Heavy Metal Magazine teams up with Crypto.com to offer NFT collectors opportunities to collaborate on original stories

The “Writing With the Legends” Collection Will Allow NFT Holders to Participate in the Creation of Original Stories and Intellectual Property to be Published by the Iconic Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror Publication

Heavy Metal has survived the roller-coaster media industry for 45 years, and now the iconic comics magazine is embracing Web 3.0 and making a move into nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in a partnership with Crypto.com to offer NFT collectors opportunities to collaborate on original stories.

Today, Crypto.com NFT announced an upcoming collection with fantasy, science fiction and horror publisher Heavy Metal Magazine, the first of its kind on the highly-curated non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace. Embracing web3 ideology, on February 4, Heavy Metal is offering a revolutionary collection that will include medallion animations — each granting collectors who hold the tokens on specified date access to one of five corresponding private channels on Heavy Metal’s Discord server, in which holders will be able to collaborate on the creation of a story with the Heavy Metal writing team.

Two of the five stories will be shorts based on the iconic lore of Heavy Metal’s flagship heroine “Taarna” and “Cold Dead War,” to be published in the legendary magazine — while the other three will become entirely original standalone graphic novels in the fantasy, horror and science fiction genres, respectively. Furthermore, all collaborators who wish to will be credited and the stories will be registered in the public domain — allowing collectors to use them, excluding canon from Heavy Metal’s intellectual property, in future creations.

“When I started looking at the NFT and blockchain space, I saw the future of content bleed from a paradigm of ‘look what I made’ to ‘look how we accomplished this,’” said Heavy Metal CEO Matthew Medney. “This project we are doing with Crypto.com NFT is the first of its kind — a true partnership between creative professionals and creative enthusiasts, putting the lovers of fiction with Heavy Metal’s best to create original new stories for everyone to enjoy. It is a first, but it won’t be a last. It’s in Heavy Metal’s DNA to be trailblazers in media and content, and I couldn’t be prouder of the team we have that looks to accomplish the daring, the unproven and the bold. Web3 is a chance for voices to be heard by bringing the creative process to the masses.”

The collaborative effort will include polls and suggestions from the community, with Heavy Metal writers drafting content for its approval. Collectors will also help determine the artists for each project. Once the five stories are complete, the community will vote on their favorite original characters from each — excluding any canonical Heavy Metal characters such as Taarna and Nelson from “Cold Dead War,” both of which have roots in the cult classic 1981 animated “Heavy Metal” anthology film — and the five winning characters will be turned into profile picture (PFP) projects that will be airdropped for free to each corresponding medallion holder, at the time of the drop. Each individual PFP token will grant 100% of its commercial rights to the holder, allowing them to use the depicted character and its public domain story however they choose. Full details are subject to change and will be available on the collection’s landing page when the drop goes live.

“I don’t think anything like this has ever been done in the NFT space,” said Crypto.com Executive Vice President and Global Head of NFT Joe Conyers III. “Heavy Metal consistently brings revolutionary ideas to the table — it’s who they are — and I’m genuinely excited to see what the community comes up with, creatively. This is the future of collaborative storytelling.”

The “Writing With the Legends” drop follows several others by the countercultural comic book publisher on the Crypto.com NFT platform: a collection based on the Amazon No. 1 best-selling hard science fiction novel “Beyond Kuiper” by Medney and Lockheed Martin Space mechanical engineer John Connelly in September, featuring work by street artist Thumbs; an animated short film NFT based on George C. Romero’s “The Rise,” a comic book prologue to his father George A. Romero’s 1968 classic zombie movie “Night of the Living Dead,” released as the main event in Crypto.com NFT’s “HODLween Week” Halloween lineup in October; and a sold-out Krampus-themed collection released for the holiday season in December. To date, Heavy Metal has generated over $600,000 in initial sales on the NFT marketplace — making it one of the platform’s top six creators.

Crypto.com NFT is a carefully curated platform for collecting and trading non-fungible tokens by creators, celebrities, and brands from the worlds of art, design, entertainment, sports, and fashion — including the Aston Martin Formula One Team, BossLogic, Boy George, Heavy Metal Magazine, Lega Serie A, Lionel Richie, Mr. Brainwash, Snoop Dogg and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), among many other high-profile artists and clients. Crypto.com NFT was founded on a principle of sustainability, with artworks minted using a proof-of-stake model, and is powered by Crypto.com — which has committed to becoming carbon negative. More information is available at Crypto.com/NFT. Follow Crypto.com NFT on Twitter and Instagram: @cryptocomnft.

First published in 1977, Heavy Metal magazine revolutionized comics with its fantastic worlds and visionary science fiction. Daring writers and illustrators from around the world took stunned readers to places they never dreamed existed.

Since then, Heavy Metal has developed into the world’s foremost illustrated magazine, a platform for countercultural artists worldwide, from European legends like Moebius, Enki Bilal and Pepe Morena to subversive American stars like Richard Corben, Vaughn Bode and Frank Frazetta. Its dangerous content — notorious for fusing science fiction with sexuality, psychedelia and social criticism — has served as an inspirational epicenter for the world’s most influential creators.

Directors who credit Heavy Metal as inspiration include the likes of Ridley Scott, Guillermo Del Toro, Chris Columbus, Jon Faverau and James Cameron; iconic films drawn from Heavy Metal’s imagery include “Alien,” “Blade Runner,” “Mad Max,” “The Fifth Element” and more. After 45 years of mind-bending creation, led by CEO and best-selling novelist Matthew Medney and an incredible team of misfits and exceptional creatives, Heavy Metal is expanding into modern entertainment by creating the next generation of groundbreaking science fiction, fantasy and horror.

While Heavy Metal magazine continues to publish monthly stories from the best minds in comics — lead by Publisher, Associate Publisher and Executive Editor David Erwin, Kris Longo and Joseph Illidge — Heavy Metal Studios is spearheaded by President and Head of Studio Tommy Coriale, as he and Medney develop TV and films from Heavy Metal’s rich library of IP. Heavy Metal is once again shaking pop culture to its core by plunging headlong into revolutionary worlds and dizzying new futures. If you’ve been a fan of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror for the last 40-plus years, then you’re welcome — because this is our time to own the genre we have given so much to. Get ready….