I picked up my issue of Heavy Metal Magazine #3 at a nearby Barnes and Noble. It's a few years since I last bought a new Heavy Metal Magazine at a bookstore. The stores get the cover A; it's by Royo, and it's also been a few years for a Royo on the cover of HM, I think the previous was in 2017 (for #284). And I wouldn't be surprised if this image was made long ago. Still nice to have a cover by Royo in this day and age. I give it an 8:
Another Royo, another impossibly gorgeous lady, this time with a demon with a weird bat skeleton cross amulet (and that bat had mighty long legs) but I enjoyed marveling at the detail, the belt, the hair, the torn stockings, it must take forever to do these. Luis Royo is still out there, so perhaps we'll see more in future HM. I got it pretty soon after it was released, in late October. As of mid-December, there are folks on the HM Discord that still haven't received their subscription issue. I sure hope the HM guys can get it together to straighten the subscription shipping problems.
Again, the magazine is huge. 232 pages, with six covers and 33 features listed on the contents pages. Mr Forte again launches into the Editorial before the Contents, sharing a brief history of horror literature and comics, and bringing it back to Heavy Metal and expressing a desire to make Horror special issues for spooky times an annual thing.
The Contents page has a nice and creepy illustration by Vince Locke, and something I haven't noted yet, is that the masthead includes a Proofreader, since the first new issue. Seems like they're doing an ok job, I've only noticed one typo up to now. At least there are only six cover variants this time. The 33 features listed seems daunting, at least when I'm looking to do a review.
Dossier comes in with a mix of articles on old and new horror type work, mirroring Mr Forte's Editorial. The Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass animated movie sounded cool, but I can't seem to find how to see it.
The Artist's Interpretation theme is Steampunk Horrors, and our first installment is from Mr Forte hisself: "Dr Frankenstein spent decades creating bastardized life forms from dead tissue. One day they broke free." It's very unfortunate, however, that Mr Forte's image, of Dr Frankenstein being attacked by his creation, is spread across two pages, and the poor Doctor disappears into the nothingness of the crease. Two-page spreads in the perfect-bound magazine are a ridiculous proposition. It's not possible to view the image without destroying the binding. I hate it. It diminishes the art and demeans the reader's experience. I wish they would stop.
Why would someone think this is a good look?:
(To be clear, I loved the two-page spreads in Heavy Metal Magazine, from the beginning in 1977 to the monthly era through 1985, because it worked. (except for Issue Number 1, which was perfect-bound and was devoid of two-page spreads, except for a smaller Hildebrandt image in the Sword of Shannara feature, that really didn't need to cross the crease) The magazine then was "saddle-stitched", stapled so that the magazine could be completely opened to lay flat, and two-page spreads could readily be used, even wraparound covers were done. It was great. I would love it if Heavy Metal Magazine went back to saddle-stitched binding, to allow proper two-page spreads. If that means fewer pages per issue, fine, then publish more issues more frequently.)
Following, there's an ad for Heavy Metal Artwear, fancy limited t-shirts by cool artists, Defame, Strange House, Dwiky Ka, with assertively-bored-looking models wearing them. The photo for Dwiky Ka caught my eye. It had a flag or something for Ho99o9, which I recognized from HM, it was #295 in 2019, a Music Special, and Ho99o9 was one of the featured music groups, and Dwiky Ka seems to have done some video art for them (it looked cool, but my bronze age computer was creaking and wheezing trying to access the site).
"Bug" by Enki Bilal - 7 - A brutal kidnapping, nightmares and deceit. And the technoligarchs crumble as their digital houses of cards collapse. Who'da thunk things could get even worse?
"Taarna - Rebirth" by Leah Moore, John Reppion, Anna Morozova, Tom Napolitano, Chris Thompson, Dave Kelly - 4 - My inability to connect the images in the art to the words in the story persists, my annoyance with little pieces of this entry, my disdain for commodification and for calling Taarna's mount "Avis", conspire to diminish my appreciation of the work presented to us. It's too bad, the art has a nice style to it.
