It Doesn't Look Good

It doesn't look good for my favorite magazine.

It doesn't look good when they can't seem to get issues to subscribers before the mag is released at stores, compounding the main problem that caused the first Kickstarter to be so disastrous for so many.

It doesn't look good when folks are still waiting on items from the second Kickstarter, which launched last November 2025, with fulfillment starting in mid-2026.  And it doesn't look good that "official" updates ceased in July, with no more than cameo appearances of Zach or Sarah on discord or AM circle since.  (to be fair, Sarah has been more active lately, mostly with "sorry" and "you'll get them", but better than nothing.)

It doesn't look good when I fell for the new subscription offer in May, for when it goes to bimonthly they said, and the price goes up they said, and a then copy of #326 shows up in September, after I bought one in a store in August, and it's apparently not even the first bimonthly issue.

And it doesn't look good when the pdf copies offered with the new subscription are not available, and while I was delighted to actually get a reply to an email I sent asking about it earlier in October (after I asked earlier in June) it did not look good that it was a non-answer response.

It doesn't look good when a recently departed Heavy Metal Executive Editor reached out via email (to me and others) to stoke interest in updating the Heavy Metal Wikipedia page, and it appears he succeeded in getting some folks to talk trash promote rumors and prance on Heavy Metal's figurative grave.

It doesn't look good when Heavy Metal shows how tone-deaf they are, when they decide to offer HM holiday ugly sweaters, now, with untold numbers of still dissatisfied customers, when only fools would trust they could deliver by December.

No, it doesn't look good.  In the absence of actual information, anger and rumor propagate.  The discord and circle social media are full of unhappy customers.  My dissatisfaction with my interactions with Heavy Metal Magazine is small compared to many of the loudest wronged, but it's outweighed by my disappointment in the sorry state of the operation.  It's hard to watch.  It's sad to think that they just couldn't manage to ride the excitement and goodwill of successfully resurrecting Heavy Metal Magazine to become a somewhat stable enterprise with room to grow, that rather excess ambition and hubris combined with missteps and dysfunction might prove to be suffocating the magazine.

It doesn't look good, but they're not dead yet.  The Extreme Futurism Special is out (ordered one not from HM) and #327 is delayed but still coming it seems.  Reports of folks getting their things trickle in.  The mag itself looks mostly ok despite my prejudices.  But the disarray is widely visible, and answers and assurances, and stuff, are hard to come by.  It may be an even greater miracle than Heavy Metal's rebirth, to right the ship and get it sailing more than sinking.  I can only hope.