Take a ride

Monday, July 6th, 2009 • Horrorthon Posts

Trolling through the wilderness of bittorrent, what did I happen upon but an 11.58 GB archive containing 168 issues of Heavy Metal magazine, beginning with its debut in September 1977 and extending (sporadically) thirty years to March 2007 (comprising about half the total run). The collection also includes 9 “related publications” (like the 1979 Alien comic adaptation) and 41 special editions. Heewack! A five-day download, but so what! (My computers had to do something while I was in the Berkshires for the long weekend.)

Anyway, it’s Heavy Metal, starting right at the beginning with the stories that made it into the movie (including “Den” and “So Beautiful, So Dangerous”) and going on to include tons of work by Moebius, Royo, Bisley, Corben, Frazetta, Bissette, Sienkiewicz, Vallejo, Darrow, etc. etc., not to mention fiction by Ellison, Bloch, Silverberg etc. etc. in between ads for turntables and rolling papers and Journey albums (and cassettes!) and illustrated features on upcoming movies like Blade Runner and Videodrome.

A treasure trove! It’s all just amazing, amazing stuff. (Click on the vintage Luiz Royo cover above for a closer view of this fine example of what octopunk’s and my friend Sam described as the Heavy Metal vibe: “Lots of machines, and sex, all the time.”)

Here’s “The Devil Burns a Sick Day”, just one nearly-randomly-selected strip comic from a nearly-bottomless well of thirty years of geek brilliance.

(NOTE:As with all online-traded comics and magazines, these Heavy Metal issues are compiled into “industry-standard” .cbr and .cbz archive files. There are many freeware “comic book reader” programs available for Mac and Windows. “Pirate!”)