Interview with Stephen Graham Jones by Cody Goodfellow. Stephen Graham Jones is apparently another well-known and successful writer, of whom I knew nothing. I learned a bit here.
"June 2050" by John Workman - 7 - Relationship struggles in bad horror movies. We've all been there. I really wonder if John Workman is really making these new June 2050 stories. The internet couldn't tell me, but I did come across some neat older articles remarking on Mr Workman, one by RM Rhodes, a few by Todd Klein, who I also came across looking up Peter Kleinman a while back (BTW Todd Klein also had a couple pieces in Heavy Metal Magazine, Illostratos in August 1979, and June 2843 in September 1983).
"A Spice of Life" by Fernando Dagnino, Andrew Scott, Chris Thompson - 7.5 - A street prophet tells the story of how the machines had won the war, and the victorious Director Burtov demands the means to experience flavor, vowing "We'll never fully own this planet if we can't taste it". The Director gets his wish, and much more. I thought it had good art and great storytelling, and I'd think it was even better but for an unfortunate typo in the climactic scene ("Nori Nori!" Her name was Nora).
Artist's Interpretation - Steampunk Horrors 2 by Dylan Bryan aka Deco Noir - 6 - The art was dark but effective, reminding me of Bernie Wrightson with the shadows and sinewy appendages. It references Joseph Merrick, known as the Elephant Man, and the challenges of others' perceptions of appearances.
"Men of Profit" by Santullo-Jok - 6 - Stories of escape and triumph, are merely projections into the minds of people enslaved by profit. A cool art style that reminds me of other euro comic work I've seen in HM; the story had a strong message but I wished the conclusion had been more telling.
"Ink" by Charley & Vlas Parlapanides, Marco Failla, Riccardo Brusca, Tom Napolitano, Yi Yang, Dave Kelly - 6 - Continued from #322, the newly tattooed protagonist learns he must battle his enemies again. And his enemies are near.
"Supernatural Farce" by Dwayne Harris, Frank Forte - 6 - Creepy psychic turns out to be the villain after all. I usually enjoy Dwayne Harris work more, but this one was too simplistic for me.
Artist's Interpretation - Steampunk Horrors 3 by Shane Oakley - 6 - A take on HG Wells' War of the Worlds, with a quote from the book. Looks nice.
"Cave Man" by Tayyar Ozkan - 5 - Cave man lives in fear of his world, full of scary things. But it was just a nightmare of modern man. Whose spouse seems to have horns and hooves??
"Chicken" by Luan Tie, Frank Forte - 6 - Guy is accosted by an odd blob on the way to the market, where someone is disemboweling some bird, which then gets up and dances. Then it gets scary. Little story with ok art, with plenty of strangeness.
"Paid in Advance" by - 7 - Diego Agrimbau, Carina Altonaga, R.G. Llarena - 7 - Regular guy has his life upended by tragedy, to the point he's sentenced to space prison. He takes a mining gig to reduce his sentence. Then he decides everyone must pay for his misfortune.
Artist's Interpretation - Steampunk Horrors 4 by Priscilla Petraites and Alex Guimarães - 6 - An image of a man paralyzed in a chair, with perhaps a naked angel perched atop him. The accompanying text reads as a diary entry, of a man it seems besotted with his own hubris. A brief telling of the old story of the scientist blinded by their own ego, that has its own charm. (It's unfortunate that the Contents entries for this and the next Artist's Interpretation have the creators switched around.)
"Cold Dead War - The Aftermath" by Craig Wilson, Frank Forte, Adam Wollet - 5 - The American is running from zombies again, and forced into an alliance with a former enemy. The commodification, and the egregious use of multiple two page spreads, and the splattering of little word blobs all over, put me in a bad mood. Sorry.
"Obj" by Wayshak - 7.5 - " ... she lives in a world she cannot understand ... " sums it up pretty nicely. Put another way, this is an indescribable exploration of, something, reality? consciousness? perception? By the same creator of "Sleepy Boy" from Legacy #322, with even more strangeness. I liked it.
