Eros' Pet Satyrs and Nymphs Conceptual Sketch #4

PITCH FOR: Jean-Pierre Dionnet, Editor at Métal hurlant.

MODEL: Sylvie Yvette Cardot, l' hôtesse de l'air ("stewardess"), Air France, 1987.

LOCATION: Monarch Beach, California and Champs Elysees in Paris, France.

STORY: In the first week of March 1987 while I was on my annual leave from the Marine Corps and nearly six months before I traveled to Egypt for the Bright Star '87 Exercises at Inshas, Egypt, one of my Air France flight attendant neighbors, Sylvie, brought me a business card with personal contact information for one of the editors for the French magazine Métal hurlant (literal translation: "Howling Metal"). Late in the wee hours of the early AM she woke me up in my condo and had me place the call to journalist-writer Jean-Pierre Dionnet who was one of the four founding members of the editorial staff--the "Les Humanoïdes Associés" (United Humanoids), which was the publishing house releasing Métal hurlant.

Having successfully sold my monthly Biker Werewolf drawings to Paisano Publications back in 1985 and having a number of my drawings printed up by Gore Graphics as posters, Sylvie was certain I'd make it into both the French and the American publications which I collected religiously during those years.

I rendered Sylvie as one of my mythological Greek woodland nymphs with Berol Prisma pencils and inked her with Dr. Martin quill point inks in the early afternoon of the following day as one of my tastefully and forensically (All-natural) preference for the real girl look, which was considered a fetish back in those years. She booked me a seat on her return flight to Paris that afternoon which was a "Redeye" out of LA with a stopover in New York's LaGuardia International.

With a full leather portfolio case busting loose with my originals, Sylvie ensured that I met with several people including M. Dionnet at dinner in an apartment at 5 Rue Lincoln after a brief sleep in Paris. The complex was called the Champs Elysees-Lincoln. After dessert I began sketching a quick satyr with his Pan Pipes flute. I received very encouraging feedback, verbal promises backed by a strong handshake and left a number of colored Xerox samples as well as a few photo prints. Four days later, I flew home on Sylvie's next flight stateside.

The rose element in the drawing was my first rose sketch ever. My maternal grandmother--who was a painter of roses and my secretary at the time--was thrilled.

That trip to Paris included sketch time for some attention-seeking at the outdoor cafes along the Seine River as well as a visit to Notre Dame Cathedral. THe mini vacation prevented the trip from being a waste of time as Les Humanoïdes Associés shuttered Métal hurlant in July of 1987 around four-and-a-half months later.

Many fans enjoying the comics and sci-fi/fantasy art genre knew the magazine to be the very same published in the United States by National Lampoon under the title Heavy Metal. It was published in Germany under the title Schwermetall .

It was recently announced in 2020 that the magazine was to be relaunched in 2021. It will be a "two-headed", transatlantic (France-US) magazine, with a French, English, Spanish and Portuguese version, under the French name.