Heavy Metal #316

I got the Cover B of Heavy Metal #316, from mycomicshop.com, in early May, ($13.99USD and 144 pages again) for the Bisley cover.  I wanted to see in print what a Bisley Taarna would look like, and I thought it was pretty cool.  It was Bisley all over it, from wicked face and body art and improbably inflated boobs, to the hoop earrings and dangling skulls hanging from Taarna's dragon-headed mount.  It gets an 8 from me.  Photo of my copy:

There's some of the cover image reproduced inside the logo, and this cover also has a "45th Anniversary Edition" plaque across the bottom.  The Cover A apparently does not.  There's an interview with Mr Bisley later in this issue.

The two big shots make up for the lost space of no editorials in issue #315, by taking two pages in this issue, each with a photo of them and unidentified someones, and pushing the Contents page to page 4.  That wouldn't be so bad, except they end up doubling the load of crap shoveled, though I'm doing a bit better about not getting too annoyed.  Mr Medney mentions things like "Web3" and "communities on the blockchain", and Mr Erwin again tries to craft connection with HM and comics and his own experiences, again unconvincingly, so I get a good eye-rolling workout.  But I learned something.  When Mr Medney referred to the Heavy Metal's first issue from April 1977 as "Heavy Metal #001", I thought "Whhyyyyy???", until I actually looked and saw that the very first issue says "Issue Number 1" along the spine.  (They referred to numbered issues til "Vol. 1 No. 6" was noted on September 1977.)  And it was edge-glued ("perfect" binding), which I did not recall after all these years:

I benefitted again from actually looking at the magazine, when Mr Medney said that HM influenced movies, including Mad Max, so I looked at July 1985, which has an interview with George Miller talking about "Beyond Thunderdome" as well as the two earlier movies.  No mention of Heavy Metal influence here (more of Mr Miller's experience as an emergency room doctor treating horrific injuries from car accidents on Australia's deadly roads).  With all the history contained in Heavy Metal Magazine's pages, I'd wish that the guys calling the shots were actually people who had actually read most of them.

"Cold Dead War:  Bloody Paradise" by David Erwin, Vassilis Gogtzilas, Lee Loughridge, Saida Temofonte, Joseph Illidge - 4 - American soldiers in the Second World War attacking Japanese positions, get unexpected undead help.  Several admirable attempts of the art and storytelling fail to lift this from the muck for me. Sorry, but seeing war on TV and in comics growing up, Combat! and Rat Patrol, and Sgt Rock etc. when WWII was as recent as 9/11/01 is to now, makes me want soldiers and guns that look like soldiers and guns, and I really think calling a bird a kingfisher as part of the story would entail drawing it to look like one.  That and the clear attempt to market the Nelson character from the 1981 HM movie, much like the efforts to market Taarna as one of the properties HM actually owns, overshadows the stark and murderous atmosphere the story seeks to portray.  Also weird that it's taken over a year to have another installment of this, since the only other one was in issue #300, which also had a completely different creative team.

"The Axe - Part 2" by Joe Trohman, Brian Posehn, Scott Koblish, Diego Fichera, Lucas Gattoni, Morgan Rosenblum - 6 - The teens' curiousity about The Axe dooms them to Sheol, Hell Off Earth.  Plenty of gruesome otherworldly mayhem to be had from the art, and there are some jokes I liked in the writing.  The evil critters introduced via trading card bios and the somewhat predictable story progression detracted from the parts I enjoyed.

"Taarna:  The Witness" by Helen Mullane, Montos, Saida Temofonte, Joseph Illidge - 6 - Taarna vanquishes an interstellar demon, somehow.  I wanted to like the black and white art, it's nice, and so rare in HM these days.  Unfortunately for me, I struggled with the storytelling.  It took me a while to figure out the counterclockwise sequential progression on the unfortunate two-page spread, and I got no idea of how or why any of the action was happening.  Sometimes I like needing to fill in the blanks of a story myself, but this wasn't one of those times.

