Almost five months after I got HM #319, I was pleasantly surprised to find #320 in existence, so I ordered it immediately. I had truly thought it would never happen. Heavy Metal Magazine seemed to crumble at the end of 2022, faltering through the last few issues, and shedding a CEO, then going silent, and I felt I had witnessed the end of an era. In fact I may have, but at least this issue exists, and I'll be grateful for that here, and I'll keep small hope for it to continue (the still-mythical Vol. 2 is showing release in late August per tfaw.com).
$14.99 USD with 144 pages. I got the Cover B by Greg Hildebrandt. I'm glad I did. Rating? 8.5 from me. I like the originalist depiction of Taarna with her mount, fighting an awesome-looking dragon head, which is connected to a dragon body on the back cover, with a black-knight character as Taarna's adversary. I enjoyed seeing canvas and brush textures in the image of the painting, and I was quite intrigued by the the logo treatment, wondering if it was part of the painting. Though the wrap-around cover is unviewable without destroying the binding, there's a small reproduction of the full painting from which this cover image was made, on the Contents page:
Peter Kleinman is credited with Logo Enhancement here, which made me think the enhancement is digital, and it's cool how the canvas texture comes through it.
I also enjoyed comparing this #320B cover with Simon Bisley's #316B cover:
Two Heavy Metal cover artists that have produced classic art for the magazine over decades. Both covers painted with different but compelling visions of Taarna. My thanks to them both.
The contents page has the same names as #319 so long ago, with no indication of the teetering uncertainty of the magazine's condition. That however is vaguely addressed with a "Message from Heavy Metal" that follows:
Signed with "The Heavy Metal Team", it's more vacuous corporate buzzspeak that does not reassure me. Though they only use the word "brand" twice, I've considered how that word was largely absent from HM until the ill-fated Medney era, and why it bothers me so much. For one thing, to me it indicates a marketing perspective, rather than a creative perspective, and I think this has shown in much of the stories chosen for the magazine in this era. More style than substance, repetitively formulaic compositions rather than imaginative art or thought-provoking storytelling. For another, Heavy Metal Magazine is an anthology, from the very beginning, with the work of many many different creators (usually) telling many different stories in many different ways, which itself defies refining into a particular product or style or feeling that one would call a "brand". There's much more to be said about the magazine's character and history over the decades, and how we got here, but it's my opinion that perceiving and presenting Heavy Metal as a "brand" to be "leveraged" is the central flaw of the Medney era. (Maybe someday I'll write more of my thoughts on what happened on Medney's watch, but that's the big one.) My feelings are that this "Message" is an attempt to whitewash the recent past (or red-wash, considering the unfortunate shade added to the classic So Beautiful and So Dangerous and Taarna images), and to "move forward", while seeming to re-commit to the "brand" expansion of the previous regime. Sigh.
Daunted but not deterred, on to the magazine.
"WireMonkeys" by Dan Schaffer, Fabrice Sapolski - 7 - Subtitled "3. Samsara". Maybe I don't think that surviving traumatic death repeatedly is quite the funny concept that I may have in my long-gone irreverent youth, but I'll give this credit for leaning in to the bit. The line "They're EXASPERATING! So many cycles yet they have experienced no illumination." gave me a laugh.
"The Axe - Part 6" by Joe Trohman, Brian Posehn, Scott Koblish, Diego Fichera, Lucas Gattoni, Morgan Rosenblum - 6.5 - With another Special Thanks to Maya St. Clair. This story does indeed have an end (but for a "More Tales from The Axe to Follow" at its conclusion, we'll see about that). I didn't think this was always great, but it was often pretty good, and for me it succeeds by maintaining the energy it started with, fun with pain and suffering, in the art and the writing.
"Space Pirates Unit Dolores Chapter 4 - The Last Bullet" by by Didier Tarquin, Lyse Tarquin, Ivanka Hahnenberger, Jame, Fabrice Sapolsky - 5 - I was so wrong again, I thought this ended in HM #319, but here is another exciting climax (maybe), 46 pages worth. More bloody drama, the story maybe continues, perhaps it's better than I think, it may continue even more, how would I know?
"The Beholder" by The Dahli, Przemyslaw Klosin, Morgan Rosenblum, Steven Orlando - 6 - One Western-themed cyborg post-apocalyptic zombie hellscape, coming up! Not bad, a couple bits of good. The jokes are dry and gore-dripping at once.
"Special Preview - A Darker God" by Homero Rios, C.F. Villa, Jame. After a one page preview in HM #318, which ended with "Coming Next Month" (hmmmm), 8 months later we get a four page preview that ends with a "Coming Soon in the New Heavy Metal #1". I'll decline to try to rate this.
"Something Seems Off" by Chris Anderson - 8 - This story is a bright spot in the mag's bumpy road over the past year or so. Imaginative and enjoyably weird, it's growing feelings now. And growing the story too. A dramatic flashback, extreme sex euthanasia, and Darla unmasked!
"Death Defied Part 3" by Joe Harris, Federico Pietrobon, Lee Loughridge, DC Hopkins, Joseph Illidge - 6 - Returning after 11 months, last seen in HM #316. A complex weave of flashbacks and otherworldly revelations. This has an ambitious story and more-than-serviceable art, but for me these two elements are both on the flat side in their execution, though with notable bright spots. It will be interesting to see if and when and how we ever get to see more that might tie this together.
I haven't noticed the ads in HM much lately, since they've been almost all ads for HM titles published separate from the magazine, some with and some without any kind of preview, that mostly haven't interested me much. In this issue I counted 15 pages, including the inside covers, including the one for Cold Dead War twice. I wonder if the complete lack of ad revenue over recent years factored in to HM's apparent demise, but I think it's just a small piece of the puzzle, a puzzle made up of bits from other incomplete puzzles in the wrong box, and missing many important pieces from the original box.
Welp, that's #320. What's next? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe more Heavy Metal Magazine will happen? Maybe this year even? Maybe the once-planned #321 and #322? Maybe the oddly repetitively titled Vol 2? Many maybes, but I haven't abandoned all hope, yet.
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