RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books HEAVY METAL Magazine

I used to read this thing in the late 70's-early 80's. There was a ton of incredible art, and occasionally some intelligent stories as well (though they were not a prerequisite, apparently). Then the quality plummetted, and I read the entire editorial staff was brought up on drug charges-- which somehow didn't surprise me at the time.

I haven't read it in ages... until this past week. I got my hands on the JAN '03 issue, just to read one story.

This must be the first time in 20 years I read an entire HM issue cover-to-cover. It hasn't changed much... Lots of darkness, depravity, nudity, violence, pointlessness.

There's 3 stories by Azpiri, back-to-back-- although the 2nd one is split by other features right in the middle. You'd think they'd put other stories BETWEEN stories, not in the middle of one! Not my favorite artist, although at least the naked bimbo he draws isn't bad looking.

"FISTFUL OF BLOOD" by Simon Bisley & Kevin Eastman combines the feel of an spaghetti western, vampires, and excessive amounts of violence. Nasty-- but "fun".

"THE INTRUDER" by Giampiero Casertano involves a soldier's reminiscences, and is typical of the kind of stuff that bored me 20 years ago.

"ROXY RANGERS" -- now this is far more like it! Shannon Denton does a lighthearted story about 3 hot mercenary babes in brightly-colored outfits having an adventure in space. Should I be surprised a woman did some of the nicest-looking art in here? (The only problem was they stuck this Simon Bisley pin-up on heavy cardboard stock right in the middle of the story-- it's like one of those ads in TV GUIDE I have to carefully remove if I ever wanna be able to read the magazine at all. Sheesh!)

"TRIPPING OUT"-- now THIS was why I bought the mag for in the first place. ARNOLD DRAKE & LUIS DOMINGUEZ team up for a past-paced adventure-fantasy that looks & feels like it would have fit much better in the old Warren VAMPIRELLA mag-- IF that series had been printed in color on glossy paper. I've seen precious little of Dominguez' work over the years, but this is STUNNING. His colors are so completely different from EVERYTHING else in the book, it makes me think HM isn't good enough for art like this!


Anybody else read the book lately-- or back when? I'd love to hear some reminisences...

I used to read it infrequently. Mot of it didn't interest me much. Gory or puerile, but I did like a story about Gullivar's Travels, as if Gullivar had been a woman. It was by that Italian artist who does all the comic book porn -name escapes me. It was a funny read.

I remember once though being in Singapore and walking by a shop selling collectible figures. Singapore has very strict censorship laws. One of the figures was a Heavy Metal one - a robot, power cables dangling to the floor, with a scantily clad woman with her legs wrapped around the robot's face, she in obvious delight, and the robot's head totally obscured.

The owner must have been worried about the local police busting him, because he stuck an obviously fake head on top of the head of the robot, so it looked as if the woman merely had her legs wrapped aroound his neck.

Milo Manara, Dave?

I get any issue that has Masamilliano Frezzato art. His Margot and Keeper of the Mazer works are great. That's about it....

No problem. I wonder how a working knowledge of Italian soft porn comics artists reflects on me?

We are open minded, and aren't prejudiced against soft porn afficiandos around here.

That's good to know.

"Italian soft porn"? What-- never seen the HARDCORE stuff? (heehee) A friend loaned me some digest-sized comics from Italy, once. They were clearly, blatently, MAGNUM P.I. in all but name (then again it's hard to tell without a translattor). The only difference was, all the X-RATED "extra" scenes added in (probably during the commercial breaks).

The guy who "sold" HM on me was RICHARD CORBEN. I'd been following his work in the Warren magazines since 1971 (EERIE, etc.) but when I saw the painted full-color work he was doing on DEN, my jaw dropped!!! Not only had his work taken several steps ahead, but he was no longer concerned about censorship (unlike, say, the version of the story that turned up in the movie, when John Candy's voice-over explains "There was NO WAY I was gonna walk around with my DORK hanging out!"). To this day, I wish somebody would do a full-length animated adaptation of the 1st DEN story, so all the details and nuances could be included intact. (And the NUDITY as well-- let's not forget about the NUDITY!)