Heavy Metal #2 (Legacy #322)

Heavy Metal #2 (Legacy #322) exists, and I got one.  Thanks to all at HM who made this happen.  And congratulations!  It appears the magazine restart is off to a good re-start, and I think you all have accomplished very much, for which I think we should all feel grateful.  And it's my hope that publishing the paper magazine will continue to be a priority for years to come for the interglobal corporate entity Heavy Metal will surely become.

I don't unconditionally love everything about this 21st century rebirth of Heavy Metal Magazine.  Much like the anthology format, which brings a wide variety of Illustrated Fantasy work to us, which sometimes means I might not like every story, it's not likely that everyone will love everything about every Heavy Metal Magazine feature, nor every bit of news or art or swag or gimmick.  

Of course, there is a lot to like.  The magazine is back, it's huge, and it's cool.  There's variety and fun and good things.  There's some looking at the past to navigate the future.  There's some promise and optimism at this time of re-emergence.  I'm looking forward to more.

But some things aren't great.  Folks still get cranky about their orders and shipments.  Not everyone wronged by the previous regime will be satisfied.  And I'm not the only one annoyed by variant cover proliferation.  It's pretty out of hand I think, and for anyone who wants to collect every bit they can, or even most of it, it will get very difficult and expensive.  But others seem to be pretty excited to have so many choices and many still get multiple copies.  And I bet HM Industries enjoys the incoming revenue.

But, speaking of covers, since I was a backer of the Kickstarter, and so a part of what they call the Angry Mob, because of disgruntled whining about the first issue appearing in public before they shipped to said backers, I got the special Angry Mob variant cover.  Mostly since I could get it for "free", just paying for shipping.  (and by the way, once the "free" issue was available to order, I did, and it took several weeks and an email from me for it to be actually shipped.  they were still having issues with shipping, including several reports of damaged mags shipped in inadequate packing, but to their credit, they seem to have been able to respond.)

Here's the Angry Mob cover, #2J:

Apologies to Sedat Oezgen and Carlos Cabrera, but, that's an ugly Heavy Metal Magazine cover.  It's probably my least favorite cover.  Even less than the promotional hodgepodge that was on March 2012.  The only redeeming features here are the sense of humor, and the unique logo treatment; representing the iconic Heavy Metal logo as deep stone sculpture, pockmarked and fracturing.  It's quite inventive and compelling, and it would have been better if this logo took up more space.  I fear the creators were given an impossible task with an impossible deadline, and could only produce what was possible.  I also fear that the image has been cropped and chopped, and it didn't help.  It gets a 4 from me.  There's a pile of prettier covers to choose from.

Even before the Contents pages, Mr Forte provides an Editorial.  Forgoing the hype machine, Mr Forte proceeds with a reminiscence of discovering Heavy Metal Magazine (specifically May 1984), and spends most of the space on it.  I enjoyed it, it reminded me of my own discovery, and how different yet how similar it was to Mr Forte's.  I hope Mr Forte can keep developing the editorials as the magazine progresses.

The Contents pages show the ten cover credits and thirty-two features in the 232 pages of this issue.  And a nice but uncredited illustration, an Alien in repose, or space-cycle pilot, maybe?  That appears signed by "Ladrönn" dated 07-22-2012.

Dossier provides a condensed fantasy literary history, some amusing things and places, and a brief meditation on meaninglessness, that includes a couple of cool snaps from the old mag; the one with the third eye is from Rock Opera, evocative of Pyloon, and I recognize but haven't placed the image of Maria from Metropolis, yet.

"Dream Invasion" starts with a preview and description of the theme prompt for this issue's installment of an artist challenge, paraphrased as "what happens when imagination stops being private?"  Nice premise, and some cool art awaits us.

"Bug" by Enki Bilal - 7 - With "de-digitalization" the world is indeed descending into apocalyptic chaos.  And there's a man in orbit with an internet's-worth of valuable information in his brain, who is suddenly the most sought-after of persons.

"Harry Canyon" by Duke Mighten and Frank Forte - 7 - It's "The Saturnian Affair".  Another night in New York with the commodified Harry Canyon, giving us a lesson in human, or in-human, kindness.  Rippin' art, many little word balloons. 

