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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2017 13:18:17 GMT -5
Agorn (15 pgs; b&w)Story/Art: Philippe Druillet Synopsis/Comments: A lone desiccated figure sits upon a desolate throne until the cosmic winds and the voice of a demon lord summon him back to life and consciousness, only to force him to relive the events that led him to sell his soul for vengeance resulting in this eternal damnation forever denied the love that led him to this desperate act. Druillet’s art here is fantastic, especially the 2 page spread/splash at the center of the story, but this is one story that cried out for color and was held back by the black and white format. I generally like b&w as a format for comics, but Druillet’s art here could have used something to break up the blacks adding to the palette of the story. A small complaint though. The story works as an effective morality play with a fantasy setting, a fable for the ages so to speak. Ratings: Story 7/10, Art 9/10; Overall 8/10 I forgot to note that this 2 page spread is used as the back cover for the issue and is in color on the back cover, part of what made me wish the entire story was in color. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2017 15:21:16 GMT -5
Heavy Metal #2 Part 2
Conquering Armies (12 pgs; b&w)
Story: Jean-Pierre Dionnet
Art: Jean-Claue Gal
Synopsis/Comments: A pair of soldiers, comrades-in arms, relates the tale of how one saved the other’s life at the cost of his fingers. The amputee seems bitter, so he comrade seeks out legends of an hermit healer and fights his guardians to win a boon for his ailing brother. He returns to camp to find his brother too has set off in search of the healer and is not seen again. He is left only with his nightmares about his brother’s fate. It’s a well constructed ending with an o. Henry/Twilight Zone twist at the end that pays off well.
Ratings: Story 9/10; Art 8/10; Overall 8/10
Age of Ages (3 pgs; b&w)
Story: Akbar Del Piombo
Art (collages): Norman Rubington
Synopsis/Comments: Part 2 of 5. More of the weird alt-future leading to the rise and fall of Big Brother and an ecological revival gone wrong. Something nasty is coming and Sir Edwin Fuzz girds for battle. The story is just as absurd as last time, perhaps with even less coherency this time, and the collages are slightly more interesting this time around, but overall this still just isn’t working for me.
Ratings: Story: 4/10, Art 4/10; Overall 4/10
Roger (4 pgs; color)
Story: Souchu
Art (staged photography): Locquet
Synopsis/Comments: A predecessor to Toyfare’s Mego Theatre, as the story is told through photographs of a staged action figure/doll (one of the Big Jim toys). Roger is lord and master of all, i.e. the dude who plays with the toys. Absurd surrealism through toy photography. More bemusing than amusing. And whoever decided to use a light blue font to letter over a black background in the opening panel really needs to reconsider things.
Ratings: Story: 5/10; Art 6/10 Overall 5/10
The Star-Death of Magaret Omali-an except from the novel Up the Walls of the World by James Tiptree Jr.
I was unfamiliar with James Tiptree Jr. (or more accurately Alice Sheldon), but after reading the excerpt here and doing a quick google search on the author, I am intrigued enough to check out more.
Virgo (6 pgs; b&w)
Story/art: Philippe Cazamayou (creating as Caza)
Synopsis/Comments: A silent story. A woman enters a forest looking for food and shelter, eats of a fruit there and lies to rest, but the forest consumes her and makes her a part of it in an interesting way. For me, this worked as a visual metaphor alluding to Eve and the Eden story, but not much else. Thematically I’ve seen this twist done before and since, and often done better.
Ratings: Story 6/10, Art 7/10, Overall 6/10
Harzak (8 pgs; color)
Story/art/colors: Jean Giraud (as Moebius)
Synopsis/Comments: Silent story. Azrach flies aboard his mount and another pack bird, but they tire and one flies to low and is taken by a reaching hungry steppe grass. His own mount is tiring too and the only respite he sees is atop a small ruin but it is guarded by a King Kong type creature. He outwits the creature and he wins respite for his mount and himself while the steppe consumes the Kong analogue. Moebius is able to convey plot, mood, emotion, and subtle nuances via his art making the words unnecessary. A masterpiece of cartooning.
Ratings: Story: 9/10, Art 10/10; Overall 9/10
Festival (4 pgs; b&w)
Story: Baret
Art: Picaret
Synopsis/Comments: in a not-too-distant-undetermined future time a rock band prepares for the massive Ryad music festival andis contacted by a musician with a new instrument. They like it and incorporate it into the act-it is the Pie-Eyed Pipes. Whenthe band takes the stage, they lest loose the pipes and a horde of rats descends on the festival killing nearly everyone. An interesting twist on the Pied Piper tale, executed in an interesting manner. There is a subtext commenting on the commercialism of rock-and-roll throughout the depictions of the band and festival that adds a layer to the story. The art was interesting and competently rendered, just not to my particular tastes.
