The adventures of Crystal & Manfred
“I really don’t know where the character of Crystal Steele came from. Her name is a dichotomy, pretty and feminine, yet hard and aggressive at the same time. Being the cool, sophisticated character that she is she had to have some sort of adventure, and her foil/partner was my “anti-Indiana Jones” character…”
Crystal Steele was great fun to create. I had done a sketch in 1982, based loosely on the character of Rachel, played by Sean Young in the movie “Blade Runner”, and from one of the scenes in the movie when Rachel is introduced this “retro” cybercop emerged.
I found a very accurate Poser prop of the standard-issue Blade Runner weapon on the Internet for her to hold, and she developed from there.
Manfred von Högenbüsem was loosely based on a mixture of Arthur Suydam’s comic character Cholly from “The Adventures of Cholly and Flytrap” and the “Rocketeer” character created by Dave Stevens.