Paris (AFP)
Métal Hurlant, cult magazine dedicated to science fiction comics, which disappeared 15 years ago, will be reborn in the form of a quarterly offering in turn new creations and reissues.
The first issue will be released in September, on newsstands and in bookstores, with dozens of contributors including Enki Bilal.
On 288 pages, it will offer 225 pages of short comic books and 60 pages of articles and interviews, around the theme of "near future", the coming anticipation.
Originality of the project: the new Métal Hurlant will change theme with each issue and will alternate between two formulas.
One dedicated to new stories and new talents, and the other in "vintage" mode, which will reissue rarities and treasures from the old magazines, explained to AFP Vincent Bernière, journalist, author and publisher, and managing editor of the new magazine.
A way of playing on two fronts, targeting both new readers and older ones, attached to the old title.
And which is based on the example of the launch in recent years of "vintage" versions of other cultural magazines such as Première Classic.
This will reborn a magazine that has remained legendary for fans of SF, which has influenced until Ridley Scott ("Alien") and George Lucas, the father of Star Wars, and helped science fiction to come out of the underground to become the major genre it is today, especially in cinema and television.
Métal Hurlant was created in 1975 by the associated Humanoids.
This publishing house is the idea of an incredible trio of authors and designers: Jean-Pierre Dionnet, comic strip critic, music and cinema with impressive erudition, Philippe Druillet, designer "of extraordinary plastic strength" today recognized as a great master, and Moebius, Jean Giraud of his real name, "pure genius" and great master of comics, summarizes Vincent Bernière.
- "The standard of a movement" -
They felt that SF did not have the place it deserved in the comic book magazines of the time, like Pilote.
And their magazine, initially reserved for adults, helped make it a recognized genre.
"Métal Hurlant has never been a magazine for the general public", underlines Vincent Bernière.
But alongside other publications as with other publications such as L'Echo des savanes or Fluide Glacial, "he was the banner of a general movement around the so-called adult comic strip, which was until then considered as childish, even repulsive, and relegated to fanzines ".
The magazine stopped in 1987 and was relaunched for the first time in 2002, with a bimonthly formula that only lasted two years.
A final issue was published in 2006.
It was Vincent Bernière who had the idea of relaunching this lost title with "Les Humanoïdes associés", after having successfully recreated "Les Cahiers de la BD".
In both cases, the project is based on a title with a strong identity.
And if the written press is plunged into a difficult context, the comic strip magazines retain many advantages, according to him, including the fact that the stories they publish are difficult to adapt in digital, unlike other types of publications.
"The screen does not allow you to dive into too long stories", changes the sequencing of stories and will never offer the same pleasure as reading a story printed on quality paper, he argues.
The new magazine is already generating enthusiasm.
A campaign launched on the Kisskissbankbank platform collected more than 5,500 presales in less than 10 days.
© 2021 AFP