Interview with Philip Gelatt by Joshua Sky - Philip Gelatt is a writer who worked on Love Death and Robots, the animated anthology series that can trace origins to an attempted Heavy Metal movie back in the Eastman era.  Honestly I've only watched a handful of them, a while back, and I thought they were pretty good but I never kept watching.  They're probably worth a look.  And Mr Gelatt also did a more recent movie called Spine of Night that looks interesting, so maybe I'll look for that too.

"June 2050" by Pepe Moreno - 7 - Another nice one-pager on the "June 2050" idea, by Pepe Moreno.  Many years ago, Pepe Moreno had some things in Heavy Metal Magazine, notably "Rebel" in 1985, and "Gene Kong" in 2016 in #278 and #279, which I really liked.  I want to think he just did this June 2050 just for this issue, and I'd like to see more new ones from even more creators.

"Bug Hunt" by Justin Jordan, Elgo, Jaime, Frank Forte - 7 - The last remaining member of the advance planetary colony expedition, makes it safe for the rest of the colonists' arrival.  Pretty good art and I thought the story was told really well.

"Burton & Cyb" by José Ortiz and Antonio Segura - 5 - Translated by R.G. Llarena, Frank Forte with the edits.  This one is called "El Gato".  The two miscreants get saddled with a cat-robot babysitter, but figure out how to profit from it.  So does the cat.

"Dream Invasion" by Amilcar Pinna - 7 - Nice dream, if you like eyeballs.

A fake ad for an alien-abduction app was worth a chuckle.

"Taarna - Rebirth" by Leah Moore, John Reppion, Anna Morozova, Tom Napolitano, Chris Thompson, Dave Kelly - 5 - It's Part 2.  Taarna flees desert marauders to be trapped in a cave, by women who sacrifice Taarna to their deity.  Who empowers Taarna to save her captors.  Or something.  Again the art is pretty nice looking, but the story doesn't come together for me.  It seems not much more than an excuse to parade Taarna around naked for a few pages.

"The Birds of Margli" by Matthew M Bartlett - 6 - With Axel Medellin providing a couple of illustrations, and Cody Goodfellow noted as Editor.  A hitman in the not-too-far future takes a job, but gets the raw end of the deal.  It's brief and pretty well written, though I'd enjoy a bit more depth, which would make it longer.  Unfortunately spelled "Marghli" in the Contents.

"Dominoes" by Dalton Cara, Matheus Sant' Anna, Jacob Bascle - 7 - An ambitious hacker breaks in to the highest reaches of government.  Pretty cool art and a brisk pace make it a fun read, it seems short.

"Dream Invasion" by Carlos Dearmas & Omar Estévez - 8 - The illustration indeed caught my attention with "a potential cascade of nameless fantasies and obsessions" as it said, and I enjoyed finding more as I looked more.

Metal Detector is a one-page interview with Adrián Castilla, who does the art for the following feature.

"Fireshot" by Rodrigo Lucio, Adrián Castilla, JAME, R.G. Llarena - 7 - That shot's got quite a kick to it.  Simple enough premise, with a fun resolution.  Looks plenty cool.

"The Ancient Pact" by Axel Medellin Machain, Carlos Cabrera, Grissel Solis, JAME, R.G. Llarena - 6 - A youth enters a bar, challenges the tough guy to a fight.  Not bad in its story nor art, but I don't get the references ("Cernunnos", "Oillipheist"?) so I am missing something(s) here.

"Sixella - The Last Roots" by Janevsky, Dave Kelly - 6 - This is Part 2.  I think I'm getting better at figuring out what's going on.  It's pretty and the colored shading seems less overwhelming to me.  The protagonist (maybe) sets up some system to save some plants, then heads to town for fun.  Beds a robot hooker but returns too late to save the farm, to be captured by the same robot(?).  Am I close?

"Sacrifice" by Antonio Marinetti, Jacob Bascle, R.G. Llarena - 7 - Viewing a manacled corpse, and then  flying though a desolate landscape, and a giant skeleton á la Taarna, an explorer is drawn into the objective's room.  And sheds his body.  And it works.  It's worth a couple reads.

"Gladiatrix" by John Stanisci, Dan Gordon, Dave Baron, Tom Napolitano, Dave Kelly - 6 - First with "The Trials of Ta-Neen" then "Part Two Fall" and also "Special Thanks to Vlas and Charley Parlapanides".  The Gladiatrix fights to survive the arena.  I was losing interest in the fight and the internal struggle, but falling impaled in an unknown land suddenly increased some suspense.