Ratings: Story 7/10; Art: 5/10; overall 6/10
Issue overview thoughts: Much more of a mixed bag this time. Some highlights but a lot more that left me feeling med and underwhelmed. Even so, lots of interesting looks at how to use the medium of comics to tell stories and lots of layered pieces that take a while to sort through. Still, most of it was more interesting than really good, but there was still enough really good stuff to leave me feeling satisfied overall about the issue.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2017 19:41:37 GMT -5
Heavy Metal June 1977 (#3 or Vol. 1 #3 depending on the reckoning)Part 1  96 pgs, $1.50 cover price; published by HM Communications ContentsFront Cover by Moebius Gail by Druillet World Apart by Davis Conquering Armies by Gal and Dionnet Vessel by He Sunpot by Bode Rockblitz by Macedo Den by Corben Night Images by Robert E. Howard (w/Corben illustrations) Sloane by Tardi Age of Ages by Rubington 1996 by Montellier Vengeance by Alexis Shells by Schuiten Back Cover by Druillet NotesThe first letter page for Heavy Metal appears in this issue. The column is entitled Chain Mail. The first letter complains the book feels too European, especially the strip Den and asks why they couldn’t use a good ole American writer and artist instead of the guy who did Den-ah the more things change…. The second letter complains National Lampoon is a rip off of Mad and Heavy Metal is just a rip off of Marvel Comics…?!? The third and fourth letters are more complimentary, and the fourth queried how long it takes to produce the Arzach strip, the editor said when asked Moebius replied it took him two days to produce each panel for it. Two days per panel…. ReviewsGail (8 pgs; b&w)Story & art: Philippe Druillet Synopsis/Comments: Part of the Lone Sloane Saga taking place after Delirius, before Chaos. It is a time of galactic turmoil and the Empire struggles against several factions within and without. All draw mercenary troops form an infamous prison planet, and a new batch of recruits is being sent to the planet. This installment is pretty much all set up for the larger tale Druillet is telling, so is a little exposition heavy, but it still works overall and the art still moves things along. I’ve found Druillet Lone Sloane epics build slow and explode later in the story, this 8 pager is in the slow build portion of the story for sure, but still builds towards something interesting. This is part 1 of 8. Rating: Story 7/10: Art 9/10; Overall: 8/10 World Apart (8 pgs; color)Story/art: Ed Davis (as E.E. Davis) Synopsis/Comments: Part 1 of 5. In a distant future three warriors are the lone survivors of a terrible, bloody battle and they face off against each other. One is slain leaving two to face off, a veiled warrior and a nearly naked savage. The veiled warrior wins and is revealed to be a woman. She takes the wounded savage to her camp where her followers tend his wounds while she decides his fate, keeping him as a pet/trophy until she decides. He spends six months there until he comes across the tent of a mystic who shows him wondrous visions… It’s an interesting start and set up for a story. Lots of action, a little world-building, but a little thin of characterization yet. Ratings: Story 8/10, Art 7/10; overall 8/10 Conquering Armies (4 pgs; b&w)Story: Jean-Pierre Dionnet Art: Jean-Claude Gal Synopsis/Comments: A long marching army runs short of food and sends sentries out to watch the road behind for signs of the pursuing army and to be fewer mouths to feed as the sentries must survive on their own or starve. One sentry sees the pursuers but is bitter he was chosen to starve and decides not to warn his comrades and hunts for food instead. This one was a bit of a miss compared to others in this series. It is still interesting, but feels much smaller in scale and grandeur, and feels less impressive overall than previous installments. Rating: Story 6/10; Art 8/10 Overall 7/10 The Vessel (4 pgs; b&w)Story/Art: Dominique He Synopsis/Comments: A lone astronaut pilots his vessel grumbling over the idiocy of others and is attacked by a planet/creature that mistakes him for something else, he escapes but in so doing pushes his vessel beyond a cosmic border that damages the vessel. A woman wakes next to her boyfriend, the astronaut, but he has died in his sleep when a blood vessel burst. A very O. Henry twist, perception vs. reality irony tale that is only moderately successful. The astronaut dialogue is to fake and haphazard to really sell the opening scenario, and the transition to the domestic scene is abrupt and rushed into on the last page of the 4 page strip (needing the 3rd page to be turned to reveal it, so at the mercy of an editor laying out the magazine, if page 3 and 4 had been facing there would be no surprise twist as it would have been revealed by turning from page 2 to the 3-4 spread, lucky of rHe the layout accommodated the needs of this 4 pager). Ratings: Story: 4/10, Art 6/10, Overall 5/10 Sunpot (4 pgs, color)Story/art/letters: Vaughn Bode Colors: Bruce Patterson Synopsis/Comments: Part 3 of 4. A rebellion of worker bots causes The Sunpot’s orbit around Venus to deteriorate. Dr. Electric tries to negotiate a solution and a compromise is reached, but too late and ship runs aground on Venus and the worker bots flee to the surface to escape Dr. Electric’s wrath. This strip is going to appeal to certain sensibilities and alienate others. I am mostly on the fence. I enjoy it, but it does tend to wallow ina bit of self-indulgence at times. Ratings: Story 7/10, Art 8/10, overall 7/10 To be continued…-M
