Heavy Metal Magazine Covers. 1977

For us, doing a painting for Heavy Metal is a rare creative thrill. It gives us the freedom to be bold, to step beyond the imposed boundaries of the establishment and enter a world of exciting wickedness. It's like taking a vacation to an extra-terrestrial adult theme park that's bursting with energy, great forbidden fun, and sexy campiness — a place you definitely want to come back to again and again.

 

— Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell

 

Heavy Metal : 25 years of classic covers / compiled, designed and written by John Workman. — New York : Metal Mammoth, Inc., 2002.

I wanted to (metaphorically, of course) bash in the heads of potential readers with those covers and to then proceed to shanghai those people as they innocently and unwittingly headed toward their work or to shopping or some other mundane experience. Those unfortunate people may not have realized the truth that looked back from their bathroom mirrors each morning, but they were and are definitely in need of a trip to the unique fantasy world provided by Heavy Metal. Of course, they could always put in an appearance at a worthwhile movie or an inspiring play. They could open the pages of any one of the always-growing number of great books that manage to communicate so much of the painfully-acquired knowledge that real people continue to try to offer us ... about the possibilities of finding some fun while playing out our limited number of days and nights. They can listen to music that is, at the same time, so incredibly powerful and so sadly fragile and also so easily available. No iron-willed king who thundered his wrath at court musicians ever had even the possibility of hearing such a variety of blissful sounds.

 

If they’re really hard up for entertainment (an impossibility, given the near-inexhaustible amount of great stuff to be found all around us), they can play a few video games or complacently stare at the unblinking eye of a TV set.

 

But if they do any of those things, they'll still be left without their absolutely necessary drink of the life-affirming tonic that only Heavy Metal can provide. You see, the inside of each issue of Heavy Metal is one of the few remaining places where a reader can find tales of fantasy and romance and adventure that are told in a unique language that combines words and pictures into a single, powerful unit. And yes, I know that movies and television, whether animated or "live," can claim to do the same thing, but the differences between filmed entertainment and what has come to be known as "comics" far outnumber any similarities. You can start with the fact that, while even the least expensive movie is a collaborative effort making use of the abilities of numerous people, one guy with a pen and a bottle of ink can put a cast of thousands through their paces in a story told in comics form. Aside from the obvious personal aspects of the form, there are so many elements ... dealing with individual page design, pacing, narration, dialogue, exaggerating for effect, what to leave out, what to leave in ... that work perfectly within a comics story, but would call attention to themselves as being odd or even ludicrous in a film.

 

And yes, I also know that there are other outlets for the comics form in the US of A. But those often unreadable, sometimes magnificent examples of what comic books have come to have been rapidly fading from view over the last two decades. For the average person (who, aware of it or not, remains a potential reader), the once-ubiquitous comic book is nearly impossible to find. If a miracle should somehow occur and the comics-starved reader is suddenly compelled to make the often hundreds of miles trek in order to find one of the handful of remaining "comics shops," what happens next? In order to ferret out something worthwhile, the poor soul will be forced to sift through far too many examples of incomprehensible junk that are of no interest to anyone outside of the small, in-bred "fan" group that has succeeded in hiding comics away from the much larger number of people who used to read them.

 

You don't need to go through all that unnerving silliness to find and appreciate Heavy Metal. The dull and feeble doorway that regular comic books offer is usually hidden by what amounts to timid acquiescence to the unchallenged "realities" of the art/business of comics publishing. In contrast, the doorway that is a Heavy Metal cover shines like a beacon. It can be found in the few "comic shops," but it's also on general newsstands and in regular bookstores. You can even subscribe and have it delivered to your own home. There will certainly be those who may, after walking through HM's doorway, find a few of the stories not to their liking. At least they won't be confronted by the embarrassing spectacle of the oxymoronic "adult" superhero comics story that chronicles the pathetically childish doings of a muscular fellow arrayed in colorful tights who manages to bore the reader to death with his interminable attempts to cope with middle-age angst. The divergent characters, stories, and art styles found in Heavy Metal may sometimes leave the reader pondering the meaning of what he's just read. Some of those works may produce awe, wonder, and plenty of questions, but they will never bore the reader.

 

— John Workman

 

Heavy Metal : 25 years of classic covers / compiled, designed and written by John Workman. — New York : Metal Mammoth, Inc., 2002.

There are a couple of things that I came to comprehend while revisiting over two decades of cover artwork. The first involved the back covers that adorned every issue of the magazine until some time in 1985. Those secondary covers served a purpose and were an important extra for the Heavy Metal readers. Several of the back covers (and I won't reveal which) were originally scheduled to be front covers, but were "demoted" because they didn't have the appeal that the "doorway" art needed. Still, the back covers are all exquisite pieces of art that deserved to be shown, each issue, in a special place. I miss 'em. You should, too.

 

The second epiphany involves the UPC box. That's the ugly little piece of scanner doggerel that appears at the bottom of each cover. I hate that lousy thing. It's defaced pieces of great art to a degree that puts to shame the combined rampages of all the looters, barbarians, and bowdlerizing morons who ever lived. Just look at what was done to the overwhelmingly beautiful cover that's on the bottom of page 107. Yeah, the UPC could have been moved over to the right side, but some timid person probably took too seriously the pronouncements of a mushbrained bureaucrat who ordained that the godawful box be placed exactly where it is. Complain about such atrocities, people. Loudly. I've got faith in you. You can change things for the better.

 

— John Workman

 

Heavy Metal : 25 years of classic covers / compiled, designed and written by John Workman. — New York : Metal Mammoth, Inc., 2002.