Resurrection in Metal Hurlant's HELLFEST SPECIAL.
Olivier Ledroit’s brilliant work in progress cover for our nine-page story for the Metal Hurlant Hellfest special.
This is Olivier Ledroit’s brilliant work in progress cover of Lemmy for our nine-page story for the Metal Hurlant Hellfest special.
And here’s his Lemmy on a limited editionZippo lighter:
There are only two of these Zippo lighters: one is for Olivier, and the other is to be auctioned at Angouleme to raise funds for his charity, Autism and Comics.
Hellfest is a Heavy Metal rock festival in France and is one of the biggest in Europe. There’s always been a Heavy Metal connection in our Requiem Vampire Knight series.
We had the Heavy Metal Pirates, whom Black Sabbat (Aleister Crowley) sent on a (very long, very distant) quest. There was the proposed fashion line of Requiem Heavy Metal clothing, which only got as far as the prototypes but were pretty amazing. And now this Resurrection story for Metal Hurlant.
I’m thrilled for our Requiem world to feature in Metal Hurlant (now appearing quarterly), because the French magazine was one of the primary sources of inspiration for my stories in 2000AD and the general tone of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. Bilal, Caza (for Nemesis), Druillet (for Nemesis), Conquering Armies (for Slaine). And Moebius in a general kind of way, although I don’t recall being directly influenced by his stories. For me, they were a little arthouse for the readership I was aiming for.
And I was always at odds with British fans of Metal Hurlant who talked about Moebius in hushed tones of reverence the way Catholics talk about the Pope. Probably that’s why they annoyed me. So, predictably, British Metal Hurlant fans hated Conquering Armies with a passion – and I loved it with equal passion, because I knew it was the perfect artist template for Sláine. Because I was creating Sláine for younger readers, not for purists. History proved me right, but I think it still chokes them to this day. Good!
And I’m writing not just a story for Olivier, but a further five-page Hellfest story for Thimothee Montaigne, a top, best-selling French bande dessinée artist who is expanding our Requiem universe with an Otto Vampire Knight story we’re working on together.
I’m so pleased that career-wise, whilst my peers took the American high road, I took the low road to France. Not just for financial reasons – after Manga, France is the world leader in comics and, for me at least, pays better than the States – but for the sake of my sanity.
Writing superheroes would have cost me too much mentally. I still hate them to this day, perhaps more than ever because I no longer have the outlet of Marshal Law to vent how much I despise these blatant symbols of imperial US power. The brilliant ‘European’-orientated work of Heavy Metal and Warren Comics doesn’t seem to be around much anymore, alas. All seems to have been engulfed by stories about men in tights who have distorted and devalued the very meaning of the word ‘hero’. So thank Grud for French comics including Metal Hurlant, Requiem Vampire Knight, and my current SHA kickstarter – see below.
Heavy Metal, for me, takes over from punk and other forms of protest, as a valuable outlet and a righteous scream of rage against the establishment. So, in my Hellfest stories, famous dead Heavy Metal bands are playing, and equally famous shitbags are burning in Hell. They’re all the politicians I loathe, so, yes, of course Tony Blair is there, centre-stage. He may have escaped justice at the Hague, but he doesn’t escape the Wickerman!
The bands are competing for prestigious Burroughs awards. Special thanks to Andrew Mcilwaine for Burroughs and other ideas he suggested to me. Thus, I didn’t know that William Burroughs first established the term Heavy Metal with his Heavy Metal Kids, which must have also inspired John Wagner to produce the robot version in his Judge Dredd break-out story the Robot Rebellion.
As you can see, Lemmy occupies a special place in Olivier’s heart and in mine, too. He is the host in our story. I was so moved by Lemmy’s 1916:
16 years old when I went to the war
To fight for a land fit for heroes
God on my side, and a gun in my hand
Chasing my days down to zero
If there had ever been a Charley’s War TV series (we came close but it was blocked by the State alongside all other anti-war productions during the Centenary years), this would surely have been a great intro track. Like Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand song in Peaky Blinders. I won’t say more about the story other than adding that Euronymous from the band Mayhem also features. If you know about Euronymous, you will know he is an absolute gift to a comic book writer!
Alongside Olivier’s Resurrection story, I’m currently working on Thim’s, which interlinks with it, so ideas may change as we develop it. But it started with a great suggestion from Olivier to feature the memorable lines from The Exorcist ‘Your Mother sucks cocks in Hell.’
This is another reason I’m fond of Heavy Metal: its ‘blasphemous’ lyrics. So I enjoyed the research – looking at Jesus Christ Sodomized by Marduk, Blow Your Trumpet, Gabriel by Behemoth, Dechristianize by Vital Remains and Fuck the Ways of Christ by Acheron. Like the bands, my intention is to expose the pure evil of the Church and I have some hard and disturbing facts to inspire me. So I have a band singing the most ‘blasphemous’ song imaginable in order to try and win a Burroughs. As you can see – with such titles as above – they are up against stiff competition! I’m afraid I couldn’t make the bands Cannibal Corpse, or Possessed – who have both released tracks inspired by the Exorcist – as they are still alive and our stories are all about dead bands.
Our Hellfest tales will appear in Metal Hurlant, and I would hope they will be reprinted as a bonus story at the end of Requiem Vampire Knight Vol. 13, published in approximately 18 months time. So the digital version will also be available to read in English, published through Millsverse. It’s also possible that the US Heavy Metal magazine – hopefully being revived next year – might reprint it, or some other English comic magazine.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for more Hellish and ‘blasphemous’ tales, then SHA, also by Olivier Ledroit and myself, could give you what you’re seeking and more.
A physical English edition will soon be available! Two versions in fact. An exclusive deluxe Kickstarter volume (with lots of extras). And a standard hard cover version. The story was originally turned down by a top French publisher because of its anti-Christian tone. I take that as a huge compliment! The city it portrays – New Eden – is literally Hell on Earth!
I love Lemmy in the underworld. I backed the Sha Kickstarter and I am delighted to hear that a French publisher turned it down because it was perceived as anti-Christian! That makes it even more enticing to me.
Wow! Incredibly awesome art of the Legendary Mr. Lemmy Kilmister AKA The one and only Orgasmatron, our national treasure.... and a story in progress :))....could we please have prints of this cover made available asap whence completed....What a tribute....can't wait....Motorhead in a comic strip?....it's blown my circuits already....seem to remember an unnamed appearance in 2000AD long time previous....