Heavy Metal #315

I got my copy of Heavy Metal #315 via ebay in early April, and it has 144 pages with the $13.99 (USD) cover price.  Mine is the Cover A by Kim Jung Gi, with Vasator and Crunch hacking up some insectoid creatures.  Also, inside the HM logo is a part of a scene with Taarna, it appears, with perhaps some insect-y foes as well.  It's fragmentary and not clear.  Photo of my copy:

It's pretty energetic, I'll give it a 6.

We are spared the Big Shots' blatherings this issue.  Instead a simple full page In Memoriam for Ivan Reitman, whose involvement with Heavy Metal is in producing the 1981 Heavy Metal Movie.  Mr Reitman was featured in the "Imagining Heavy Metal" documentary included in the Columbia Pictures DVD of the movie.

"The Axe" by Joe Trohman, Brian Posehn, Scott Koblish, Diego Fichera, Lucas Gattoni, Morgan Rosenblum - 7 - Misfit suburban detritus high school kids, encounter "The Axe", an evil mysterious scary guitar, in a seedy guitar shop.  Stereotypical characterizations, but I like the energy of the art.  It ends with a fine splash page promising some freaky otherworldly horrors, despite being another unfortunate two-page spread.  And it's "Te Be Continued" so we hopefully get to see some of that promise realized.

"Engagers - Part 1" by Matthew Medney, Bruce Edwards, John Roi Mercado, William Soares, Lucas Gattoni, Morgan Rosenblum - 4 - More of the same as in the Preview in #314, social media tech startup enjoys unbelievable engagement.  I'm not excited by the art or storytelling, but at least the question is asked:  we could, but "should we?"  It says "To Be Contintued", but should it?

"Swamp God - Chapter 11" by Ron Marz, Armitano, Werner Sanchez, ALW Studios' Troy Peteri - 5 - And with Joseph Illidge getting an Editor credit.  At last it ends.  After all the BLAMs and killing, the remaining Union soldiers find out the war has been over for weeks.  That's the twist?  Honestly I thought that kind of slow communications was pretty common at that time.

"Black Beacon - Chapter 6" by Ryan K Lindsay, Sebastián Piriz, JAME - 6.5 - with Joseph Illidge getting an "Edited By" credit.  This ends with this long sixth chapter.  The art is really good, engaging and dramatic, and the story progresses, but it's too bad that the mystery of the storytelling didn't really create much interest for me. I was just watching it go by.

"Vasator and Crunch" by David Erwin, Valerio Befani, Javier Mena, Saida Temofonte, Morgan Rosenblum - 6 - The mercenary brothers scheme to kill their employer, on learning that he plans to have them killed.  There's a flashback to younger days, when it was Cade rather than Crunch, which somewhat plays into this story.  This is the fourth installment of these two characters' story, and there have been different artists each time.  What's up with that?

An Interview with The Wizard of Barge by Joshua Sky - 3 - This is subtitled "Across the Barge-E-Verse and Beyond!"  The Wizard of Barge describes his artistic upbringing, from skateboards to animated movies (including the 1981 Heavy Metal Movie) to t-shirts.  In the middle of the interview, the reason this is here comes out.  The Wizard was approached by HM to make six images for NFTs (... JFC! ...), and six little images are the graphics for this interview.  They look pretty cool, but ...  One draws direct inspiration from the HM movie.  It's telling that he states "I don't know if they will be in print or not".  Three guesses, and the first two don't count.

"Stable - Special Preview" by Matthew Medney, Morgan Rosenblum, Voodoo Bownz, Jonny Handler, Francesco Pisa, Ismail Nihad - 5 - This also has a subtitle "Created by Herø Projects & Tomato Farm".  A guy breaks the security perimeter of a not-quite-abandoned industrial facility, and gets stunned for his trouble.  The art is not bad, in a modern comic digital style, but it's so flat.  Even the bits of supposed action look static.  The story?  Who can say?  This ends with "Available in Stores and Digital Now!"  Perhaps we'll see more of this in the mag, perhaps not.

"Dark Wing - Chapter Nine" by Matthew Medney, German Ponce, Andrew Dalhouse, Saida Temofonte, Joseph Illidge, Bruce Edwards, Pete "Voodoo Bownz" Russo - 6 - Nine of the fifteen pages are filled with fiery explosions, one is filled with explosive lightning.  There's lots of action movie framing and posing.  This chapter does end in a twist (only a little Matrix-y) which at least counts as story progression.

