Category: The Art of Insurgence: ’80s Animated Sci-Fantasy

Loc-Nar Never Stood a Chance

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Image from South Park’s satire of Heavy Metal (1981), titled “Major Boobage." Kenny McCormick rides on a satirical dinosaur-bird with a satirical maiden of Taarna behind him. Her boobs are on Kenny's head. They are flying in the bright, blue sky above a desert mountain landscape.

|Elizabeth Mathers| My (unknowing) introduction to Heavy Metal (1981) was South Park’s Season 12, Episode 3 “Major Boobage.” An absolutely transcendent piece of comedy. I know others also took this episode as an entry point into finding one of the greatest animated films. Heavy Metal is the gift that keeps on giving—great art,… Continue reading

CARTOONS! CHAOS! CLASSIC ROCK! How HEAVY METAL Almost Became What I Wanted—and Why That Almost Matters

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|Jay Ditzer| The reputation of the animated cult classic Heavy Metal rests on promises it largely can’t keep. Sure, it’s full of sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll, at least superficially. What it actually delivers is something more revealing. The film is deeply of its era, which is both a strength and a weakness. Continue reading

When The Wind Blows and How Nostalgia Lies to Us

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|Wil McMillen| Everyone is scared. Everyone is broke. Unemployment is skyrocketing. There’s a madman in the White House who is threatening to blow up anyone who looks at him wrong.  It’s 1983, and I’m eight years old. Nostalgia for the 1980s is amusing to me. The 80s, at least the early 80s… Continue reading

My Short Bestselling Memoir about the Japanese Animated Film Vampire Hunter D

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|MH Rowe| A lot of art seems gruesome and tasteless when you’re twelve or thirteen years old. It repels and attracts you for exactly that reason. Later, when you’ve reached maturity or thereabouts and are better equipped with the faculty of judgement, you may have a… Continue reading

Son of The White Mare: Formalistic Creativity Bursting Through Repression

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|Ed Dykhuizen| Communism does not create a great environment for filmmaking. Communist governments tend to try to control everything, especially how people think. All art becomes state propaganda limited to a handful of party-friendly messages and forms. You have to… Continue reading

Gone with the Wind Rider: Shintoism in Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

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|Lars Johnson| In the early 1980s, an idealistic Japanese animator entered into an agreement with a magazine to create a manga on the condition that it would not be turned into a feature film. The series immediately took off and became popular. The publisher, presumably caught… Continue reading

Don’t Stomp On Bugs

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|Noah Frazier| Bugs are gross. They look scary. They’ve got creepy legs and weird pincer mouths. A lot of them have an alarming amount of eyes. They bite, they sting. Sometimes they…let me double check my notes here…drink! your! blood! Like it’s a tasty treat to them!… Continue reading