Interview with Simon Bisley by Justin Mohlman - 8.5 - This broad and substantial interview with Mr Bisley is full of stuff I enjoyed, and has a nice discussion of his creation of the Cover B he did for this 45th Anniversary issue.  Which makes me glad I got the Cover B issue.  Not only is this art actually painted, but when asked about his vision for Heavy Metal Magazine in the future, Mr Bisley responds "... I see it will remain a magazine, for sure, for all eternity, paper and pulp without a doubt."  I hope he's right.  When he's asked about his first work in HM, he hesitates, not remembering, then gives Kevin Eastman a shout-out, which pleased me since I don't think he gets enough credit for HM's longevity, at least not by the current management, especially since he was apparently forced out a few years ago.  (Mr Bisley also says he thinks someone will correct him on what the first work was, so, I think it was January 1991, with Pat Mills with "Slaine:  The Horned God".  Which actually predates Mr Eastman's tenure at HM.  You're welcome.  And I think the most recent was the cover for November 2011.)  Besides that, I'll also take this opportunity to apologize to Mr Bisley, for the handful of times I haved mis-spelled his name as "Bisely" here on my puny blog.  And also to again point out that Eyebrow Tuna, a whacked out dubbing of a Japanese kids' cartoon by Mr Eastman and Mr Bisley, and Peter Jenkins, still exists.

"Starward:  Chapter Ten" by Steve Orlando, Ivan Shavrin, Saida Temofonte - 6 - With Joseph Illidge credited as Editor. The united Sisters battle Kaos.  Energetic art and big sound effects, and a dick joke, and an unsurprising surprise.  What next?

"Death Defied Part 2" by Joe Harris, Federico Pietrobon, Lee Loughridge, DC Hopkins, Fabrice Sapolsky - 6 - The reanimated entertainment mogul asserts control of his legacy, and is attacked by mysterious assassins.  Extensive flashbacks work on backstory, it seems there's a ways to go to bring the past and present of this story together.

"The Adventures of Adrienne James - Chapter 3" by Matthew Medney, Bruce Edwards, Santa Fung, Lucas Gattoni, Morgan Rosenblum - 5 - A trap door in a dark temple, an amulet unlocking mysterious mechanisms, riddles with an otherworldy oracle; it seems the mining of tropes will continue.

"Taarna -- The Last Taarakian" by Phillips, Zircher, Rosado, Barrionuevo - 4 - Noted as a "Special Preview" and credited with only last names (and not at all on the Contents page), this short preview has some colorful images but no story, and ends with an ad for the book: "Heavy Metal's Flagship Graphic Novel Available in Stores and Digital Now!"

"A Tale of Skulls" by Marko Sojanović, Boris Bakliža, Marko Serafimović - 6 - Stories of the Catacombs beneath Paris.  Pretty cool sepia-toned art.  This short story tries hard to set up its premise with some purported history, but it didn't succeed for me.  I had too many problems with the language, possibly translation issues, and I'm usually more tolerant, but this time the storytelling didn't come together because of it.  And it was "A Tale of Sculls" on the Contents page, my goodness.

"Preview:  WireMonkeys by Dan Schaffer, Fabrice Sapolski - 6 - Techno-future biker chick stops to help an old fuzz drone, and is late for her appointment.  The art does pretty well with the dreary tech-urban atmosphere, the story isn't saying much in its five pages, but it is just a preview.  We'll see if we get more.

"Engagers - Part 2" by Matthew Medney, Bruce Edwards, John Roi Mercado, William Soares, Lucas Gattoni, Morgan Rosenblum - 5 - The game creators continue to work on expanding their engagement.  This long 27 page installment finishes this issue.  The writing is reaching me better, it's working hard to fill in a detailed story, even though it's full of gamer-speak and marketing talk, which are things I have not engaged with.  At least this is another story in HM that starts with a preview and continues in the mag, as opposed to the previews that are selling separate books, that I will never see.