"Savage Circus" Chapter Eleven" by Brendan Columbus, Al Barrionuevo, Candice Han, Dave Sharpe, Joseph Illidge - 3 - Bonus in this issue!!  This one ends too!  Sorry to the creators but I disliked everything about this.  And just because I don't like something doesn't mean it's bad, but I didn't like any of it.  And it's like they're toying with me; now it's Candice Han on the Contents page, and "CANDiCE HAN" in the story.

"Winnie the Poe" by D⦁MINT⦁ID - 5.5 - Subtitled "Rum, Rum, Rummy", this is kind of a wasteoid-trash parody of Winnie-the-Pooh.  Somewhat funny characterizations, a clever bit or two, a handful of pretty nice illustrations, and a smattering of typos, come together to make a somehow not-totally-awful bit out of it.

"Starward:  Chapter Nine" by Steve Orlando, Ivan Shavrin, Saida Temofonte - 6 - With Joseph Illidge credited as Editor.  The Seven Starward Sisters reminisce before they must fight again.  Again the art is working really hard, and the story keeps backfilling, but I'll admit I thought "fist-fucked" in a YA graphic novel was unexpected.

Well, I actually finished this review before I got the next issue, it's been a while since that's happened.  #316 is ordered but it'll be a few days for it to show up.  Though the mag isn't exactly monthly, they're actually running pretty close.  I'll just keep hoping it keeps up and we get more interesting fun bits and less crap.

Heavy Metal #314

For this issue of Heavy Metal #314, with 144 pages and $13.99 cover price, I got the "B" cover (via ebay) by Greg Hildebrandt, "Angel of the Gods" so I could compare for myself this reprinted cover with the February 1982 issue, where it was first on Heavy Metal.  This is the second time, that I recall, that a Heavy Metal Covers image was re-used (the first being the Oscar Chiconi image used on Summer 1988, and then on January 2002, using the same art).  This may be the first time it was intentional.

The contrast between these two makes me think they went a little overboard with brightening the image for the new issue, but the old one is a bit dull in comparison, and I don't think it's all its age or my rudimentary camera work.  I was also interested to note the differences in the printing effects, the new image is noticably finer, as well as brighter:

Less obvious on the screen is the effect of digitizing on the smoothness of the transitions in the shading, such as in the shadow on the woman's hip (it's more apparent in print).  It becomes more like separate bands of colors than a gradient.  I've seen it in more recent art in the mag that is produced on a screen, where gradient shadowing can appears as bands of subtly different shades, as opposed to art done on physical media.  I bet there's a word for that.

But I thought it was cute they put "February 2022" and the Classic Tagline "The Adult Illustrated Fantasy Magazine" on it.  Overall I like this image and I like that it's been brought back for this issue.  I give it an 8.  There's an interview with Mr Hildebrandt in the issue that we'll get to.

The two big shots may have broken their arms patting themselves on the back for having Mr Hildebrandt in this issue, but at least they're talking about something that's actually in this actual magazine.

"Death Defied Part 1" by Joe Harris, Federico Pietrobon, Lee Loughridge, DC Hopkins, Fabrice Sapolsky - 6 - Awakened from hibernation, an entertainment mogul re-enters the media empire he created.  This begins with the first 4 pages identical to the Preview in #313, except for the page arrangement due to the Preview title page.  But it continues with 12 more, building the story of the futuristic megacorp that grew from his earlier successes, complete with creepy android servants.  The promise from the Preview carries to this start of the story, I'm hoping it carries on.

"Swamp God - Chapter 10" by Ron Marz, Armitano, Werner Sanchez, ALW Studios' Troy Peteri - 6 - And with Joseph Illidge getting an Editor credit. The Swamp God falls into their trap, is immolated and takes 23 BLAMs, while somehow the captain escapes from the flaming pit, saving a BLAM.  Is the Swamp God vanquished?  Will the uncomfortable allies become fast friends?  Wanna bet?

"The Adventures of Adrienne James - Chapter 2" by Matthew Medney, Bruce Edwards, Santa Fung, Lucas Gattoni, Morgan Rosenblum - 5 - Ms James continues the quest.  They don't call this "female Indiana Jones in Space" for nuthin', lifting at least a couple imperiled-explorers-avoid-boobytraps tropes.  And if they had wrist-mounted harpoon thingys, why couldn't they have used them to get off the flimsy rope bridge to escape the rolling boulder in the first place?  Sheesh.

"Cyberarchy 2" by Matt Hardy, Clark Bint, Rob Jones - 7.5 - A future moon-city's inhabitants try to live their lives as if hordes of giant bugs aren't barely held at bay outside the city's walls, enabled by their tightly integrated robotic infrastructure.  With a sad-humored parody of pandemic skepticism ("the social feed says it's all a hoax...") and something to say about dependence on technology, and some well done graytone art that really fits the bill, I'm glad to see this says "To Be Continued..."  This also appears to be the second installment, with "Cyberarchy" by the same creators, that appeared in #305.  A couple of the same characters too perhaps.