"KillBox" by Lindsey Anderson Beer, Flavio Cortés - 7 - A mostly prose piece, with some illustration, regarding a juiced-up fighter in a Killbox, which sounds like an even more brutal MMA octagon type-thing. There's some nice description and backstory, the art complements the text, and of course he elects to take the "new" shot.
"Heresy" by Katie-Houghton-Ward, Frank Forte, Adam Wollet, R.G. Llarena - 7 - Abraham van Helsing seeks the last nosferatu on earth. Finding three women of otherworldly beauty, he thinks he's found them. Close but not quite. Pretty drawings of pretty women and it's amazing that van Helsing has lived this long with how easily he's duped and overwhelmed.
"Primeval" by David Quinn, Tim Vigil, Jay Fotos, Adam Wollet, Frank Forte - 6 - Immortal demoness in ridiculously silly evil villain outfit, rants and incants to bring on the end of the world.
"Millstone" by Michael W Conrad, Ilias Kyriazis, Nikki Spanou, Simon Bowland, Chris Thompson - 8 - Jet Black dispenses with a clockwork sagittarii, then must face Cavitus, a deathbringer "driven by an otherworldly sentience that has taken a rotten tooth as its home". Brilliant. What unholy demons will Jet Black encounter next?
Artist's Interpretation - Steampunk Horrors 4 by Filipe Cunha - 6 - A witch inveighs against the technological abominations perpetrated by modern man. That's a mighty big witch's hat ye' got there.
Interview with Matías De Vincenzo by R.G. Llarena - A short one page interview with Matías De Vincenzo, who does the work following, which takes inspiration from a Hans Christian Andersen story.
"The Ugly Duckling" by Matías De Vincenzo - 7.5 - A clever apocalyptic take on the old tale. The little one must endure humans displaying their inhumanity through the centuries.
"Deconstructing Manga" by Shintaro Kago -7 - A wild and crazy exploration of the panel comic form, quickly devolving into mayhem. Pretty fun.
"The Candidate" by Alfonso Font, Frank Forte - 6 - A torturer proves unsuited for the task.
"Beacon from Scorpius 4" by Frank Forte, Edu Menna, Liezl Buenaventura - 5 - A distress beacon brings a reluctant rescuer to a missing starship. Looked ok but didn't hit it for me.
"Gladiatrix" by John Stanisci, Dan Gordon, David Baron, Tom Napolitano, Dave Kelly - 7 - First with "The Trials of Ta-Neen" then "Part Three Cave" and including "Special Thanks to Vlas and Charley Parlapanides". The Gladiatrix was rescued by Klak-ik, an insect creature, and together they attack The Queen. Somehow escaping, hallucinations then leave their mark.
A fake ad for Soul-O-Matic, Heavy Metal's soul removal service, was pretty funny.
Artist's Interpretation - Steampunk Horrors 5 by DAF - 6 - A Victorian vampire party. Illustration by DAF, text is unattributed.
"Sixella - The Last Roots" by Janevsky, Dave Kelly - 7 - This is Part 3. I think I 'm getting closer. The robot hooker was an ally, but to where is the escape? Still very pink.
"Valentina - Part 3" by Sergio Gerasi, Vik Deluca, Tom Williams, Chris Thompson - 7 - Valentina agrees to be digitized, but she's uploaded and released before she knows what happened.
Metal Strips - "The Bus" by Paul Kirchner, "Gag Reflex" by Shannon Wheeler, "Harry Canyon" by Josh Sky and Frank Forte, "Gunk" by Chris Merlo - 7 - I believe The Bus is showing us new strips, since Mr Kirchner is still going and there have been several The Bus books published since it was last a regular feature in Heavy Metal Magazine.
There's a fake ad for a Heavy Metal Apocalypse cult starter kit. Complete with goat and scented candles. And then there's an ad selling the art wear t-shirts and playing cards and even some vinyl albums.
Well, for all the crap the last year brought, at least it brought the return of Heavy Metal Magazine. Thanks to all at HM Heavy Industries who made it happen, and may the coming years bring us many more.
No comments:
Post a Comment