Where I Read - Heavy Metal Magazine #4
By CountZero 0 Comments
This week we continue with the recaps with Volume 1, Issue 4 for July of 1977. We've got another cover by Mobius, this one of Arzach (which as you notice is featured on the cover). Inside the cover we've got an issue for three Supertramp albums, with a focus on their album "Even in the Quietest Moments". I have to say the cover art isn't my kind of thing.
Letters
My god, they're getting letters now! Ahh, the good old days where you had to rely on the US postal service and it took a month or two for your readers to muster up enough letters to merit a column. We get a question about whether we'll get posters - to which we get the response that not only will we get posters, you'll get ties, ashtrays, underarm guards and birth control devices. Remember - we're still being published by the people who brought you the National Lampoon, so don't expect them to take anything nearly more seriously than Mad Magazine does. That said... I'd be interested in seeing how a Den or SunPot necktie would go over.
Anyway, we also get statements about how the American answer to Metal Hurlant doesn't hold up well in comparison (which, to be honest, has to be expected - and I can't blame them considering issues #2 & #3). We also get a question about who whether the magazine is just going to be translations of material from the French version. We can expect newer material in approximately the magazine's second year. No, that's not my answer from fore-knowledge, that's their plan, re-run material from Hurlant for the first year, and then start working in new material for the second year). This bears mentioning because Metal Hurlant is no longer being published. Heavy Metal, on the other hand, is still running, and is running to this day.
Harzac by Jean "Moebius" Giraud
This is just a one-page group-shot of all the supporting characters we've previously encountered in the series thus far.
Anyway, we also get an ad for some Lord of the Rings related posters and puzzles. Our editorial column doesn't tell us anything that the table of contents doesn't (which touches on one of my nit-picks with editorial columns), save the announcement that this issue has the last installment of Arzach, and that Heavy Metal will be putting out an Arzach anthology volume. No word about a SunPot anthology.
Approaching Centauri by Philippe Druillet and Jean "Moebius" Giraud
Now, I haven't seen Event Horizon. However, I have read descriptions of the movie, and if I was going to compare this comic with anything, I'd compare it with Event Horizon - sort of. Specifically, a ship's jump drive malfunctions, causing the ship's captain's consiousness to get sucked - briefly, into hell, before it's restored when he's revived by the ship physician. It also has male nudity. All things considered, the captain takes it pretty well.
Den - Part 4 by Richard Corben
So, Den and his female companion have escaped sacrifice to Not-Cthulhu by the evil Queen, and have gotten aboard a bat-creature, and fled for the hills. We then learn the identity of the woman - she's a novelist from Great Britain circa 1892 named Katherine Wells, who was whisked to this world through a mysterious portal, like Den - and like Den she was physically transformed as well. By the way, another shift between the Heavy Metal film and the original story comes up here, a minor one - Den and Katherine's coitus is not interruptus.
After they have sex though, another group of beast-men comes up and arrests both characters. The leader claims to have previously known Den before, though Den (and we) don't know them. So, we get some expository dialog before we get the kicker - to keep the villain from sacrificing Katherine to Not-Cthulhu, the beast-man (who leads a group of rebels against the villain) must kill Katherine. Den will have none of that, so he challenges the rebel chief to a fight to the death, with Katherine's life at stake. Is through this fight that we learn that the beast-man is anatomically correct, and that he wears no pants. I guess this makes it official that the world of Den is a world without clothing of any kind. However, as they fight, the Queen's pet insects start attacking, and on this cliff hanger we end this story. To Be Continued.
The Prince Of Mist by Walter C. F. Perry and Jean-Michel Nicollet
This is a novella with four chapters - Arrival, Discovery, Conception & Creation, and an Epilogue. I really can't make heads nor tales of the plot. It involves clones and Helsmen who are bound to chastity, and people who are naturally born being in the minority and the Clones trying to exterminate them. There's more to it than that, but it feels like I'm catching one episode in the middle of Legend of the Galactic Heroes. However, unlike the previous works of prose fiction that have run in Heavy Metal, this isn't part of a larger story and Perry (the writer - Nicollet does the opening illustration) doesn't get anything else published, so this is all we'll know about this universe.
World Apart: The Golden City - Part 2 by E. E. Davis
Now, I wasn't too enthused with part 1. Between the LesbianStripperNinja, the bad dialog, and the semi-homophobia, it left me with the scent of crap lingering in my nostrils--almost like when I played the arcade version of NARC.
The dialog has not improved.
We start off this chapter with some exposition - apparently in the past the "bible-thumpers" (note to mods - that's the word the writer uses) were overthrown from their control of society, replaced by the guiding light of science and reason - until dark priests of an evil cult sent the world into the dark age it finds itself in now. So... they're doing a holy jihad against the evil cultists.
We also get an error of continuity. In part one they clearly establish that the main character's *ahem* tackle was damaged in the fight with the LesbianStripperNinja - that's why our wonderfully tolerant (not really) writer had the main character being regularly being the bottom for gay sex off-camera. However, we now see him post-coitus with the LesbianStripperNinja. They are kind enough to re-state her name if you missed it last time, Shay Amonn. However, we now have an upcoming fight. We also get another alteration to our main character (who doesn't really have a name). Before he favored a sword and fought wearing a loincloth - here he's switched to an axe and, like Den, fights naked.
That said, Corben still writes dialog 50 times better than Davis does. Anyway, they ride out, and fight a bunch of acid-spitting trolls. After some time he takes up gear and leaves. The unknown narrator says he takes no more with him than he came, which makes for another continuity error then - because when he came he was naked as a jaybird with only a loincloth (that Shay had cut through), and a crappy sword to his name. He leaves with armor, shield, spear, cloak and horse. That's a helluva lot more than he had when he came. It's also To Be Continued. Let's hope he can keep his narrative straight next issue. I doubt it.
