'Heavy Metal' magazine, February 1983

It’s February, 1983, and ‘Do You Really Want to Hurt Me’, by Boy George and Culture Club, is in heavy rotation on the FM stations and on MTV. My fellow college track team members and I are debating over whether Boy George is a drag queen, or a particularly huskily-voiced female vocalist. In those long-ago days, transvestites (er, ‘transgendered’) individuals were still a rarity on the public scene.

In the latest issue of Heavy Metal, Sanjulian provides the wraparound front cover. The Dossier touches on the latest developments in New Wave, which by now had more or less subsumed the genre of punk; thus, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Peter Gabriel could be mentioned in the same context.

Recent sf novels from established genre authors Arthur Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Lafayette Ron Hubbard are reviewed, as well as the latest drivel from Kurt Vonnegut. The video game column remarks on ‘Donkey Kong’.

There is an ad for the David Cronenburg film ‘Videodrome’, still a proto-cyberpunk classic all these years later.

 

The comic contents include new installments of ‘Den II’, ‘Starstruck’, ‘The Ape’, ‘Zora’, and ‘The Man from Harlem’.  

Among the more worthy one-shots is a short strip by Angus McKie..... ‘The King and I’ works in a little Shakespeare, and some outstanding color artwork (below).

Book Review: 'Blood Farm' by Sam Siciliano

 

1 / 5 Stars

‘Blood Farm’ (336 pp) was published by Pageant Books in September, 1988. The cover illustration is by Hector Garrido.

According to the author bio in the inside back cover page, ‘Blood Farm’ was Sam Siciliano’s first gothic horror novel. Accordingly, I was willing to overlook some of its flaws. But in the end, there were just too many to make the book an enjoyable read…….

‘Blood Farm’ opens in Davenport, Iowa, in February 1972. Lithe, attractive co-ed Angela Rosalba is hitchhiking a ride to nearby Iowa City. It’s bitterly cold out, well below freezing, and potential rides have been few and far between.

A hearse (!) stops to offer a ride. The driver is Mike Michaels, a hippie and Vietnam War vet. Angela has some misgivings, but accepts a ride. Mike is en route to pick up a coffin at a farm in the remote town of Udolph; after that, he’s proceeding to Iowa City.

As the hearse makes its way to Udolph, the snow gets heavier, and soon a blizzard is in sway. After various adventures and laboriously communicated Portents of Doom, Mike and Angela arrive at 'Blut Farm'….a rundown mansion in the middle of nowhere.

Some frightening dogs, and enormous, ravenous pigs, roam the outskirts of the farm. But they’re nothing compared to what awaits inside…..the pale, stooped Doctor Blut, and his beautiful daughter Ursula.

Angela and Mike will soon discover the truth about Dr. Blut and his farm….and it’s not going to be pleasant….

‘Blood Farm’ is subtitled ‘An Iowa Gothic’, and the concept certainly has merit.

I lived in Ames in western Iowa for more than two years, and the Winter months are the worst time to find yourself residing that state. 

It’s not so much the cold and snow – I encountered plenty while growing up in Upstate New York – rather, it’s the realization that square mile after square mile of flat, featureless, wind-scoured corn and soybean fields lie all around you. It's the realization that there is nothing out there....for miles..... that make the season so depressing. 

It's one thing if you're living in a major metro area like Des Moines, where there is some degree of distraction from the emptiness. But if you have the misfortune to live in the middle of nowhere, like Storm Lake, Boone, Sidney, or Decorah, then you'll wind up like a disturbing number of young people wind up: frozen to death after a night of desperate boozing....
 
There are no mountains, or forests of conifers, to alleviate the dreary sameness. After every snow, there’s nothing to see but sterile white fields stretching away to the horizon. The visual and psychological monotony are only relieved at night, when it becomes too dark to see anything.

Unfortunately, ‘Blood Farm’ is too poorly written to adequately exploit the ‘Iowa Gothic’ concept.

For one thing, the book is too long by at least 80 pages. Too much of the narrative is devoted to overlong exposition, and tedious descriptive passages that could’ve benefited from better editing.