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2017 10:33:27 GMT -5
Heavy Metal #3 (part 2 of 3)
Rockblitz (10 pgs; b&w)
Story & art by Sergio Macedo
Synopsis/Comments: A seeming gangbanger sees a peacenik wander into his territory and confronts him, but it turns out the peacenik is an alien and alters the gang member’s consciousness. The gangbanger leads the rest of the gang t a rock concert in the Peacenik territory where the aliens use the music to transform the consciousness of the gang bringing mellow peace to the world. Pretty pedestrian story and art, probably a better fit for high times than Heavy Metal.
Ratings: Story 4/10, Art 6/10, overall 5/10
Den (8 pgs; color)
Story, art & colors by Richard Corben
Synopsis/Comments: A quick note, some of the lettering, captions using black letters on dark colors in the painted panels is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible to read, which adds a level of frustration to reading this. Luckily with Corben though, you can follow the story without the captions and still know mostly what is going on. As to the story, Den ponders his options as a strange party arrives at the ruins, a human looking female in a mask and semi-human possibly lizard hybrids. They have two bundles that writhe that they carry. Den observes them form hiding as they throw the first bundle into a pool as an offering of sorts to the creature there. Den debates saving him, but he is eaten before Den takes action. He attacks to save the other but cannot prevent her form being thrown in. The guards act as if they recognize Den and he dives in to save her. He does, evading the nasty in the pool by swimming through a ruined wall to surface in different place and observes a giant bat-like creature that has landed nearby. He sees the second offering is a human woman.
Rating: Story 8/10, art 9/10 (would have been 10 except the lettering snafu dragged it down and placement/contrast of lettering with art is part of the art; overall 9/10
Night Images (excerpt from an illustrated book of poetry by Robert E. Howard; art by Corben and Frazetta)
Three poems are included: The Heart of the Seas Desire, A Word From the Outer Dark, and the Ghost Kings. I’ve read a good chunk of REH’s poetry that appeared in Weird Tales in collections of his Weird Tales writings I have, and some from the collection of his horror stuff, plus the Solomon Kane verses. The three here are pretty typical Howard efforts. His verse is evocative and competent, but not spectacular in any way. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this collection of verse in the wild though.
Fear of the Blue-Eyed Sloane (8 pgs, color)
Story, art and colors by Jacques Tardi
Synopsis/Comments: An anti-colonial themed tale. An older woman who is half-Alpha Centauran, half-Earthling recounts the tale of how she came into her wealth and the consequences of those actions. It involves a French archeologist, the ruins of an ancient culture (echoing actions in Egyptian archeology of the 19th and early 20th century), and a race of laborers on the site.
Ratings: Story: 7/10; art 5/10; overall 6/10
Age of Ages (3 pgs, b&w)
Story: Akbar Del Piombo
Art (collages): Norman Rubington
Synopsis/Comments: As Big Brother is secretly laid to rest, his sister takes over and the rash of madness continues. I have lost all interest in this particular strip, luckily there’s only 1 part left. The collage technique was interesting at first, but it wears quickly and does nothing to give the reader a visual narrative, it’s random images that possibly serve as illustrations to a text story that in and of itself is disjointed and uninteresting as it tries to be weird for weirdness sake in an ill-conceived attempt at being avante garde.
Ratings: Story 2/10; art 3/10; overall 3/10
1996 (3 pgs; b&w)
Story/Art: Chantel Montellier
Synopsis/Comments: A couple of alien looking men board a space transport. They arrive on another planet (maybe the moon, it’s really unclear as the art is vague and there are no narrative captions), have their ID’s checked and seek employment which is difficult even with a blue card. I am supposing there is some kind of allegorical/satirical commentary about immigration and unemployment in the 1970s as the underpinning theme of this piece, but it falls down in visual storytelling. Vague art can be corrected by narrative captions. Lack of narrative captions can be made up for with strong visual storytelling in the art, including specific details to give the reader context clues, but when a piece lacks both, as this one does, it’s just bad comics.
