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JOSHUA: Talk about the founding of Metal Hurlant.  

JEAN-PIERRE: It began in the publication field in France. Phillipe Druillet had brought me to the science fiction magazine, Pilot. There was no room for us in the publication because there were old timers who we were competing with who had been working in the field since the beginning. The editors of the magazine were prudish and didn’t want to do anything edgy, or with sex, so we left and founded our own magazine. We created our own opportunities.

There was me, Druillet, Moebius and a few years later Jodorowsky joined us.

JOSHUA: What was it like in those early days?

JEAN-PIERRE: From the first issue we were very sure of ourselves. We didn’t have a large office, we had two rooms. A sort of concierge space. We printed 50,000 copies of issue number one and we sold 20,000 copies. When the issues came back we had to store them in the other room. Number two returned a little less. Three was better and so on. At first we were publishing every three months and then we became a monthly. Issue 20 was when we started to get successful.

Eventually, we became the biggest magazine in the field.


JOSHUA: Aside from Len Mogel, who bought the American Rights to do the magazine in the U.S., were there any other interested parties?

JEAN-PIERRE: The only other guy was from Penthouse, Bob Guccione. But he said there’s not enough sex and then he created Omni magazine. I went to his place and it scared me to death. It was a huge skyscraper with five empty floors. There were women dressed as nuns, scantily clad ... you could see everything. There were  20 women. He was the exorcist living in a deviated church with nuns with a  harem. He was like Heffner, but loved science fiction.

JOSHUA: What was Moebius like?

JEAN-PIERRE: Incredible.  He had a great sense of humor and would tell bad jokes all day long. Very bad jokes. He could emulate the style of any artists in the world. He was absorbing them all the time. He had to know everything to create his worlds. He was the nicest fellow in the world, but could be also the meanest guy in the world. I mean that.

Once Moebius drew a very ugly cover for The Incal. The drawing just didn’t work. The leg was too long and I looked at it and I got home during the weekend and called him. I said “Jean, we have a problem, could you come in tomorrow morning?” When we met, he told me, “I did the bad cover because I thought Moebius could get away with anything. Here’s the real cover.” He was playing with everyone.

Moebius illustrated multiple books on the same day. In the morning he would do Blueberry and we would take an hour break to go to the beach, afterwards he would draw something else. We would spend time together, but his arm would be separate, drawing something like a centaur. He was the monster!

JOSHUA: Looking back, do you have any funny stories you want to share that fans might not know?

JEAN-PIERRE: George Miller who created Mad Max loved the magazine. If you compare the Mad Max and Metal Hurlant logos, they are extremely similar. In fact, Miller  wanted to make the title Metal Hurlant. He visited our office to request permission. Off the plane he was dressed like Crocodile Dundee. I didn’t believe he was capable of making a good movie and denied his request.

He wanted it, because he thought Mad Max was a continuation of Metal Hurlant.

And he was right and I was wrong!

JOSHUA: Why did the American version of Metal Hurlant outlive the European version?

JEAN-PIERRE: I don’t know. Metal Hurlant was a short venture - started in 1974 and died about ten years later. And it was very good this way. I don’t think it was meant to become a regular magazine. It was more of a big concept - like a massive bomb that exploded, but after a while, the chain reaction burnt out. When there was a revival in the 2000s I did not like it because it was not a magazine like Heavy Metal. Some of the great artists of Metal Hurlant disappeared. A lot of artists were repeating what we were doing at the time. It wasn’t new.  What I like about Heavy Metal is that it has changed many times over the years.

Since it changed it could go on.

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