Heavy Metal magazine February 1982

'Heavy Metal' magazine February 1982

 

It’s February 1982 and the number one single in the US is ‘Centerfold’ by the J. Geils Band; a song I could’ve care less about at the time. 

The college radio stations were playing a UK Number One hit hit by a New Wave group called 'The Jam':  ‘Town Called Malice’,  which was an infinitely better song.

The February issue of Heavy Metal magazine is on the stands, with a saccharine front cover by Greg Hildebrandt titled ‘Angel of the Gods’, and a back cover by Berni Wrightson titled ‘Cadillax’.

Along with new installments of the ongoing series ‘Den II’, ‘The Mercenary’, and ‘Rock Opera’, a new series by Jodorowsky and Moebius starts up: ‘The Incal Light’.  Also debuting is ‘Zora’ by Fernando Fernandez.

The ‘Dossier’ section features the most pretentious column yet written by ‘rok’ music critic Lou Stathis. Check out this sentence:

“Hassell collects skeletal components of indigenous, Far Eastern tropical musics  (the hypnotic, bell-like Javanese gamelan core of ‘Gift of Fire’), arranges them according to intuitive / primitive structures (minimalist repetition), and binds the elements with his trumpet’s fibrous texture and uncannily alive sound.”

There are a number of memorable singleton pieces in this issue, one of which is a 'Gideon Faust: Warlock At Large' adventure from Howard Chaykin, titled 'Urchin'; I've posted it below.

Heavy Metal ran another Gideon Faust adventure, which is a little too...risque...to post at the PorPor Blog. That episode, and another Faust tale from the 1976 comic 'Star Reach No. 5', are available at the Grantbridge Street blog here  and here, and at the Raggedclaws Network here.

Book Review: 'The Whole Man' by John Brunner

2 / 5 Stars

‘The Whole Man’ was first published in 1964 as a fix-up of three stories Brunner published in the late 50s in sf magazines. The novel went through a number of reprintings throughout the 60s and 70s; this Ballantine edition came out in August 1973, with a colorful cover illustration by Charles Moll.

The story opens in the near-future, in a city unnamed, but probably London. The social order has collapsed; anarchists are detonating bombs, and food is scarce. UN forces are converging on the city to restore order. Amidst this unrest, a sickly, impoverished woman named Sarah Howson gives birth to a son.

Gerald Howson is underweight, suffers from a clubbed foot, and a spinal malformation; as he matures, he becomes a recluse in his rundown neighborhood. When his mother dies at an early age Gerald is left to fend for himself as best he can. But Gerald has a gift to offset his deformity; he can ‘hear’ extraordinarily well. In fact, Gerald Howson is a telepath, perhaps the most gifted such being on the planet.

In due course Howson finds himself recruited into an elite unit of UN telepaths, stationed in Ulan Bator. The UN telepath unit is charged with using their abilities to control violence and conflict throughout the world. Gerald’s talent enables him to do more than simply tap into the thoughts of others; he is able to enter into the intense dream state, or ‘catapathic trance’, that can steal upon unwary  telepaths. Once lost in their trance-state the telepath risks starving to death, unable to break free of the vivid dream-world occupying their minds. Only the intervention of another telepath can free these unfortunates from their mental prisons.

When one of the UN’s most important telepaths becomes caught in a catapathic trance, it’s up to Gerald Howson to intrude upon the man’s fantasy and restore sanity. But such a therapy is not without risk, for once inside his patient’s daydream, Howson is vulnerable to the whims and decisions of his host; a false move, and Howson will find his own psyche fatally trapped within the selfsame trance…..

‘Whole’ is typical of Brunner’s fix-ups from the late 60s – early 70s; a workmanlike effort, but devoid of the conscious effort he applied to works such as ‘The Shockwave Rider’, 'Stand on Zanzibar',  and 'The Sheep Look Up’. It is, however, more accessible than those novels.

‘Whole’ suffers in part from its rather fragmented origins; the narrative thread linking the three main segments of the book is a bit thin. There is not much in the way of real action in the novel; rather, it is a deliberately-paced character study of Gerald Howson’s emotional journey from being a crippled outcast to the ‘whole man’ of the book’s title. 

