Undoubtedly the coolest, sexiest, and most sophisticated film about a comic book artist ever made, Alain Jessua’s 1967 Jeu de massacre is a stylized French new wave comedy that’s incredibly ahead of its time. Burnt-out comic book writer Pierre Meyrand (Jean-Pierre Cassel), and his illustrator/wife Jacqueline (sixties babe Claudine Auger), are visited in their office one day by a wealthy playboy with an overactive imagination who invites the couple to stay at his luxurious mansion in Switzerland. He quickly inspires Pierre and Jacqueline to create a new comic strip character based on him nicknamed “The Neuchatel Killer,” a womanizing bank robber who turns into a psychotic serial murderer. The line between fantasy and reality quickly gets blurred when the playboy begins living out his alter-ego’s exploits, drawing his house guests into his zany, disturbing delusions with him.

Who better to call on to illustrate Jeu de massacre‘s comic strip sequences than Belgian artist Guy Peellaert? A decade before he became famous for his rock ‘n’ roll album covers and movie posters, Peellaert was known for his psychedelic pop art which included the now legendary comic strip, Les Aventures de Jodelle, published in the controversial French magazine Hara-Kiri in 1966. For Jeu de massacre, Guy Peellaert brought the same level of groovy sex appeal to the big screen. His suave, colorful illustrations are perfectly edited into the narrative, visually punctuating the characters as they lose their grip on reality and succumb to Peellaert’s romantic pop art dreamworld.
 

 

 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
There was a time, long, long ago—as ridiculous as this might sound today—when being a Bee Gees fan was something one didn’t admit to in polite company. By the mid-80s, the Brothers Gibb had more or less been relegated to the “guilty pleasures” category and their second career wilderness. If you liked them, it had to be, you know, “ironic” or something.

But fuck that. It was around that time, when I was in my early 20s, that I personally started to go absolutely nuts for their music. In my world, only an asshole doesn’t like the Bee Gees. If you don’t like the Bee Gees, best to keep it to yourself around me if you want to retain my respect for your musical tastes. It’s like admitting to being secretly Republican.

I’m serious. I’ll just cut you off!
 

 
That said, as big of a Bee Gees fan as I am—I have nearly everything—I was never, ever able to get my hands on a copy of their 1968 Idea TV special from German television. This morning, while looking for something else entirely, I came across some pop art style promo clips for two of their songs that I’d never seen before and they blew me away. I assumed that these were from the wonderfully art-directed French TV series Dim Dam Dom, but upon doing a little searching around, I found that they were were in fact from Idea and that the entire special was on YouTube in very high quality. It’s phenomenal!

The German Idea TV special coincided with the release of the Bee Gees’ fifth album, Idea, in 1968 but was actually shot in Belgium. At the time, they were a five-piece band, the brothers Gibb along with Vince Melouney on guitar and vocals and Colin Petersen on drums. Their special guests are Brian Auger and The Trinity with Julie Driscoll (who are incredible) and Lil Lindfors, a Swedish singer who performs “Words” in Swedish.
 

 
It was directed by Jean-Christophe Averty, who also directed three of my very favorite things ever: the short film “Melody” aka “Histoire de Melody Nelson” starring Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, his WILD (and technically advanced) adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, and the incredible 1966 documentary A Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dali, which is hands down the very best film ever made about the painter. Averty has had a long and distinguished career in French TV, film and radio. The art direction, which owes much to the Beatles’ then-new Yellow Submarine, was done by the grand Guy Peellaert, the Belgian artist best-known for his cover for David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs and the Rock Dreams book.

The whole thing is amazing, but here’s the title number to whet your appetite. If you don’t get high from watching this, I can’t help you.
 

 
After the jump, the entire Bee Gees’ ‘Idea’ TV special…

 
The late Belgian painter Guy Peellaert (1934-2008) was called the “Michelangelo of Pop Art” for his amazing photo-realist style. Famous for his instantly recognizable album covers for David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs and It’s Only Rock and Roll for the Rolling Stones, Peeleart was also noted for his legendary million-selling coffee-table book, Rock Dreams, a collaboration with British rock writer Nik Cohn. Rock Dreams features 125 paintings by Peellaert of rockstars ranging from Frank Sinatra to Lou Reed in (often lurid) fantasy settings. It was something you’d see often in head shops and record stores in the 1970s. Many of the original paintings are owned by Jack Nicholson.
 

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young have this unmistakable feeling of déjà vu…
 

The King in his castle…
 

It’s only rock and roll…

Rock Dreams is a special favorite book of mine. I’ve had a copy since childhood that I got from the Columbia House Record Club when I joined for a penny. One day in the late 1980s, I came across a huge pile of hardback copies at the Strand Bookstore in NYC for $1 each. I bought the entire stack and gave them out as Christmas presents that year. It’s one of the best art books I’ve ever seen.
 

The Velvet Underground are beginning to see the light…
 

You’ll never guess where Frankie Goes to Hollywood got their name from...
 

Diamond Dogs, 1974
 

1960s vintage “Jodelle” poster
 
Less well-known are Peellaert’s sexy 60s posters for Paris strip club The Crazy Horse Saloon and his books The Adventures of Jodelle (one of my most prized possessions, I noticed that Fantagraphics Books republished it earlier this year) and Pravda with its title character based on gorgeous Françoise Hardy. (“Jodelle” was modeled on French pop singer Sylvie Vartan).
 

 
Below a super cool “Pravda” animation from 2001 featuring a soundtrack by The Rolling Stones, Missy Elliot and Joy Division.
 

 


 

 


 

 
Even less well-known are the incredible animated opening credits Peellaert did for 1967’s Jeu de Massacre (He also did the poster, too, obviously).
 

 
The late Belgian painter Guy Peellaert (1934-2008) was once called the “Michelangelo of Pop Art” for his amazing photo-realist style. Famous for his iconic album covers for David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs and It’s Only Rock and Roll for the Stones, Peeleart was also noted for his legendary million-selling coffee-table book, Rock Dreams, a collaboration with British rock writer writer Nik Cohn. Rock Dreams featured 125 paintings by Peellaert of rockstars ranging from Frank Sinatra to Lou Reed in (often lurid) fantasy settings. It was something you’d see often in head shops in the 1970s. Many of the paintings are owned by Jack Nicholson.
 

 
Rock Dreams is a special favorite of mine. I’ve had a copy since childhood that I got from the Columbia House Record Club when I joined for a penny. One day in the late 80s, I came across a huge pile of hardback copies at the Strand Bookstore in NYC for $1 each. I bought the entire stack and gave them out as Christmas presents that year. It’s one of the best art books I’ve ever, ever seen.
 

 

 

 
Less well-known are Peellaert’s sexy 60s posters for Paris strip club The Crazy Horse Saloon (I used to have a few, but the tube they were kept in got lost during a NYC to LA move) and his books The Adventures of Jodelle (one of my most prized possessions) and Pravda with its title character based on gorgeous Francoise Hardy. (“Jodelle” had been modeled on French pop singer Sylvie Vartan). Below a super cool “Pravda” animation that Peellaert did in 2001 featuring a soundtrack by The Rolling Stones, Missy Elliot and Joy Division.
 

 

 
Even less well-known is the animated opening credits for Peellaert did for 1967’s Jeu de Massacre. (He also did the poster, too, obviously). Revel in New York describes it like this:
 

Two cartoonists meet a playboy who lives out the fantasies created in their cartoons. He hires them to create a new comic strip. As they work on the new strip, the playboy begins to live it out. Unfortunately, the new strip deals with murder.