Interview with Greg Hildebrandt, by Matthew Medney - 8 - A rich interview with four nice images, Mr Medney manages to do a pretty good job of asking a question and getting out of the way, allowing Mr Hildebrandt much space to expound, which he does.  (it does seem this interview was done via email or something, rather than "live".)  Several stories are forthcoming, only slightly HM-related, but nice regardless.  Odd how Mr Medney mentions Mr Hildebrandt is responsible for "12+" Heavy Metal covers, more than any other single artist".  I've only counted 7 covers with Mr Hildebrandt:  February 1982 "Angel Of The Gods", which is the cover reproduced for this issue #314, and is also shown in this article; August 1983 with "Winged Messenger", also in this article; September 1985 "The Mermaids Passion";Winter 1987 (not titled); March 2000 "Nightfire" credited to both Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, also reproduced for this feature; Summer 2002 "Erotic Special #2" with "Escape", where he also had a Gallery of Pin-ups; July 2006 with "Avenging Angel".  The first issue April 1977 also had a story "The Sword Of Shannara" where the brothers did the art.  Royo, for example, has had 38 Heavy Metal covers.  I get my info from my collection and heavymetalmagazinefanpage.com, which is a fantastic resource for Heavy Metal fans.

"Starward:  Chapter Eight" by Steve Orlando, Ivan Shavrin, Saida Temofonte - 6 - With Joseph Illidge credited as Editor.  The Silver Sister fights her Kaos-possessed Sisters, and succeeds in freeing them.  This story doesn't really move me, but even I can tell it's got a good deal of quality in the art and writing.

"Engagers Sneak Preview" by Matthew Medney, Bruce Edwards, John Roi Mercado, William Soares Lucas Gattoni, Morgan Rosenblum - 4 - A short preview, where it appears a company is working to build social media built on studies of brain activity patterns.  Don't they already do that?  The wordy balloons don't help the uninspiring art.

"Desensitized Deirdre in 3-D" by Dan Fogler, Nadir Balan, Justin Mohlman - 4 - Billed as "Dan Fogler Presents Moon Lake Guide to the Dark Side Phase 3".  There's an interesting storytelling technique, where two instances of a snowbunny/cheerleader fight parallel battles, for some reason, with splayed thighs and splattered gore.  But it is confusing, and not in a good way.  Hopefully this is just another book promo for something, and we'll not see it again.

"Chastity and Ezra" by Rian Hughes - 7 - Told with collaged images from old-timey newspapers and encyclopedias, this hearkens back to "Age Of Ages: A Gothic Science-Fiction Trip To The Apocalypse" by Norman Rubington and Akbar Del Piombo, a feature from Heavy Metal's early days (April, May, June, and August of 1977, and February 1978), which I liked quite a bit.  A couple shots from April 1977 that I forgot to add when I first posted this:

This entry by Rian Hughes may be less quirky and less obtuse, but its 14 pages and attempted coherent storyline helped my enjoyment.

"Something Seems Off" by Chris Anderson - 7 - Starting weird and ending weirder, I'll guess at the storyline; with a sleazy merchant accosted and banished by a couple, who ransack the wares to perform a surgical procedure.  The actually wordless storytelling is much better than my description.  With a note at the end saying "Something Seems Off - The banishment of Fador & healing of Ricky by Darla", which makes me think there's a continuing story here, that I wish we could see.

"Savage Circus" Chapter Ten" by Brendan Columbus, Al Barrionuevo, Candace Han, Dave Sharpe, Joseph Illidge - 3 - Cripes, it's still not over.  I still dislike this, but my apologies to Candace Han for not noticing the spelling change:  From the start of this series in #300, it was spelled "Candice" on the story and on the contents page of the mag.  In issue #305 though, it changed to "Candace" on the story, though it's still spelled "Candice" on the contents page.  And I just noticed this.

I'll finish by saying that I've decided I also dislike the current habit of sporadic releases of parts of continuing stories.  When there are two or three or more issues between installments of a serialized story, I have an even harder time following the story and maintaining my interest.  And some of them need all the help they can get to hold my attention.  It's not the first time in the mag's history that chapters get spaced out, "(The Revenge of Count Skarbeck" in Fall 2010 was five years after its first chapter!) but it's starting to seem the norm now.  Also I've never been a fan of stories that start but don't finish in the mag, but that's been happening since the beginnings.