I suspect ‘The Whole Man’ will really only appeal to Brunner completists and to those looking for the type of ‘inner space’ – directed novel that came of age during the New Wave movement.

Journeyman: The Art of Chris Moore

'Journeyman: The Art of Chris Moore'

Chris Moore (b. 1947) is an English illustrator and artist; his first commission for a paperback cover came in 1972, when he had just finished college. He began to take on more assignments for sf covers in the 80s, and by the 90s he was one of the more sought-after artists in the genre.

‘Journeyman’ (Paper Tiger, UK, 2000) is an overview of Moore’s work from the early 80s through the late 1990s. The book intersperses reproductions of Moore’s work with text; the latter is a combination of a narrative of several  visits to the artist’s studio in East Lancashire by author Gallagher; as well a lengthy interview with Moore generated from these visits. 

While in most art books the text is something of a superficial overlay, in ‘Journeyman’ it’s actually quite interesting. As an interviewer Gallagher touches upon a variety of subjects, and Moore seems quite happy to respond, with anecdotes about producing album covers in the early 80s for UK bands and artists such as Rick Wakeman and Rod Stewart. (One of Moore's album cover paintings for Wakeman was so unusually life-like the record company staff thought it was a photograph).

In addition to discussing his painting techniques, Moore also comments on the business aspects and financial realities of being a commercial artist. 

Anyone interested in sf art, and commercial art in general, will want to keep an eye out for ‘Journeyman’.

(endpapers)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick, 1989

Tygers of Wrath by Philip Rosenberg, 1991

Buddy Holly (poster), 1985

Dark Wing by Richard Herman, 1993

The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, 1998

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, 1998

 

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick, 1990

 Emphyrio by Jack Vance, 1998

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, 1998

The Weight by Allen Steele, 1994

The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke, 1986

Stalking the Great Graphic Dream

'Stalking the Great Graphic Dream' by Archie Goodwin

from the Winter 1980 issue of Epic Illustrated

An interesting perspective by Goodwin on the graphic novel concept, which, in 1980, not only meant comic artwork printed or reprinted in book format - which is how the graphic novel is primarily marketed nowadays -  but also the production of text combined with copious illustrations, in the manner of the publications of Byron Preiss and his 'Visual Publications' library.

Of the three comics featured as illustrations in Goodwin's article, the 'Frankenstein, Count Dracula, Werewolf' story by Neal Adams, as well as Hama and Golden's 'Bucky O'Hare', appeared in Adams's 'Continuity Comics' anthology series Echo of Futurepast, starting with issue 1 in 1984.  

I can't figure out if Ed Davis's 'Riders to Galaxy's End' ever saw print.

Epic Illustrated Winter 1980

'Epic Illustrated' Winter 1980

The Winter 1980 issue of 'Epic Illustrated' is issue No. 4. The highly decorative front cover is by William Michael Kaluta.

This issue contains further installments of Starlin's increasingly labored 'Metamorphosis Odyssey', Tim Conrad's 'Almuric', and P. Craig Russell's 'Elric'. 

Harlan Ellison's short story 'Sleeping Dogs' is presented as text with b & w illustrations by Ken Steacy, and there is an essay by editor Archie Goodwin on 'Stalking the Great Graphic Dream', an interesting overview of the state of the nascent 'graphic novel' concept, which represented undiscovered territory at the time.

Among the shorter comics in the Winter 1980 issue is 'Elephant Grass' by Marc Hempel, which I've excerpted below......

Jean-Michel Nicollet: Book covers

Jean-Michel Nicollet: Book covers

One of the most memorable and accomplished of the French artists contributing to Heavy Metal / Metal Hurlant in the late 70s and early 80s was Jean Michel Nicollet. 

His distinctive style is showcased at this website, 'Neo' (the acronym for 'Nouvelles Editions Oswald'), which provides images of French paperbacks for which Nicollet did the cover art.

