickelodeon Press. In 1976 he adapted a short Robert E. Howard story in a graphic novel. There, the boy becomes an enormously endowed nude muscleman who has adventures in a world of outrageous dangers, hideous monsters. From 1986–1994 Corben operated his own publishing imprint, Fantagor Press, among the titles Fantagor published were Den, Den Saga, Horror in the Dark, Rip in Time, and Son of Mutant World. Fantagor went out of business after the 1994 contraction of the comics industry, due to the sexual nature of Corbens art, it has been accused of being pornographic, a description he himself disagrees with. One notorious example was the interview he gave Heavy Metal editor Brad Balfour in 1981, Corben was very dissatisfied with the interview. He felt it portrayed him as a petty, childish, borderline psychotic oaf and he wrote a letter in retort, which was published in the September 1981 issue. Corben did the cover of Meat Loafs Bat Out of Hell, Jim Steinmans, Bad for Good, in addition, he provided cover art for the VHS release of the low-budget horror film Spookies. In 2000, Corben collaborated with Brian Azzarello on five issues of Azzarellos run on Hellblazer which was collected in a trade called Hellblazer and he also adapted the classic horror story The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson for DCs Vertigo imprint. In 2001, Azzarello and Corben teamed up to create Marvels Startling Stories, Banner, in June 2004, Corben joined with Garth Ennis to produce The Punisher, The End, a one-shot title for Marvel published under the MAX imprint as part of Marvels The End series. The story tells of The Punishers final days on an earth ravaged by nuclear holocaust, ever the independent, Corben would work with rocker Rob Zombie and Steve Niles in 2005 on a project for IDW Publishing called Bigfoot. In 2007, Corben did a two issue run on Marvel Comics surreal demon biker, Ghost Rider, at Marvels MAX imprint he has produced Haunt of Horror, a mini-series adapting classic works of horror to comics
