Thoughts

I've had Thoughts over the past several months, during the reboot of Heavy Metal Magazine.  It's been interesting to consider how the process seemed to me, and where it, and I, have ended up to this point.

First, is the realization that it's not my Heavy Metal Magazine any more.  It never really was "mine" but I felt like I was fairly tuned in, with following it through the years and through its demise.  When I rediscovered Heavy Metal around 2005, and I found first Lostboy's still-excellent heavymetalmagazinefanpage.com (by searching for the interview with Timothy Leary in the October 1983 issue), and then the Heavy Metal Magazine website at the time, I became an active participant in the discussion forums on each, which led directly to me creating this teensy blog in 2011 when first Lostboy's then Heavy Metal's forums closed, mostly unable to stem the spam overwhelming them.  

Since then, even with online discussion moved to social media without me, I felt buying the mag regularly and making my review posts, and reading about some stuff on the internet, (and missing the 'oh god, Taarna is wearing clothes!!!' whining completely until after, thankfully) I still felt I was somewhat in touch.

Now, my ignorance and intransigence have been laid bare, witnessing the mayhem of the Discords.  It's a blistering pace that I can't keep up with.  I simply don't fit in with the meme-slingin' manga-referencin' comics-knowin' con-goin' general Heavy Metal fan base.  I'm too old and too of-my-time to keep up with the modern internet landscape.  And there seems to be nobody else on the Discord who was around at the beginning, and before the 1981 movie, who can relate to what the magazine started as.

But I can still hold a paper magazine in my hands and read it (with glasses) and operate an old-fashioned laptop keyboard, and write my little blog posts to cast adrift to the cosmos.  And I think at this point I get to have a unique perspective that I value enough to rant about online, and I figure I can do it for a while more (probably not another 20 years though).   So I will.

With the first issue received and reviewed, I was pretty pleased I liked it as much as I did.  Knowing I am not in their target audience has adjusted my viewpoints somewhat, but my impression is that the efforts are pretty sincere, even when there's something I think is so dumb as to be incomprehensible (like the Rock Opera segment claiming it was the letters section way back when).  I really wasn't sure what to expect, and I was concerned there would be much less inventive and creative work from a wide range of creators, my favorite part of the anthology format, and much more routine lifeless overcommercialized crap in the pages.  But that didn't quite happen.  So I look forward to upcoming issues.

Another thought on my mind is about the commodification of Taarna, and other characters from the 1981 Heavy Metal Movie.  I still am amused by how Taarna would not exist if HM and Moebius could have agreed on how to bring Arzak into the movie, and how derivative Taarna is of Harzakc.  

And how it is not.  Creating Taarna as an ass-kickin' woman warrior worked great in the movie, and I think it's a great foundation to build on, Heavy Metal as a place filled with badass chicks (etc).  While Taarna was mostly forgotten as a HM character until recently, there was the (late) great Julie Strain (wiki, imdb), who certainly made her mark in the annals of Heavy Metal female badassery, as Mr Eastman's muse, and other contributing artists', in the pages of Heavy Metal Magazine, and even into the Heavy Metal 2000 FAKK2 movie and game as the main character Julie.  (It'd be fantastic for Heavy Metal to acknowledge Julie Strain's position in Heavy Metal Magazine history, though I imagine the chances of that are slim to none)

(BTW, see https://www.taarna.net/ for a cool Taarna fan site from way back. )

But I can hope that HM will continue to bring bodacious warrior babes like Gladiatrix and Evil Sex Bitch to us in the mag, and more like them.  Still, I'm not excited about making Taarna HM's Mouse, with ever-more desperate and unengaging pieces with images of Taarna their only redeeming feature.  (Same goes for Nelson and Grimaldi.)

Legacy #322 (the new #2) should be appearing soon.  Relating to the whiney folks who backed the Kickstarter and were peeved that the new Issue #1 appeared in stores before theirs were shipped, the HM response was to label the backers as the Angry Mob, and a promise of a free #2 (just pay shipping!) and other baubles.  A whole other social media network for me to not keep up with, was generated for the Angry Mob, ensuring a steady stream of breathless announcements and promotional considerations clogging my email.  A custom #2 cover was generated and promised to go only to the mobbites.  After the new issue #2 emerged publicly at the San Diego comicon, before shipping on orders, more whining ensued.  It's tough to withstand the whining, I'm sure, but I sure hope HM stops overpromising and needing to backtrack and make more promises.  It looks terrible.  And personally I think the whole Angry Mob thing is kinda dumb and almost insulting, to label the all backers such for the whining of the few loudest.  I only kept up to be able to order the "free" issue, and that finally happened, so I can quit paying attention to that noise soon.

Besides that, bot traffic on my little blog has exploded the last few months, hundreds of random post hits a day.  "Ordinarily" there would be a dozen or so.  I've only got a couple hundred posts total.  Blog stats say it's mostly from Brazil, Vietnam and Netherlands following.  It hit a peak a few weeks ago, dropped to almost normal traffic for a number of days, then shot up again.  I have no idea what damage they may be causing, and I hope none to any of the few legitimate visitors.

Well, glad to belch those thoughts into the internet.  While I'm becoming an even crankier old man, and even more willing to spout my Opinions, I am grateful for Heavy Metal Magazine's return, for what it has returned as, and for my ability to enjoy it as I do.  And I remain hopeful it will keep going for a good while longer.