I'm not fluent in French, but I gather that Neo is a specialty publisher in the 'fantastique' genre. The paperbacks, all of which were issued in the 70s and 80s, reprint famous works of fantasy, sf, and mystery genres. Represented are well-known authors like Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, William Hope Hodgson, and Brian Lumley, among others. 

Also receiving cover artwork from Nicollet are some of the 'Harry Dickson' ('The American Sherlock Holmes') novels by the Belgian author Jean Ray. 

[Nicollet apparently ia a big fan of the Harry Dickson stories, which remain tremendously popular in Europe but sadly, have never been widely translated into English, and given the wide dispersion for US consumption that they deserve.]

Needless to say, Nicollet's illustrations for these classics are equal (if not superior) to those of Frazetta, Vallejo, and other well-known artists. 

Unfortunately, those few Neo editions that are available from US vendors are prohibitively expensive.

Book Review: The Road to Corlay

Book Review: 'The Road to Corlay' by Richard Cowper

 3 / 5 Stars

'The Road to Corlay' was published by Pocket Books in September 1979. The striking cover painting is by Don Maitz; it seems safe to conclude that it was inspired in some part by John William Waterhouse's famous oil painting 'The Lady of Shallot' (1888).

Richard Cowper was the pen name used by the British author John Middleton Murray, aka Colin Murray (1926 - 2002). 'Road' was the first volume in what eventually became a trilogy; the other two volumes are 'A Dream of Kinship' (1981) and 'A Tapestry of Time' (1982).

'Road' is set in a future UK, circa 3000 AD, some one thousand years after global warming has left a large percentage of the planet's lower-lying terrain submerged under the oceans. Civilization has regressed to a medieval level, and what used to be the UK is divided into a set of seven islands, or 'kingdoms'.

This future UK is ruled by a Church Militant and its harsh theology. The people instinctively yearn for some alternative, some signs of a belief system free of orthodoxy. There are rumors and whispers of the advent of the 'White Bird', a sort of Jungian archetype of the Holy Spirit. However, the theology associated with the White Bird relies on the evangelical trope of a personal encounter with the Divine, a tenet viewed with considerable disfavor by the Church.

The novel opens with a prologue, 'The Piper At the Gates of Dawn,' a title borrowed of course from a chapter of Kenneth Grahame's 'The Wind in the Willows.'

The Piper of Cowper's story is Tom of Cartmel, a thirteen year-old lad raised by the wizard Morfedd, and bestowed by that worthy with a forked tongue, and a magic pair of pipes. We learn that Tom's musicianship has an eerie effect on its listeners, evoking a temporary, transcendent state of consciousness. When this passes, the listener is dazed; sees his or her world in a new light; and adopts the fervor associated with those who believe in the coming of the White Bird.

The succeeding chapters focus on the adventures of a White Bird acolyte named Thomas of Norwich, who finds himself (somewhat against his will) fashioned into a saint for the faith. Forced into an existence as a hunted man, Thomas must evade the forces of the Church Militant and reach the citadel of Corlay, in Brittany, where the Queen has granted sanctuary to the Kin.

The novel's sf element is promoted in a parallel sub-plot, set in 1986, and revolves around the efforts of a team of English researchers to explore an esp-derived link with Thomas and his followers.

'Road' shows clear signs of being influenced by Keith Robert's seminal novel 'Pavane', which is not a bad thing. As Roberts did with his Catholic incarnation of England in 'Pavane,' Cowper's future UK under the thumb of a stifling theocracy is presented with some degree of ambiguity. 

Cowper regularly inserts passages into his narrative depicting this world with a highly descriptive, quasi-poetic prose style designed to highlight its pastoral beauty. The reader is informed that however heavy may lie the influences of the Church Militant, life in this future UK is not necessarily be as dire as the torments and terrors attendant to our own 'modern' civilization.

'Road' also does a good job of communicating the dedication of the White Bird devotees, and the suspense that accompanies their efforts to flourish despite the depredations of the Church Militant.

Readers who enjoy 'Pavane,' and similarly-themed material ('The Cloud Walker,' by Edmund Cooper, comes here to mind) will be interested in 'The Road to Corlay.'