"The Blob" by Valentin Ramón, R.G. Llarena - 7 - Loser schlub signs up for The Blob.  It changes his life.  Pretty clever, with a Corben joke.

"Dream Invasion" by Camila Torrano - 7 - Three city dwellers have different reactions when the sky opens to the space between worlds.

A fake ad for Heavy Metal's adopt a micro Black Hole offer appears.

"A Brief Encounter" by Marco Nizzoli, Jacob Bascle, R.G. Llarena - 6 - It has a "Dédié à Moebius" at the title, and it shows, in a noble effort to implement a Moebius-like style.  I may have enjoyed it more if the protagonist had less of the vacuous vanity about him.

"Carmen Bond" by Alfonso Font, Frank Forte - 7 - Satan tempts a wise man with babes.  It takes a while, but he finds the right one.  Fun old-time EU art style.

"Dream Invasion" by Lalit Kumar Sharma, Oscar Carreño - 6 - Pretty picture and text, I wish they went together better.

"Millstone" by Michael W Conrad, Ilias Kyriazis, Nikki Spanou, Simon Bowland, Chris Thompson - 8 - The champion, chained to his millstone, encounters a crooked stone hut in the Pynchost Forest.  Whereupon horrors are unleashed.  He survives, to encounter more demons.  Then he gets all fwunked up.  It's something to see.  I'm enjoying this one, it's not overloaded with word balloons, the art tells much of the story.

"Dream Invasion by Santi Gullén and Fares Maese - 6 - Again the art and text don't come together for me.  Maybe only those who look for nothing have eyes to see.  But I did see that this one did not make it onto the Contents page.

"A Look Back at the Madness" seems it will be a recurring feature, with perhaps misleading interpretations of past bits of the magazine.  This one is about the ads, and it does showcase some good ones, especially the "Bring Heavy Metal Home With You" subscription ad, which sometimes came as a card insert.  The "We Want Your Money" was the ad with the "silk" jacket.  They should have shown the belt buckle ad that was often on this page too.  But, it's not all ads.  The "Computer Art Systems" blurb came from a Dossier article from January 1984.  The Freak Show Girl was a Drew Friedman bit.  The girl getting groped was from "Lann", a story from late 1984.  At least I can be glad someone is actually paging through magazines for these.

"Sleepy Boy" by Wayshak - 6 - The guy doesn't quite present a likable sympathetic character, but he's somehow crushed by the invisible weight of his own nightmares.  Really energetic mostly black and white art.

"Ink" by Charley & Vlas Parlapanides, Marco Failla, Riccardo Brusca, Tom Napolitano, Yi Yang, Dave Kelly - 6 - Apparently, a thug is killed, then revived with tattoos.  It's "to be continued ..." so we'll see where this one goes.

"Valentina" by Sergio Gerasi, Vik Deluca, Tom Williams, Chris Thompson - 7 - This is Part 2, and it's with an "Inspired by the Work of Guido Crepax" note as well.  Valentina accepts a project to have her photography work integrated with "artificial intelligence software".  She can't help but fall for someone and have more nightmares.  Poor dear.  But this is full of fantastic imagery, and it's interesting to have representations of the Spanish Civil War photo "The Falling Soldier" and a shot of Fidel Castro on the wall of a meeting room.

"Dream Invasion" by John Bivens and Michael Woods - 7 - When mutation becomes religion.

Metal Strips - 7 - A mixed bag with The Bus by Paul Kirchner again (still), Caveman by Tayyar Özkan (again), commodified Harry Canyon and Zeke and Edsel again, and a new Tales of the Loc-Nar by Frank Forte.  A nice mix of fun.

Another "Look Back on the Madness" bit, this time it features Tex Arcana by John Findley.  This was one of my favorites from back in its day, fantastic and fun storytelling and terrific black and white art.  This feature is a decent taste.  I've written about Tex Arcana several times over the years, and while it's been 10 years since it's been updated, the three books published in Heavy Metal Magazine are all online at Mr Findley's texarcana.com site, as well as a fourth uncompleted book.  Which I highly recommend.  And the compiled first three books is still apparently available for purchase via the internet.

"Habemus Papam" by Claudio Alvarez, Geraldo Borges, Arthur Hesli, JAME, R.G. Llarena - 6 - Sorcerers send their forms to battle a demon, expiring as they fail, until they don't.