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

D. Gray-Man

I just started watching this interesting anime series, D. Gray-Man after it came highly recommended by my cousin (who is a big anime fan). The series (based on the manga created by Katsura Hoshino) follows 15-year-old Allen Walker, an exorcist who carries the burden of a dark past. Allen has the unique ability to see evil akuma (demons) when they are disguised, as well as a left arm that can transform into a weapon that can destroy the akuma. Allen joins a team of exorcists in the Black Order to battle The Millennium Earl. The Millennium Earl is an evil being that promises those in grief that he can bring back a deceased loved-one simply by having them say their name. Once they do that, the deceased comes back as an akuma and The Earl commands them to kill the one that brought them back. The Black Order is in a race with The Millennium Earl to collect all the pieces of “innocence,” which can be used as anti-akuma weapons while The Earl wants to destroy them.

The show has a total of 103 episodes in the series. This is a lot, considering that the majority of anime series last between 13 and 26 episodes. The sets (parts 1 & 2) each contain 13 episodes. So far the episodes have been well paced and exciting. I can only hope that this continues and we don’t see too many of the requisite “filler” episodes that many long-running anime shows tend to produce. This is definitely a series that warrants a look.