The Summer 1987 issue of Heavy Metal Magazine was noted as the "10th Anniversary Issue":
(Image from www.heavymetalmagazinefanpage.com/hmlist87.html)
A little corner banner reads: "Inside! Construct Your Own Monster!"
That monster is "PHFMEH, The Reader Eater":
A build-your-own monster in the pages of Heavy Metal Magazine. From almost 40 years ago.
I'm quite tickled with myself for constructing this. For actually doing it. Years ago it occurred to me to photocopy the pages in the magazine on heavy stock, so I could make Phfmeh without cutting up my only copy of this HM issue, and I had them, unused, for a long time. Weeks ago I actually started cutting things up and gluing them together. It was challenging, to cut out all the pieces with the little tabs, and to glue those tabs one or two as a time, to bend the pieces and hold them in place (finally figured out to use removable tape, even though it pulled up some of the print in spots). And my eyesight and dexterity are decades older than they were in my "prime". But I still liked it. And it worked!
A fearsome sight indeed. It's weirdly serpentine centaur kind of creature, with unsettling mammalian nipples above the snakelike belly, reminding me too much of the Maw of Moloch in Metropolis.
The note in the article is credited to Peter X. Kleinman, "Interplanetary Death Squad Supervisor". Mr Kleinman designed the HM logo of course, and was also the mag's Design Director at the time. On the Contents page, it's strangely noted as "Fmeh: The Monster From Outer Space", illustrated by Stephen Hall.
They both deserve a lot of credit for making this exist.
Phfmeh also appears on the back cover:
(Also from www.heavymetalmagazinefanpage.com/hmlist87)
And the design is ingenious, making curves and contours and shapes from flat material. They are printed on heavier stock than the rest of the magazine, thoughtfully. The parts fit together very well, surprising me for an apparently hand-drawn pattern. I enjoyed a few small modifications, making the ears a bit less puppy-dog-like, and using some tabs for more teeth, and making a little hat for the Reader so he can go for a ride, with Phfmeh the Reader Eater, instead of being tormented in the clutches of the interplanetary demon. Yee-haw, little buckaroo, Yee-haw.
I'm enjoying it now even more putting this post together. I'm sure I'm not the first, but oddly I find nothing on the interwebs of someone having done this, putting Phfmeh together and letting the world know. But I'm sure it's happened. To those who have come before me, I salute you.