Ratings: Story 3/10, art 3/10 for poor storytelling; overall 3/10
Harzak (8 pgs; color)
Story and art by Jean Giraud (as Moebius)
Synopsis/Comments: A silent story. A man drives his car through a desert setting to a large structure surrounded by naked men-like creatures. He leaves the car and makes his way towards the structure with a suitcase and fights his way through the creatures. Inside he sees a view screen of Arzach pacing while his mount lies on the ground looking dead. He breaks out his tools, makes some adjustments on a machine in the structure and Arzach’s mount wakes, so Arzach mounts up and flies away. The repairmen packs up his tools and drives away. As opposed to the last story, here is a shining example of clear visual storytelling. No narrative captions or dialogue is necessary to tell the story here. The art gives you all the context you need to decipher the narrative being depicted.
Ratings: Story 8/10, Art 10/10; overall 9/10
To be continued…
I have to head out to work, so I will finish up the issue next time, there are only a couple of features left.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2017 19:42:51 GMT -5
Heavy Metal #3 (Part 3 of 3)
Vengeance (4 pgs; b&w)
Story & art by Dominique Vallet (working as Alexis)
Synopsis/Comments: A man approaches an old stone wall standing alone in a forest. He reminisces how the wall had once nearly killed him when he was the apprentice to a master of black magic and had killed his love when his master awakened the wall to pursue him as they tried to flee. He tells of years spent in study and plotting revenge and has returned to wreak that vengeance, and then shoots the wall dead. This feels like a DC mystery book tale. The art has a gothic feel to it. With only 4 pages to work with, the story feels a bit packed, but is overall effective.
Ratings: Story 7/10; Art 8/10; overall 8/10
Shells (8 pgs b&w + color)
Story: Luc Schuiten
Art & Colors: Francois Schuiten
Synopsis/Comments: The story starts out in black and white and color is gradually added as it progresses, firs to caption boxes then to the art itself. The story opens with the mating dance of a pair of insects then transitions to a pair of what looks like robots doing a similar dance, but it is revealed to be humans in some kind of exo-suit. They long to mate as humans once did, but the armor is to protect them from the environment and the insects. Caught up in the moment, they remove the armor, and the color is added as they reveal their armor, only used to show skin tones and the dialogue/captions as their humanity is revealed, unfortunately for the lovers they learn just how much the armor is needed. While a simple story, with a somewhat predictable twist ending, it is well-executed and the use of color as a revelation of humanity under the shell of the armor is an ingenious technique.
Ratings: Story: 8/10, Art 9/10, overall 9/10
Back cover is a Druillet piece from the story in the issue in color.
Overall Impression: The issue overall is a bit uneven. Some of the serialized stories that I was meh on in the first two issue have begun to wear on me and I await then conclusion anxiously to be done with them. Part of the charm (and frustration) with anthologies are that you are going to have stories in them that just don’t connect with you. But then you get stuff that makes the whole issue worthwhile. The stuff that hits with me in this issue, does so in a big way. Moebius, Druillet and Corben rarely disappoint, and those three features alone make the issue worthwhile, but then you get things like Shells that just totally take you off guard. Something new that just blows you away with the storytelling techniques that they use, and offer something new to the toolbox of how to tell a story visually. We are all familiar with how the transition form black and white to color is used in films like The Wizard of Oz, but the technique translated to comics here was an eye opener.
-M
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 14, 2017 22:15:29 GMT -5
Shells (or Carapaces, in some translations) is very early Schuiten. It shows his artistic skills well; but, he will get so much better. Adding Benoit Peeters to the mix really upped the storytelling, as seen in the Cities of the Fantastic. DC/Humanoids put out a trade collecting those early stories, including that one, Hollow Grounds, Carapaces, Zara and Nogegon.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 15, 2017 11:40:42 GMT -5
I still remember Shells, thinking it was an incredibly sexy story at the time even though fairly stupid (and isn't as good as "How Howie Made It In The Real World"). Cody, what was the name of the collection of short pieces? Are they all from HM or are some of them untranslated elsewhere?
