‘Tis the week for all things spooky, and here’s one from Heavy Metal and Romero Pictures: THE RISE, a motion comics documentary about the history of zombies and The Rise, the graphic novel sequel to Night of the Living Dead.
The documentary is produced by George C. Romero, the son of legendary film director George A. Romero (director of Night of the Living Dead), in partnership with Heavy Metal Entertainment. And just to keep things current, it will be released exclusively as an NFT at Crypto.com/NFT — which is pretty terrifying in itself.
You can watch the trailer here:
The idea of a “motion comic” documentary is pretty unique, as you can see from the above, the very nice pages from The Rise by artist Diego Yapur are used as the background for George C.’s story.
The digital NFT collection of The Rise is out today, and the supplementary edition — with background on the entire zombie genre — is available as 10 NFTS. Some more from the PR:
“NFTs are one of the most exciting new spaces for me,” said Romero. “To launch The Rise NFTs with Heavy Metal on Crypto.com is one of those next-gen moments for a brand that has endured for five decades. I love the excitement that bleeds from a Romero and Heavy Metal collaboration. Creating this with (Heavy Metal CEO) Matthew Medney has been one of the most rad-tastic projects I’ve had the honor of realizing. I’m so excited to see the future hitting both of our legacy brands with such force.”
The Rise NFTs, on the other hand, tell the story of the project’s formation. The documentary-style animated videos in the collection feature a voiceover by Romero, who recounts the decade-long struggle of finding The Rise a proper home — as well as what it was like to be raised by the godfather of the dead and the impact his father had on the zombie genre. With striking artwork by Diego Yapur, the comic’s pages were ripped straight from the magazine to create the bold animations that compliment Romero’s baritone drawl — which would be as at home narrating an outlaw Western. Heavy Metal and Romero are also developing a live-action series based on the comic, with plans for a number of other related productions.
The Rise is Heavy Metal’s sophomore collection on Crypto.com NFT, following an inaugural drop based on the Amazon No1 best-selling hard science fiction novel Beyond Kuiper by Heavy Metal CEO Matthew Medney — who recently spoke on the New York Comic Con panel, “NFTs and the Future of Collectibles” — as well as Lockheed Martin Space mechanical engineer John Connelly. Released in September, all of the drop’s 2120 “Karandu Galaxy: Planet Packs” sold out within 12 minutes. Collectibles such as the “Karandu Galaxy Map” and “Assembly of Planets” NFTs sold out nearly instantly, within minutes of their release — with all but one of the five individual collectibles selling out within 30. Romero’s collection is a highly-anticipated follow-up to the celebrated sci-fi, fantasy and horror publisher’s successful debut — and the main event in Crypto.com NFT’s “HODLween Week” lineup, in celebration of Halloween.