Author Siciliano inserts a number of sex scenes that are more than a little contrived , and reminiscent of the way the teen knife-fodder in the ‘Friday the 13th’ and other slasher movies would titillate the audience with some groping and gasping in the creepiest, most disconcerting of locales, just prior to our hapless young lovers being skewered by Jason.

The sex scenes also have liberal splatterpunk content, revolving around the molestation of female characters by the lead villain. Such segments are unpleasant, while contributing little to the overall narrative.

The novel’s denouement is so lengthy and over-written (the villain spends an exorbitant amount of time delivering speeches about – Bwaa Haa Haa ! – the horrible deaths he will mete out to our heroes) that it took some resolve on my part to plow through the verbiage to the conclusion.

Summing up, ‘Blood Farm’ may have had the seeds of a worthy, vampire-themed horror novel somewhere within its pages, but the final product falls decidedly short.

'Poker' by Voss
from Metal Hurlant, Spanish edition, issue 6, 1982

(English translation is paraphrased)

"Your ten credits, and fifteen more…"

"Sorry, I’m out"

"Listen up ! A plane !"

"Bah ! It will pass over"

No ! It’s coming this way !

"Well, will you cover my bet, or not ?"

"We've been seen !"

"Don’t stand over there !
....too late !
Do not talk, boy ...."
"Damn .... for once I had a good hand !"

Book Review: The Storm Lord

Book Review: 'The Storm Lord' by Tanith Lee

3 / 5 Stars 

'The Storm Lord’ (350 pp) is DAW Book No. 193, and was published in May 1976. The cover art is by Gino D’Achille. It’s the first volume in the ‘Wars of Vis’ series, with the succeeding volumes ‘Anackire’ (1983) and ‘The White Serpent’ (1988).

The book is set in a generic fantasy landscape, albeit one riddled with scheming mistresses, sorceresses, queens, and courtesans, and the rather dim-witted (if heavily muscled) kings, advisors, mercenaries, and heroes who they manipulate.

As the novel opens, Rehdon, King of the nation of Dorthar and the so-called Storm Lord, is out with a troop of his soldiers on a hunting trip to the Lowlands, home of a race of docile, reticent barbarians with blonde hair and blue eyes. Rehdon, like all of the race of the Vis who make up the population of Dorthar, views the Lowland race with contempt.

The King takes his pleasure with a Lowland sorceress named Ashne’e, who accompanies the party back to Kormavis, the capital city of Dorthar, and takes up residence in the palace.

This displeases Queen Val Mala, since any son spawned by Ashne’e will inherit the Kingship and ascend the throne as the successor Storm Lord. The thought of a Vis / Lowlander half-breed inheriting the throne is anathema to Val Mala.

Following extended sessions of palace intrigue and duplicity, Raldnor, the bastard son of Rehdon and Ashne’e, is spirited away to the Lowlands, there to mature in ignorance of his heritage.

The bulk of the novel is centered on the various adventures encountered by Raldnor as he comes to awareness of his destiny, and then fulfills it.

As a Tanith Lee novel from the 70s, ‘The Storm Lord’ adheres to a number of conventions for fantasy novels of that time and place.

Readers of contemporary epic fantasy novels, such as ‘The Name of the Wind’, ‘The Warded Man’, and the ‘Game of Thrones’ series, will no doubt be bewildered, even turned off, by Lee’s use of highly figurative prose.

Paragraph after paragraph relates of crouching shadows, brooding darkness, angry winds, sullen yellow skies, etc., etc. At times Lee gets so caught up in Metaphor and Simile Excess that I had to re-read passages in order to determine what (if anything) actually was taking place.

Such a stylistic approach to fantasy writing was common in the 70s and borrowed heavily from the work of Michael Moorcock and M. John Harrison, in particular.

As well, the action components of Lee’s narrative are subdued, with the narrative more focused on the personal interactions of the cast of characters, rather than the swords and sorceries usually supplying the bulk of an epic fantasy plot.

Readers with the patience for a narrative with an ornate prose style, and a fantasy novel with a darker, more ambiguous atmosphere, will find ‘The Storm Lord’ worth investigating.

