Interview: Sean Hartter- Artist

                                 Remember this classic movie?

If not, don't worry, you're not crazy (as far as I can tell). Can you imagine it if it was made? Brilliant casting, right? This poster comes from the mad genius that is Sean Hartter and it is just one in a series of posters in which he casts actors in roles which should've, could've and would've been had he been a studio head. If you pop on over to his blog (Hartter), you'll see posters for Clint Eastwood as Wolverine, Boris Karloff as Freddy Krueger, Brad Pitt as Plastic Man and (my favorite) Gary Busey as Bizarro amongst others. Sean took some time out to answer some questions and tell us what's next on his plate:

I'm a big fan of your movie posters. You've made some inspired casting choices. Can you take us through the process of making one?

I usually get the basic concept when I'm driving or watching TV and I get that germ of an idea down, find some pictures of the cast and create a rough layout. Then as I'm working on the picture I mull over in my head things like "Who would I want to do music for a Bizarro movie starring Gary Busey?" (Nelson Riddle, composer of the original Batman theme) Or "Who would direct a 'Masters of the Universe' movie starring John Phillip Law, Christina Lindberg and Boris Karloff as Skeletor?" (Mario Bava, who directed Law in 'Danger: Diabolik' and Karloff in 'Black Sabbath'). I try to assemble the idea so that all of the names involved are more or less part of the same era, so maybe the movie could have happened or did happen in an adjacent universe, a universe where the Nazis won the war and Carrot Top was never born.

Do you have a favorite piece?

Of my own? Maybe the X rated "Robo Cop" movie starring Wings Hauser.

What artists inspire you?

I'm the bastard son of 10,000 artists hahaha...Saul Bass right off the bat, Aidan Hughes aka BRUTE!, Genndy Tartakovsky, Edward Gorey, Jack Kirby, Frank Frazetta, Mike Mignola. Frank Miller probably the most out of anyone since I read the one two punch of the Wolverine mini-series and "The Dark Knight Returns" back in the day. "DKR" is my favorite thing ever. All of my art sensibilities come from that book.

Can you tell us a little about the other projects you've worked on, "Brothermaniac" and "Torture Chamber"?

"Brothermaniac" is a musical collaboration between 5 people, all of us longtime friends, though its primarily Doug Salvador's project as he creates 99.9% of the music and spends all the wee hours mixing and tying it all together. Kinda rap-rock-industri-techno-metal in a nutshell. For Dante Tomaselli's "Torture Chamber", I created the official posters as well as a bit of the score. Dante is making a film that is a real throwback to the days of great horror flicks like "The Sentinel" and "Suspiria". All of the music I did for "Torture Chamber" was highly influenced by Goblin's film scores, especially "Suspiria".

Any new pieces/projects in the pipeline?

Highest on the to do list for me is a book cover for a kid's book as well as working on a 15 minute animated cartoon "pilot" featuring the character I created, Nobody the Idiot. There's a bunch of other stuff too but those are on the burner right now.

 

 

To check out Hartter's Gallery at deviantart.com click here