1996 by Chantal Montellier
So, the bald guy from off planet on the last issue decides that Earth is "hard" and he's going to leave. He plays a little music on a flute, this draws people from nearby, which leads to the military arresting them all as dissidents.
Nep Simo by Alain Voss
A psychic with telekinetic powers (the title character) rescues a topless woman who was being thrown off a building by criminals who look a lot like the Beagle Boys. They're nearly run down by a clown on a moped, and decide to go to a bar to so the woman (still topless) can tell her story. At the bar, an drunk man who is imagining seeing spiders because he's drunk (and not on absinthe), puts out his cigar on one of the woman's boobs. Nep not only "cures" the alcoholic's alcoholism by "disconnecting the imagination centers of his brain", but he also magically heals the burn on the woman's boob. Nep recognizes the clown on a billboard for a local circus, goes to investigate, where they discover that the Beagle Boys (which are actually trained apes) are working for the earlier clown on a moped. Said clown masterminded the whole thing so they could have the boyfriend ripped to pieces at the circus for the entertainment of the audience - who was duped into being told that the boyfriend isn't really a human - only to it be revealed that the boyfriend wasn't actually a human after-all.
IT MAKES NO SENSE!
Harzakc by Jean "Moebius" Giraud
Not much plot on this one. Arzach peeps on on a girl, and flies a great distance to someplace else. We see him naked, and we get one line of dialog ("Harzach") spoken by someone else.
Conquering Armies by Jean-Claude Gal and Jean-Pierre Dionnet
So, this installment follows the fate of Olric, a mountain chieftain who did a pretty good job resisting the armies that tried to conquer his territory, until he became a bit of a legend, and people flocked to his banner, and it all ended up going to his head. So, he tried taking the fight to his enemies and lost. However, Olric gets the last revenge, when one of his people slipped into the camp with a person infected with The Plague - and the commander of this Army is burned by his own men.
I have to say that the three series that have been rock solid thus far in Heavy Metal have been Den, Arzach, and Conquering Armies.
Sunpot: Ch. 5 and 6 by Vaughn Bodé and Jack Adler
Now the conclusion. The SunPot leaves Venus, but it's enviromental systems were damaged by the Venusian atmosphere. The Chief envionmental engineer warns the ship's commander, Dr. Electric, but Dr. Electric just has the man killed. The final chapter is what George R.R. Martin joked the last "Song Of Ice And Fire" book would be - a slow trip through the SunPot, clogged with smog, and with every single person on board dead.
Come to think about it, the only story we've gotten thus far that had a happy ending was Yrrir. Everything else has gone for a dark conclusion, either of the "rocks-fall-everyone-dies" approach like SunPot, or the "main characters are killed horribly" approach like the recent installment of Conquering Armies. Occasionally we get something like the end of Nep Simo, which I guess could best be described as a non-ending or an "the author was stoned when he wrote this" ending.
So, this like some fantasy old west kind of thing. Sort of. Not really. Well, the design of the main character of this (and the title) are meant to evoke the old west, but with a big sword instead of a six-shooter. Our hero, by the way, is named Hurath. Anyway, Hurath is harassed by some (basically) orks who tell him to get a move on, as this is the terratory of the Golden Queen. Hurath tells them to buzz off, he's just here for the night and he'll leave tomorrow. The orks try to kill him, and he politely informes them that anything they can do, he can do better - with his sword.
Hurath decides to visit his "hostess" and climbs the golden stairs to her palace. He finds her at the top (a four-breasted ugly monstrocity), where she tells him that if he answers her questions three, he may live. Like any good PC, he whips out his mighty sword (heh) and tells her what she can do with her questions, and then kills her by spitting in her mouth. Anti-climactic.
Yes, this is that Dan O'Bannon, the one who wrote Dark Star and Alien. This one is a hard-boiled private investigator sci-fi story, and a pretty fun one too. This is also the Moebus story that everyone goes to when they talk about how Moebius's art style influenced Ridley Scott's storyboards on Blade Runnner and Alien. In particular, I've seen the bottom panel on this page on the documentaries for Blade Runner. Anyway, our detective (aptly named "Club") is hired by a upper-class girl (on an heavily built-up Earth where the upper-class is indeed "up"), to retrieve a box from a storage locker in a rough part of town. By the time he gets back, the girl is dead and the police are on the scene. Apparently some alien spies are after a McGuffin, which I suspect is in the box that Club was hired to retrieve. As this installment of the story ends, an assassin tries to kill Club, but fails. Club takes off in persuit. (To Be Continued)
Crossroads Of The Universe - Enki Bilal
I really like Bilal's art style. I don't like how the story gives us YAOLE (Yet Another Outer Limits Ending). The story sort of follows a priest of some sort travelling through a desert on some alien world, and being attacked by "demons" which take on his own form. He finally refuses to fight anymore, and is killed.
Harzack by Jean "Moebius" Giraud
Here it is, the last Arzach story. And it starts with Arzach taking a pee. The Man comes to arrest him for urinating in public, but then the pool of urine turns into tentacle monsters which consume the cop car. Arzach flees (on foot - where's the Pterodactyl?) and hides behind a rock, where a guy is taking a dump.
Really? After all this we end it with bathroom humor? I'm slightly disappointed. Not surprised, but disappointed somewhat. Especially considering that what in my opinion, what made the Arzach stories great was scenery like the stuff on the cover. You had these great alien worlds, where these slightly darkly comic stories were taking place on without dialog. I could see why, when they did the Taarna the Taarmekian story in the Heavy Metal movie - which was adapted from the Arzach stories, they dumped the bathroom humor in favor of focusing on the image of a silent protagonist riding on a pterodactyl.