'The Bus' by Paul Kirchner

Heavy Metal magazine February 1979

'Heavy Metal' magazine, February 1979

 

February, 1979, and amid the numbing cold, the piles of gray snow, and the depressing knowledge that Spring in upstate New York is still a long, long way away, the latest issue of Heavy Metal is on the stands at Gordon's Cigar Store. 

The Bee Gee's Tragedy is in heavy rotation on the FM stations, and blaring from car radios as I make my way down the snowy street to Gordon's.

The front cover of the February issue is 'In Space' by Derek Rigg, with 'From QLEXZ With Love' by Bob Wakelin on the back cover.

Inside are ongoing installments of Corben's 'New Tales of the Arabia Nights', Bilal's 'Exterminator 17', Macedo's 'Telefield' , McKie's 'So Beautiful and So Dangerous', and memorable one-shots from Caza ('Hydrogenesis'), Sabine and Halmos ('Quetzal'), and Bilal ('Planet of No Return').

Then....

...........there's 'Lulea', by Arthur Suydam.

I've avoided posting this five-page story before here at the PorPor Blog, because it is easily the most warped thing Suydam has ever done. 

But it's also one of the funniest things he's ever done. As well, the artwork, the plot, and the final panel all come together with a unique brilliance. It easily matches the demented genius of Jean Michel Nicollet's best material.

So here it is......from the February, 1979 issue of Heavy Metal, Arthur Suydam's 'Lulea'. 

Spider World by Colin Wilson

'Spider World' by Colin Wilson

3 / 5 Stars

 

‘Spider World’ first was published in the UK as a two-volume set: ‘Spider World: The Tower’ (1987), and ‘Spider World: The Delta’ (1987). A third volume, ‘Spider World: The Magician’ was released in 1992, and the fourth volume, ‘Spider World: Shadowland’, in 2003.

In the US, a mercenary Ace Books broke the first volume down into 3 individual mass-market paperback volumes: ‘Spider World: The Desert’ (September 1988), 'Spider World: The Tower’ (January 1989), and ‘Spider World: The Fortress’ (July 1989). Fortunately, Ace did not mutilate ‘Spider World: The Delta’, releasing it intact in February 1990 as the fourth volume of its particular incarnation of the series. All the Ace volumes featured cover illustrations by Luis Rey.

The Spider World stories are set in a future Earth where some calamity has caused invertebrates, such as insects, arachnids, centipedes, and other creepy-crawlys, to grow to sizes considerably larger than their current dimensions.

Flies are as big as a man’s fist; dragonflies are a foot long; centipedes can reach a yard in length; some wolf spiders are as big as ponies. Even some plants have mutated into carnivorous species capable of capturing and digesting a full-grown man.

The protagonist of the series is a boy named Niall, who lives in a desert burrow with his family. They are one of an ever-dwindling band of humans who have managed to escape discovery and extinction by the overlords of this new earth: a race of telepathic spiders, similar in size and appearance to giant black widows.

Every day, as they struggle for sustenance against the ever-hungry and ever- lethal animals of the desert, Niall and his family keep watch on the skies overhead. 

For the Spider Lords, in their far-off City, send out scout spiders in balloons. Their mission: locate the last remnants of humanity and make them slaves and victims of the Spider Lords. For the Spider Lords have a special liking for human flesh…

I won’t disclose any spoilers, save to say that over the course of the four US volumes of ‘Spider World’. Niall learns how, and why, the Spider Lords came to rule mankind. 

As Niall grows in age and wisdom, his goal of simple survival is transformed into something more ambitious: wrest control of the Earth from the Spider Lords, and restore humanity to its place as the rulers of the planet.

Throughout the series, on the whole, Wilson’s writing is clear and well-paced. There is plenty of action and danger for Niall and his compatriots, and plenty of revelations with each new chapter. 

The only real weakness of the Spider World series comes with volume 4, ‘The Delta’, where the narrative becomes too encrusted with detailed expositions about Wilson’s pet philosophy, a unique brand of humanism he dubs ‘New Existentialism’. This philosophy derives from a peculiar mélange of old school ‘occult’ doctrines, such as Theosophy and Rosicrucianism; modern academic disciplines, such as existentialism; and parapsychology. 