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 16, 2017 9:34:17 GMT -5
I still remember Shells, thinking it was an incredibly sexy story at the time even though fairly stupid (and isn't as good as "How Howie Made It In The Real World"). Cody, what was the name of the collection of short pieces? Are they all from HM or are some of them untranslated elsewhere? The DC/Humanoids edition, from 2004 is called Hollow Grounds. I know there were albums with the stories in Europe, but I don't know of another English translation. I don't think all of the stories ever appeared in Heavy Metal, though I'm not sure. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2017 20:48:37 GMT -5
Heavy Metal July 1977 (#4 or Vol. 1 #4 depending on the reckoning)  96 pgs, $1.50 cover price; published by HM CommunicationsWrap around cover by Jean Giraud (as Moebius) entitled Arzach Rides Again Front-piece and contents page illustrations by Moebius as well ContentsChain Mail (letters) Harzak by Moebius (front-piece) Yet… (editorial/forward) Approaching Centauri by Druillet and Moebius Den by Corben The Prince of Mist by Walter Perry World Apart by Davis 1996 by Montellier Nep Simo by Voss Harzak by Moebius Conquering Armies by Gal and Dionnet Sunpot by Bode The Golden Queen by Bihanic and Druillet The Long Tomorrow by O’Bannon and Moebius Crossroads of the Universe by Bilal Harzak by Moebius Reviews…Approaching Centauri (6 pgs; b&w)Story/Script: Philippe Druillet Art: Jean Giraud (as Moebius) Synopsis/Commentary: A ship prepares to enter warp space but an error sends the pilot outside the time-space continuum where he experiences a number of visions, but denies them when the ship returns to normal space. A simple premise gorgeously executed. Moebius uses a number of splash pages and pages with big panels to depict the outside time-space parts of the story making it feel vast and near infinite compared to the smaller packed panels he uses on board the ship. And the opening panel depicting the ship is just so packed, you can look for a long time seeing all kinds of different things happening on the ship as you examine all the folks aboard the ship depicted, almost like playing Where’s Waldo with Moebius’ art. When you look at the table of contents and see Druillet and Moebius collaborating on a piece, you expect big things, and this delivers. Ratings: Story 8/10; Art 10/10, overall 9/10 Den (8 pgs; color) Story/art/colors: Richard Corben Synopsis/Commentary: Den and the woman flee from the evil sorceress and her guards riding the giant bat creature to freedom. Den learns the woman too has been transported to this place from earth, though forma different time, and she rewards him for rescuing her. As they frolic, they are surrounded and taken prisoner by a group of beastmen led by Gel who seems to know Den but whom Den has no memory of, but he is having flashbacks to his uncle’s memories of this place, now named Neverwhere. Gel tells Den of his crimes and of the queen’s plans to bring the great old ones (Uhluhtc i.e. Cthulhu backwards) through sacrificing those she brought from earth. Den chooses trial by combat, but the queen’s creatures attack while they fight. There’s a lot more expository meet in this installment than previous ones, and we learn as Den learns about the world, keeping the first person POV mostly intact. It’s a fine technique to let the audience know only as much as the first person narrator, one sometimes difficult to pull off well in comics, but Corben pulls it off well here. Ratings: Story 9/10, art 9/10; overall 9/10 The Prince of Mist by Walter C. Perry (text with title illustration) (4 pgs)I’m not sure if this was an excerpt from a longer piece as previous text pieces have been (I think it was meant to be complete here) , and a google search on the author and title doesn’t provide any answers. Either way, it reads a bit disjointedly, and most of the action happens offscreen/offpanel as it were with the reader being told about it instead of seeing it happen. It revolves around a rebellion by biological humans against a cone hierarchy after the clones took over from their previous masters and a plan to start breeding again to repopulate, but the time/dimension hopping bride search goes a bit awry and the relationship turns sour and they leave the child in the hands of adoptive parents in a manger after their appearance in that dimension looks like a bright star seen by three weary travelers, unconcerned that the child may have abilities other humans in that dimension don’t. Not an author I would seek out more from based on this piece. To be continued… -M
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2017 20:50:09 GMT -5
Here's the full wraparound cover for #4....  -M |
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Post by profh0011 on Oct 17, 2020 21:42:16 GMT -5
#4 was my first issue of " HEAVY METAL". I don't recall seeing the earlier ones, though years later I did get #1 as a back-issue. I remember thumbing thru it at the local store, seeing Corben's COLOR work-- I'd seen some of his work in EERIE from Warren, but this completely blew that out of the water. I started buying "HEAVY METAL" based entirely on Corben's work!
I recall, I was working at my 1st job then, having just graduated from high school around that time, so I was able to buy a lot more magazines than I had only a few months before.
Over the years, I got at least 2 (possibly 3) collections of the 1st story.
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