Great Artwork from....He-Man?

[WizarDru]

An artist who worked on the original kid show version of "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" by Filmation back in the early 1980s and happened to notice that they were throwing away some pencil renders of their backgrounds used in the show and saved them.

They are, IMHO, old school AWESOME. Being rendered in blue makes them very reminiscent of the artwork from the classic AD&D modules and seem very appropriate for use as visual aids in any D&D game. But don't take my word for it, look for yourself:

You can find the whole collection that he's posted so far at his website. You can also read about his history with Filmation, if that sort of thing interests you (which, for me, it does).

 

[Glade Riven]

Cool.

On a side note, until Funimation the He-Man franchise was a Thundar the Barbarian knock off. It's too bad the writing oh He-Man wasn't nearly as good as the artwork.

 

[GreyLord]

The New Heman (the version put out on Cartoon Network about 2000? I think it was, not the New Adventures of Heman, the ones after that) was actually pretty awesome in storyline and writing. Animation was top notch for the time as well. Unfortunately that one was cancelled.

 

[Glade Riven]

True. According to Wikipedia, the writers were planning on introducing She-Ra in the next season.

Still, 30+ episodes is a decent run, especially since it often didn't have a good time slot. I think it was really Mattel that screwed it up, since most of the time the only toys on the shelf were He-Mans and Skelletors.

 

[Klaus]

Cool.

On a side note, until Funimation the He-Man franchise was a Thundar the Barbarian knock off. It's too bad the writing oh He-Man wasn't nearly as good as the artwork.

Actually, He-Man was not really like Thundarr.

In the original minicomics pencilled by the great Alfredo Alcala, He-Man was a youth from a barbarian tribe who sets out to on his own. He saves the Goddess (later the Sorceress, but with a snake motif instead of eagle) from savage beasts. She rewards him with ancient artifacts (the harness, bracers, a battleaxe and a shield... and boots) that increase his strength.

While building a hut with stones he quarried with his FISTS ('cause he's, like, Chuck Norris), He-Man is hailed by Man-at-Arms, a famous warrior that mastered the ancient technology of the past. Man-at-Arms and He-Man head to Castle Grayskull, where the evil Skeletor is trying to open a portal to his home dimension (where everyone is a Skeletor-like being) by sacrificing the warrior-maiden Teela (Skeletor and Beast-Man captured her earlier as she was letting her unicorn graze).

He-Man and Man-at-Arms rescue Teela and oust the villains from Castle Grayskull, which shuts itself (no one lives there). The ghost of the Castle (in the form of a skull) thanks the heroes.

 

[WizarDru]

Actually, He-Man was not really like Thundarr.

It's actually noted by the animator who's site this is, Robert Lamb, that his early work for Funimation on the series "Black Star", which I don't remember AT ALL, was built and green-lit entirely on the basis of how successful Thundarr was. I'm rather surprised by that, as I though Thundarr wasn't all that successful for ABC (much as I loved it's Kirby-esque craziness). But apparently it was fairly successful, even with only 21 episodes. Surprisingly there were never any toys related to the show, AFAIK.

 

[Erik Mona]

I was just enjoying my new Thundarr complete series DVD this morning.

Thanks for posting this link. The entire website was really interesting.

 

[Klaus]

It's actually noted by the animator who's site this is, Robert Lamb, that his early work for Funimation on the series "Black Star", which I don't remember AT ALL, was built and green-lit entirely on the basis of how successful Thundarr was. I'm rather surprised by that, as I though Thundarr wasn't all that successful for ABC (much as I loved it's Kirby-esque craziness). But apparently it was fairly successful, even with only 21 episodes. Surprisingly there were never any toys related to the show, AFAIK.

I remember Blackstar quite well (was my favorite cartoon before He-Man came along).

Blackstar was more "John Carter of Mars" (his name was actually John Blackstar), starring an Earth astronaut that crash-landed on an alien planet. There he was given half of the Cosmic Sword (the other half belonged to the main villain). If both halves were united, the wielder would attain PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWAH!

Also, Blackstar had a kickass dragon mount:

 

[Glade Riven]

While we're going down memory lane, Thundercats was totally written by D&D players. There was even one episode where Lion-O did a dungeon crawl.

 

[Argyle King]

I was under the impression that He-Man was a Conan knockoff. Changes were made to the source material when it was realized that the original R. Howard books weren't exactly kid friendly. ...or so I've heard