In Wilson’s philosophy, Man is hindered by his inability to recognize that he possesses an innate mental power, something Wilson refers to as ‘Faculty X’, that, once engaged, enables him to see the world without the blinders of self-destructive emotions and attitudes. When in possession of Faculty X, Man can enter a state of acute awareness of the world and its surroundings, and participate in this fully actualized world in ways otherwise unavailable to the Unenlightened. 

Throughout ‘The Delta’, various confrontations between Niall and the forces of the Spiders are couched in terms of our hero’s struggle to define and implement his understanding of ‘Faculty X’. As a consequence, the narrative loses momentum, as the reader is forced to wade through rather lengthy segments of text dealing with the subtleties of New Existentialism.

Taken as a whole, the Spider World series is a worthwhile read, provided that readers are aware that the narrative will grow increasingly didactic, culminating in some degree of trudging through the contents of  volume 4.

'Hunter II' from Eerie magazine issue No. 67 (August 1975)

After the initial run of ‘Hunter’ in Eerie generated considerable reader approval, Bill Dubay decided to resurrect the character in a ‘Hunter II’ iteration, with the first episode appearing in Eerie No. 67 (August 1975).

Hunter II featured a brand-new protagonist, and a more concerted effort to tie the storyline into that of other ongoing features (such as ‘Exterminator’) in Eerie. Paul Neary was retained as the artist, and Budd Lewis continued to provide the plots.

Succeeding episodes – which I’ll be posting here at the PorPor Blog – appeared in Eerie Nos. 68, 70 – 72, and 74.

A standalone, final episode in the series as a whole, appeared in Eerie 101 (June 1979).

 

 

Great Balls of Fire: An Illustrated History of Sex in Science Fiction

'Great Balls of Fire: An Illustrated History of Sex in Science Fiction' by Harry Harrison

 

‘Great Balls of Fire’ is a trade paperback (120 pp) in landscape format published in December, 1977 by Grosset and Dunlap.

The cover illustration is reprinted from Ken Barr’s painting for the cover of the Marvel / Curtis magazine Doc Savage, issue No. 3, December 1975 (‘The Inferno Scheme’). 

The book is divided into 9 (roughly chronological) chapters, covering the genre from the pulp era up to the mid 70s. One chapter focuses on S & M themes, another on whether Conan (and other barbarian heroes) are gay (!?), and another on the implausibility of interspecies matings. 

Harrison’s commentary is casual and conversational in style, rather than pedantic. 

The book is of course heavily illustrated, and although the illustrations are large in size, some taking up an entire page, many of the black and white images are poorly reproduced.

There are magazine covers from the pulp era, panels from comics, and a surprising amount of material excerpted from Metal Hurlant magazine (at the time ‘Great Balls’ was being written earlier in 1977, the English version of Metal Hurlant, Heavy Metal, was just getting started).

I’ve posted some of the PG-13 illustrations to give an idea of the pictorial content ( I’ve not posted some of the few R-rated images present in the book, rather than risk the Blogger ‘adult content’ warning).

Needless to say, modern audiences used to the cornucopia of internet porn are going to find the content of ‘Great Balls’ tame, even quaint.

People under 30 will probably be greatly amused at the idea of 70s stoners seeking, and finding, titillation in the depictions of naked vampire chicks, naked barbarian girls, and naked female astronauts in the pages of Heavy Metal, Creepy, Vampirella, and 1984.

The nearly 40 years since the book was published have seen such change in the genre and in popular culture that ‘Great Balls’ is best read as a manifestation of 70s nostalgia.

Something belonging on the shelf alongside Jack Boulware’s excellent ‘Sex, American Style: An Illustrated Romp Through the Golden Age of Heterosexuality’ (1997).

‘Great Balls’ is right at home alongside your puka shell necklace, your  royal blue with orange trim Puma running shoes, your butternut-hued shag carpet, your roach clip, and your Brut cologne.... and 'Brain Salad Surgery', by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, playing on your stereo......